Any hope of an Army rally was stopped on third down as Dwayne Norman separated Army quarterback Ahmad Bradshaw from the ball and Jeremy Cash recovered on the Duke 17 yard line. Duke entered the game as the ninth ranked defense in the country, and they played like it, not allowing Army to cross midfield during the entire first half.
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Duke took advantage of an overmatched and error prone Army team in front of a sold out Michie Stadium crowd for a 44 – 3 win Saturday.
Duke running back Jela Duncan (25) runs for a touchdown while being…
“As agonizing as it is to lose, there’s no time to feel sorry for yourself and sulk”, Army coach Jeff Monken said. In the Blue Devils first two games this season – against Tulane and North Carolina Central – he threw for a total of 604 yards and five touchdowns. But in the past few weeks, as Duke has lacked consistency at the wide receiver position, Nash started to deliver in practice.
Army linebacker Andrew King writes this week on a blog what everybody at West Point must be feeling.
The win for Duke (5-1) boosted its record to 11-1 in its last 12 road games, and the Blue Devils are 5-1 in consecutive years for the first time since 1952-53. Duke safety Jeremy Cash had an explanation. The Duke defense stifled the Army triple option, limiting the Black Knights to 44 yards rushing on 26 carries in the decisive first half and 113 for game on 49 tries. “We started something this year, and that’s the mentality of winning, expecting to win”. “I just continued to press him and tell him that he’s got to continue to press forward and don’t get down on himself”. Ahmad Bradshaw-who entered the game as Army’s leading rusher and passer-took the reins under center, but things went south quickly.
Duke Blue Devils scored 34.0 points compared to allowed 11.5 points with point differential of 22.5.
Duke responded to the Army drive with a 13 play, four and a half minute drive resulting in another Ross Martin field goal.
With freshman T.J Rahming a late scratch due to a lower-body injury and tight end Braxton Deaver unavailable due to what Cutcliffe called “muscular back issues”, Duke had several players step up and make contributions on offense. “I can just tell more than anything by the way our guys compete, the looks on their faces, the resiliency they have when their backs are against the wall”.
Continuing his strong play from the first half against the Eagles last week, Sirk finished the day 17-of-27 for 197 yards and once again was productive with his legs, picking up 53 more yards on the ground. That’s one of the keys when you’re playing this offense, and people don’t always take that into consideration. Lost-yardage plays are most important – it means they’re behind schedule. “Wake would not want to have to play them again. If they can get it to fourth-and-one they are hard to stop”.
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“We ended up having to punt on a lot of those possessions”, Monken said. It’s kind of trickery, pretty much a dose of their own medicine.
