Duke Football So Close Against Pitt But Falls Just Short, 33-30
So many big plays, so many mistakes, so many plot twists, so many emotional shifts.
And yes, an inadvertent signal. Bet you didn’t have that one in the office pool.
But the scoreboard doesn’t lie and when the clock hit zero the score read Pittsburgh 33 Duke 30.
If you turned the game off sometime during the third quarter you missed one of the great comebacks in Duke history, a 27-0 run that put Duke up 30-27 with 90 seconds left.
But a Pitt offense that had been stymied for much of the second half marched down the field, 82 yards worth of field in less than a minute against a Duke defense that needed one big play but couldn’t get it.
Of course, you don’t find yourself down 27-3 without some genuinely bad play and Duke had plenty, with turnovers the primary culprit. Duke turned it over three times in three possessions, squandering an early lead and digging themselves into a massive hole.
It actually started well. After forcing a Pitt punt Duke marched down the field on a 14-play, 65-yard drive, mixing runs and short passes and converting a fourth down.
But the drive stalled on the Pitt 16 and A.J. Reed kicked a 33-yard field goal.
After that, the deluge.
Duke got the ball back and appeared to be moving again when Quentin Harris lost the ball near midfield at the end of a scramble that otherwise would have given Duke a first down.
Duke didn’t mount a serious offensive threat for most of the next two quarters.
A Duke defense that deserved a better outcome forced a punt. But Harris threw a pass intended for Aaron Young that caught on the deflection by Paris Ford, who waltzed into the end zone.
Both David Cutcliffe and Harris thought Young was interfered with.
“I was pretty upset about it [because] I thought there was too much contact,” Cutcliffe said, “from my perspective, contact to the face mask.”
Ford got Harris on the next possession, returning the interception to the Duke 34.
Harris said he simply didn’t see Ford.
The Duke defense stiffened and forced a 43-yard field goal by Alex Kessman.
A third-down roughing-the-passer call on Drew Jordan kept alive Pitt’s next drive. But Marquis Waters picked off Kenny Pickett in the end zone.
The momentum was short-lived. Duke had the ball three times in the second quarter and had three three-and-outs, missing blocks, missing passes, dropping passes.
Another short field led to another field goal and a 50-yard punt return by Duke nemesis Maurice Ffrench led to a one-play, 19-yard drive and Duke went into the locker room trailing 19-3.
Safety Dylan Singleton said “we knew the offense would eventually start clicking and they did.”
But it got worse before it got better.
Harris lost a fumble on a sack at the Duke seven and it took the visitors one play to take advantage.
Down 26-3, Duke was on life support. Pitt had scored five times and had only needed 60 yards of total offense to accumulate those 26 points.
Cutcliffe said Duke simplified things at halftime and stuck with its base offense.
“I think when we started to do as much as we did--and it was purely me--that we’re asking the quarterback to put himself in a pretty tough circumstance. We got back to bread and butter and we were better.”
Pitt certainly aided Duke’s comeback. Ford muffed a punt that Duke recovered at the four. Harris scored on a keeper and Duke had life, the third quarter ending 26-10.
An inspired Duke defense started dominating. Pickett completed a pass to Dontavious Butler-Jenkins but Singleton forced a fumble that Leonard Johnson recovered at the Pitt 43. Deeon Jackson scored from two yards out and Jalon Calhoun made it a one-possession game with a two-point end around, with 13 minutes left.
Edgar Cerenord--all 300 pounds of him--followed with his first career interception and returned it to the Pitt 25. After a sack, Harris picked up 17 yards on a scramble and scored from three yards out five plays later.
Then came a sequence so bizarre that it beggars description. Harris converted the two-point conversion, tying the game at 26.
Until it wasn’t.
After both teams had lined up for the kickoff the officials decided to have a mulligan.
Here’s how Cutcliffe described it.
“The line judge inadvertently signaled that the play had stopped, no good. I don’t really understand why you would do that. I don’t teach officiating but I would think on a two-point play with an interior push, particularly with the rule the way it is now, when you can push the runner, pretty interesting.”
He didn’t seem to actually think it was interesting.
Duke tried to same play but with different results. Harris was stuffed; 26-24.
And no, I’ve never heard of this before and I’ve been watching college football since Ike was president.
Duke got the ball back, moved it some and sent Austin Parker out to punt on fourth-and-seven from the Pitt 42.
It was a fake. Parker was a prep quarterback and it looked like it was going to work. But the pass sailed a bit and was knocked down.
“I called the fake punt.” Cutcliffe said. “The guy was wide open but their corner falls off. Otherwise it might have scored.”
Duke’s defense got another stop and this time Duke capitalized on the opportunity. Harris hit running back Deon Jackson for a 44-yard TD.
This culminated a seven-play, 86-yard, go-ahead drive under pressure.
Up by four, Duke went for two and missed. Had they been up by six, they would have kicked the PAT for a seven-point lead.
For those keeping score at home.
Still, only 90 seconds remained, a field goal did the visitors no good and Duke’s defense was on a roll.
But Duke never put Pickett under any duress on this final drive.
Cutcliffe said he thought Duke was a bit cautious on that final drive, so Duke called a blitz on 2nd-and-10 from the Duke 26.
“They caught us in the wrong call,” Cutcliffe said. “They had the right call, we had the wrong thing called for that play.”
Running back V’Lique Carter caught the pass around the 10, broke a tackle by Marquis Waters and made it into the end zone.
“It happens like that sometimes,” Duke safety Michael Carter said. “We could have done more but they executed well and did their jobs.”
Duke had 38 seconds left but two incomplete passes and another lost fumble on a sack and it was over.
“I first told them there was a lot of heart displayed by our team,” Cutcliffe said he told his team. “But lack of efficiency, that’s my world. . . . we did display the heart. That can’t be forgotten. But it hurts maybe a little bit more when you have it in your hands and it slips through your fingers. We put ourselves in position but one drive.”
NOTES
Duke had six turnovers, Pitt four, Pitt was penalized 15 times for 145 yards and the two teams combined for 15 punts in a game that might still be going on had the officials not botched the two-point conversion.
Pitt had 337 yards total offense, Prior to that final 82-yard drive, the Panthers had been held to 62 yards in the second half. Pitt rushed for only 69 yards in 35 attempts.
DBR Auctions|Blue Healer Auctions| Drop us a line