Duke Presents More Opportunities for Takeaways
NC State's new "Takeaway Bone" got a lot of play last week at Virginia and presented the Wolfpack defense with some added motivation to force turnovers.
But according to coach Dave Doeren, it was Virginia's Brennan Armstrong not the oversized piece of rawhide introduced as a trophy by his staff, that had the most influence on State's four-takeaway performance in its win at Charlottesville.
"It’s something that their quarterback in the first half really struggled with the coverages we were running," Doeren said in his postgame comments following the Wolfpack's 38-21 win. "I mean, he was just throwing it to us. I think that was more of them doing a poor job and us taking advantage of it."
It's a combination that helped State produce exactly half as many turnovers in one afternoon as it had during the entire 2019 season and three more than had in its first three games combined this season.
And there's a realistic chance the trend might continue today against a Duke team even more prone to giving the ball away.
Duke has already turned the ball over 19 times in five games this season. Quarterback Chase Brice, a transfer from Clemson, has thrown eight interceptions (compared to only five touchdowns). Last week at Syracuse in the Blue Devils' first win of the season, he was picked off once and had a fumble returned for a touchdown.
His tendency to cough the ball up and the opportunity for State defenders to add their name onto the Takeaway Bone has Malik Dunlap and his teammates sensing "some blood in the water," as Doeren put it.
"I feel like we're going to make a lot of turnovers and big plays," the sophomore cornerback said. "The quarterback makes early reads. He doesn’t necessarily read everything, so we’re going to take advantage of that and try to disguise and then go into our cover nickel on a lot of passes."
While Dunlap and other members of the secondary will be looking for interceptions, those up front can help by putting Brice under duress with a strong pass rush. They can also participate in the hunt for turnovers by trying to knock balls loose from backs that have had trouble holding onto it.
Or as defensive end Terrell Dawkins called it, business as usual.
"We’re just going to keep working like we always do," he said. "We always emphasize things like that. So it’s just another day of practice."
While Doeren said that forcing turnovers is a skill the Wolfpack works on every week at practice, he admitted that special attention is paid to the tendencies of each specific opponent.
So what worked so well against Virginia last Saturday aren't necessarily the same things State has been emphasizing at practice this week.
"Week-in and week-out there are different things that you see on tape," Doeren said. "Some people don’t carry the ball with a lot of ball security. Some quarterbacks will hold the ball low in the pocket. For example, last week we knew that the Virginia quarterback delivered the ball low. He had kind of a sidearm release, so we talked about getting our hands up and batting balls.
"It’s week to week on what you really emphasize when it comes to the weakness of the opponent. In the case of Duke, they’ve thrown some interceptions, they’ve fumbled some balls. I know they work hard on that. Our kids right now are very excited about what happens when they get takeaways here and when they see the outcome and how it helps our offense."
It's an excitement that has been enhanced by the opportunity for defenders to put their name on the bone -- the reward established last for anyone who takes the ball away from the opposition.
"The dog bone has everybody turned up," Dunlap said. "They told us going into that week that we’d have the dog bone. So now everybody’s like ‘I’ve got to make a play, I’ve got to make a play.’ So I feel like it made us want to make more plays."
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