Duke 9, Boston College 7

“It’s going to take offense, special teams and defense to win football games”. Those are the only touchdowns the Eagles defense has allowed this season.

The total has gone UNDER in 4 of Duke’s last 5 games. The X-factor for the Blue Devils could be their standout preseason All-American safety, Jeremy Cash.

“It shows that we’re resilient, ” Duke linebacker Dwayne Norman said.

The Duke Blue Devils rode a 19-3 first quarter burst to a surprisingly easy 34-20 victory against Georgia Tech to improve to 3-1. In all seriousness, Duke has done itself a lot of favors by getting off to a fast start. We have to execute better.

Duke’s offense, right now, is a problem. But the Eagles turned back consecutive runs by Duke tailback Shaquille Powell, and Sirk was stoned on a keeper – setting up a fourth-and-goal at the 1.

Duke could not find any room to run against BC’s number 1 ranked run defense as they only totaled 33 yards on 35 attempts. “But in the second half I thought we were on point”. The addition of a running game the last few years has been a luxury.

The Blue Devils (4-1, 2-0 ACC) travel to West Point, N.Y., this weekend to face Army West Point (1-4) at noon Saturday.

The Blue Devils (correctly) knew that trying to run up the middle against the big Eagles front was not their best option. Opponents have struggled against Boston College’s top-ranked pass defense. Sirk threw for 155 yards in the first half.

The defense can’t do everything.

Duke is 9-3-1 ATS in its last 13 games at home.

SERIES NOTES: This is just BC’s second visit to Duke and its first since 2010, when the Eagles won 21-16. However, they are 3-1 SU this season. But Duke has 148 yards on 66 plays in the second half of the last two games (2.2 average). At the end of the day Duke found a way to move the ball slightly more often in the first half than Boston College did the entire game. Without those, though, do either of the last two games turn out differently? The Blue Devils have the 14th-ranked pass defense in the nation and give up only 147.8 passing yards per game. Alston said that the rain in forecast is causing little concern for the field given that the Blue Devils’ new field has the capacity to drain 8 to 10 inches per hour. Boston College’s defense is good, so that played a role, but Duke never wants to go without a touchdown.

“Both quarterbacks competed and tried to play, ” Boston College coach Steve Addazio said. “We should’ve scored. We had situations where we could’ve scored”.

The Blue Devil offense sputtered in the second half, with Sirk going 8-for-18 to pick up 57 yards. In a Coastal Division short on consistency and elite teams, Duke has every reason to think it can win the division for the second time in three years. We had opportunities today to score, but we just have to finish drives.

“I give so much credit to our defense”, Sirk said. But two of the others ended across midfield and just sort of stalled.

The Eagles defenders also responded when a special teams’ mishap put them in a predicament down 9-0 in the third quarter. It’s an adjustment for everyone.

“We will all continue to look and see what we can do better on offense”, he said.