Duke Falls to 0-4 In Loss to Hokies

Duke’s game against Virginia Tech was the football equivalent of the old story about the child with their finger in the dike. Stopping one leak just caused another one to spring elsewhere.

“It was a tale of inconsistencies,” coach David Cutcliffe said after the Blue Devils’ 38-31 loss to Virginia Tech at Wallace Wade Stadium.

The Blue Devils scored 24 second-half points and 17 in the fourth quarter as the offense showed signs of life. After giving up a dozen turnovers in the last two games, Duke had just one on offense—on a Chase Brice interception.

However, the team’s pass protection struggled, giving up seven sacks on the day. The Blue Devils also had several penalties at crucial moments, including a pass interference penalty after backing Virginia Tech up to the one-yard line, a defensive offsides on third and short and a third-down roughing the passer penalty.

On offense, Duke had a receiver commit a procedure penalty coming out of a time out, had offensive pass interference and offensive facemask flags and an illegal block called.

“When one (area) got going something else didn’t hold up,” Cutcliffe said.

Duke also had some of the same old problems. Brice overthrew receivers on several occasions while under pressure. Cutcliffe said his defense tired in the second half again, as the Hokies had several big plays to prevent Duke from completing a comeback.

Duke also struggled to stop the run, giving up 324 yards and four touchdowns on the ground, including 208 yards to Khalil Herbert, who also had an 83 yard kick return and 150 return yards on the day.

Very concerned at the pen that occurred concerned that we had some brekdowns in the kicking game

“It’s hard for me not to get really angry at myself,” Cutcliffe said afterward.

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