CHARLOTTE, N.C. – It seems that as much that has changed for the No. 20 Duke Blue Devils this season, a lot remained the same for them when they suffered a 45-7 loss to the top team in the country, the Florida State Seminoles, in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Championship game on Saturday.
Quarterback Anthony Boone (20-40, 138 yards, 2 INT) couldn’t push the Blue Devils offense far past the Seminoles’ defensive line before the secondary kept his receivers looking first before either dropping passes or receiving punishing tackles.
Looking back to when the two teams met last season, the Seminoles defense also held the Blue Devils to one touchdown and 232 total yards, beating them 48-7, an almost identical performance to the two teams’ first-ever meeting in the conference championship.
It wasn’t surprising that the defending conference champions successfully reclaimed their title when the final whistle blew, but they had to work a little harder than they expected to do so.
Duke was held scoreless for the first time this season after the first quarter of play, but the Florida State defense extended that drought for 59 minutes with a hard-hitting and quick defensive line and secondary.
Florida State nose guard Timmy Jernigan’s 10-tackle performance led the charge in keeping the Duke offense limited to gaining yardage in three-yard increments in the air or on the ground with the support of linebacker Telvin Smith (8 tackles, 1 sack, 1 INT) and cornerback Lamarcus Joyner (4 tackles, 1 PBU, 1 INT) among others.
When MVP quarterback Jameis Winston (19-32, 330 yards, 3 TD’s, 2 INT/10 rushes, 59 yards, 1 TD) was also held scoreless during the first quarter for the first time this season, it looked as though Duke’s defense led by safety Jeremy Cash (8 tackles), linebackers David Helton (8 tackles) and Kelby Brown (5 tackles, 1 PBU), and cornerback Deondre Singleton (5 tackles, 1 PBU) were all in it for the long haul.
However the second and third quarters ended with Winston and the Seminoles finally breaking past the Blue Devils’ line, through the secondary and into the end zone to post 38 unanswered points.
In what turned out to be another dominating performance for the undefeated Seminoles who extended their slate to a perfect 13-0, they didn’t leave Bank of America Stadium without a few bumps and bruises courtesy of a much improved Duke defense that has been the cornerstone of establishing its team’s own historical 10-3 record to date.
“They came in very physical,” Seminoles wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin said afterwards.
“They kept us off the field on a lot of plays, made us punt the ball more than we ever did all season. We just had to keep our composure. We hadn’t went through that; that was something new for us and I feel like we did a very good job with it.”