David Cutcliffe: Chase Brice "Played Fierce" In Duke's Loss to NC State
Duke suffered a 31-20 loss at NC State on Saturday to fall to 1-5 on the season. The Blue Devils struggled on offense, as Chase Brice threw three interceptions on the day and the offense twice reached the red zone and came away with no points.
On the first, Chase Brice had Noah Gray streaking alone down the middle of the field for an easy 14-yard touchdown pass, but Brice overthrew the tight end badly. On the next snap, he threw an interception.
On the second, Duke reached the five yard line, then ran the ball three times for a total of four yards. Going for it on fourth down, Brice kept the ball on a run around end that had worked well all game long. This time, State had a defender in place who forced him to throw the ball away to turn the ball over on downs.
Cutcliffe broke down the two failed red zone trips.
“We didn’t finish a couple drives on offense,” he said. “The last one there, in the third quarter, I did a poor job with the sequence of play calls once we got inside the five yard line. You know, you don’t get those back. On the first one, we missed an open guy for a touchdown. Generally, that bites you. It’s like dropping a foul ball, then they’ll hit a home run. Then we turned the ball over.”
Surprisingly, Cutcliffe seemed pleased with Brice’s performance.
“Chase Brice played fierce tonight,” he said. “He competed with everything he had. I told him afterward that I was really proud of him. The last two interceptions were certainly all me. I’ve got to put him in better positions.”
