Remember last year’s Duke-Virginia Tech football game? The Hokies do.
Here’s an interesting score to ponder this week: Duke 45, Virginia Tech 10.
A year ago the Blue Devils went to Blacksburg, Virginia, for a Coastal Division game and came away with their biggest victory of the 2019 season. Duke scored 31 consecutive points against the Hokies in the Sept. 27 game and Lane Stadium was a quiet, empty place in the final minutes.
Virginia Tech coach Justin Fuente remembers. So do many of the Hokies who played in that — for VT — miserable, lopsided game.
As offensive guard Lecitus Smith said Tuesday in a media availability, “They came in and beat the crap out of us. They were more ready and more prepared.”
As for how many Hokes will be available for Saturday’s game at Duke, Fuente can’t say. Virginia Tech held 23 players and four assistant coaches out of their season opener Saturday against N.C. State, and Fuente said during his Monday press conference he wasn’t sure if a “full complement” would be available for the Blue Devils.
“I don’t want to make too much of it,” Fuente said. “There are plenty of things that we’ve got to do better that other people on our schedule, starting with Duke, will highlight if we don’t get fixed.”
The depleted Hokies scored the first 17 points against the Wolfpack and breezed to a 45-24 victory at Lane Stadium. Their rushing total, 314 yards, was their highest in an ACC game since 2010 as Khalil Herbert, a transfer from Kansas, ran for 101 yards including a 37-yard touchdown.
Why so much success?
“We got the ball to the unblocked hat a couple of times and made the unblocked hat miss, which led to some pretty explosive plays,” Fuente said, using football-speak.
And the 0-3 Blue Devils?
“It’s going to be all we can handle,” Fuente said. “I’m going to tell you, it’s not going to look like it did last week. We aren’t going to hand the ball off on the weakside stretch and the guy just run down the numbers all the way to the end zone untouched, This is a group that is disciplined, that is gap sound and is physical.”
That can be viewed both as a compliment for Duke and a slap at the Wolfpack, but when you win by three touchdowns a coach can say what he wants. And Fuente did.
Tech didn’t throw the ball a lot against the Pack but did turn 11 completions into 181 yards, averaging 16.5 yards a catch. Oregon transfer Braxton Burmeister completed 7 of 11 passes and Quincy Patterson II was 4 of 6 with two touchdowns.That’s efficient.
Quarterback Hendon Hooker, a 6-4 redshirt junior, was expected to be the starter this season. Hooker was one of the players held out Saturday but Fuente expects him to play this week at Duke.
Duke’s three losses, to Notre Dame, Boston College and Virginia, came with myriad unknowns in pregame preparation. Each of the three was playing their opener and BC has a new coaching staff.
But Duke now has seen Virginia Tech — the 2020 version of the Hokies. Minus a few players, of course.
“The past few weeks we haven’t had much film on a lot of teams but this week, now that we’ve seen them play, we’ll definitely focus on stopping the run,” Duke senior safety Michael Carter II said Tuesday in a media call. “Being physical, but also being disciplined on the back end and defending the ‘explosives’ as well. They’ve got dynamic receivers and tight ends. We can’t just sleep on that aspect of their game.”
Another focus: turnovers. The Blue Devils have given the ball away 14 times. Ball security is a must for Duke.
Duke is yet to have that winning feeling after a game — the kind they had after the big win at Virginia Tech last season.
“We need to remember how we feel after those games,” sophomore offensive tackle Casey Holman said Tuesday. “Being up going into the fourth quarter, we need to really focus on how that felt and how it felt after the game and carry that over.”
This story was originally published October 1, 2020 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Remember last year’s Duke-Virginia Tech football game? The Hokies do.."
