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Duke's Chris Rumph II: I Liked the Fight That We Had

Defensive end pleased with team's effort

Duke defensive end Chris Rumph II was disappointment in Duke’s 27-13 loss at Notre Dame. However, he considered it a victory just to be able to make it through the pandemic to start the season, something that many other conferences weren’t able to accomplish last weekend.

“Give credit to everybody,” he said. “Not only to our A.D. Kevin White, but the whole ACC for coming up with a plan and executing it to perfection to allow us to play the sport that we love. Everybody did what they had to do.”

That included Rumph and his Blue Devil teammates.

“We’re a tight knit group of brothers.,” he said. “We had to hold each other accountable. We had each other’s backs, so we could be here today. Overall, it’s just a team win for the whole Duke program and the ACC.”

The Blue Devils were able to hang with No. 10 Notre Dame for much of the game, which was a positive Rumph believes the team can build on.

“I like the fight that we had,” he said. “If you can fight four quarters, no matter who you’re playing against, you’re going to be in the game. We have a lot of young guys who stepped up today. I’m so proud of our young linebackers who stepped up and played. They did an amazing job coming in, coming out of high school and their first college game is against Notre Dame. You can’t ask any more of them.”

Rumph was able to apply pressure to Irish quarterback Ian Book, although he did have one offside penalty that wiped out a Duke takeaway.

“The defensive line did a great job overall,” he said. “We know we made a couple of mistakes—me getting an offsides on Josh (Blackwell’s) interception. That’s all on me. We’ll get that tightened up. The only thing about week one is you’re going to get better.”