UVA Continues Mastery of Duke
Chase Brice threw his first two touchdown passes as a Blue Devil on Saturday and Duke built its first double-digit lead over Virginia in seven years.
However, UVA stormed back, taking advantage of a shaky Duke run defense and seven Blue Devil turnovers—including four Brice interceptions—to beat the Blue Devils for the sixth time in a row, 38-20.
Brice struggled with his accuracy all game long, in part because he was hounded by the Virginia pass rush much of the day. UVA finished with six sacks and 11 tackles for loss on the day, and Brice completed just 16 of 36 passes.
One of them was a 55-yarder to tight end Jake Marwede over the middle for a touchdown. He later hit tight end Noah Gray in the end zone for his first two touchdown throws for Duke.
The rest of the day was a nightmare for Brice, however. Last week, in a loss to Boston College, he threw two interceptions and fumbled. This week, he threw four interceptions as UVA continued its recent dominance over Duke quarterbacks. Current Giants starter Daniel Jones had his worst college games against the Cavs, and David Cutcliffe said that last year’s Quentin Harris led Duke team “wrapped up gifts all day” for the UVA defense.
The Duke defense, meanwhile, showed the effects of missing its two starting corners, who both had surgery this week. The pass rush, which has been so effective all year, had just one sack and brought very little pressure all day. Duke showed it was vulnerable to runs up the middle as UVA gained 189 yards on the ground for an average of 5.3 yards per rush. As the game wore on, the secondary began giving up big plays, including 18 and 26-yard touchdown passes that put the game away.
Duke fell to 0-3 on the year and has a long way to go to salvage a season that couldn’t have started much worse.
