Watching a replay of Duke-Baylor from last weekend. Duke won handily with their back-up quarterback. Looked like a replay of the NU game, except 4 quarters of beat down instead of 2. Duke has a lot of talented, long, quick athletes. They are playing creative and aggressive football offensively and defensively.Should do well in the ACC.
Duke Is Talented
- Thread starter techtim72
- Start date
Yeah, I actually followed it live. Tough to read too much into it since Baylor is terrible, particularly on defense. However, I was impressed with Duke on D--amazingly, Duke had even more injuries during the game (they were playing a cornerback at safety at one point since they were out of safeties) and still managed to shut down the WRs of Baylor , which are a strength of their team. So I was impressed even though Baylor is probably on track for a 3-4 win season...
Both the teams we lost to are undefeated-- that counts for something, right? Lol. And Wannstedt was on BTN insisting Purdue is still a good team, so there's that...
Seeing Duke this year confirmed my suspicions last year. I never got to see the game on my DVR (forgot to record)...almost didn't get to see the game. We didn't just have a horrible day last year, we were playing against a better team, or a bad matchup, IMO. We got whipped at the LOS both years. Jones has been impressive. I hope he and the CB recover quickly. Costly win for them. Very costly.
It's both of those factors; Duke is a talented/well coached team, and they have good matchups against us on both our DL/OL (of course our OL was outmatched to a greater extent).
I'd hoped that some of the changes to our OL would allow us to at least play Duke to a draw and keep the score close to the end giving us a chance to win the game late.
That sounds like a pipedream in hindsight.
But the good news is that most of the teams we've played since the first of the two Duke games haven't dominated us like they did on both lines.
Just as talented and as quick as Duke's and that view has everything to do with reality, not optimism. We lost both games to them on the line of scrimmage.
Quick? Man... you're seeing something I'm not. We have some talented players, but I don't see a ton of quickness.
It’s all relative. Relative to Duke, I see no discernible difference. Relative to Clemson, OSU, Georgia, Alabama etc.., I certainly do.
It’s amazing how much more “quicker”/ productive football players are when they have time and space to operate. It’s about the line of scrimmage.
Maybe these quick Cats have been wearing cement shoes. Except for some quick moves from an RB here and there, and Hall and Fisher moving to the ball carrier, I haven't seen very much "quick". With all that reality-proven talent and quickness, "it must be the shoes".
Maybe these quick Cats have been wearing cement shoes. Except for some quick moves from an RB here and there, and Hall and Fisher moving to the ball carrier, I haven't seen very much "quick". With all that reality-proven talent and quickness, "it must be the shoes".
It’s the same “quick” Cats that won 10 games and put up close to 40 points on Michigan State, just to cite one example. Do you think skilled position players forget how to be “quick”? Football is a game of time and space. You need time to create space. When the OL doesn’t provide the time or help create the space, no offense is going to look “quick” or explosive.
I actually think Akron is underrated too. We stunk and should have whooped them, but I think there is a decent chance they would have beaten UNL.
Do you a difference between NU and the players at OSU? Io-a? Michigan? MSU? Pen. St?
I don't see the quickness either, but I love your optimism. The consensus I've read from the experts is that Duke is just recruiting better athletes than us. It was obvious in our game.
Oh over half of those 40 points were scored against MSU was in extra time.
Ohio State and Penn State would run us off the field. They're a class above everybody else in the Big Ten in terms of talent and execution.
I don't think Michigan or Michigan State or Iowa is on their level. Those 3 can't execute offensively/defensively at the level that Ohio State and Penn State can when they're on top of their games.
We'd probably lose by 4+ TDs against either Ohio State or Penn State. I don't think anybody else in the Big Ten can do that to us...
I don’t see it. Duke’s Recruiting is certainly on an uptick but we go after many of the same players. We used to win many of the straight up battles but more recently it’s evened out. There are several of our supposedly slow athletes who were offered by Duke.
Agree that our OL play needs to improve...a lot. We can agree to disagree on "quickness". I suspect UM will be a very good test of our OL improvement and quickness.
I included OSU in my original list of elite teams and would include Penn State in that group. The thing is those teams have elite skilled players and elite line play. If I had to chose between playing an opponent that I could dominate at the line of scrimmage and an opponent that I could dominate at the skilled positions, i would take dominance On the line every single time. Anyone notice how ordinary Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliot and the entire Dallas offense look now that they’ve lost a couple of their dominant OL players?
As far as the other teams you listed, I don’t think those teams field skilled position players that are much different than NU’s. Certain years they may have 1-2 players that stick out and others we may have 1-2 that are better. The games against those teams usually come down to the line of scrimmage and QB play. If we lose to them this year it won’t be because of a “quickness” deficit.
Last edited:
Much more than a decent chance, imo. Nebby is the same mess they were last year, just a different coach...
Similar threads
