Casey Holman: Better Effort Will Help Duke Stop Slide

Offensive tackle says team needs to finish plays

Like most players and coaches on Duke, offensive tackle Casey Holman has spent the week focusing on ways to improve on the Blue Devils’ 0-3 start to the season.

“We had to get it done (in practice),” he said. “We had to win the game on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday before we even play on Saturday.”

The Blue Devils also spent plenty of time reviewing film. “We had to look at it with a fine-toothed comb,” he said. “We had to get out there, understand what we did right, and transfer that over to what we did wrong. We had a lot of positives out there, although the outcome didn’t show it. There was some really good stuff. On those negative plays, we have to focus in, figure out what we did good on the other plays and how we can carry that over to the other plays, whether that’s effort, technique, execution, things like that.”

As to finding one cause for the problems, Holman had one area that served as a good starting point. “It varies play-to-play mostly,” he said. “What we’ve seen is a lot of effort. We’ve got to finish blocks. Finish is huge around here. Mostly what we’ve got to do is get the first step right and finish through the last steps. First through last steps have got to be better.”