Blue Devils move forward

DURHAM – Duke’s football team wasn’t going to go undefeated in Mike Elko’s tenure.

The first-year Blue Devils coach said after Saturday’s loss at Kansas and reiterated in his weekly press conference on Monday how proud he was of his team for battling back.

But the 35-27 result still stands as disappointing for a coach making it clear that Duke isn’t looking for moral victories.

“Proud of our fight, proud of how we continued to battle,” Elko said. “But like I said after the game, you know, we’re not here for moral victories and so, disappointed ultimately that we didn’t get the result we wanted.”

The question moving forward is how Duke moves forward, and it’s one that won’t be answered publicly until Saturday night’s ACC opener against Virginia at Wallace Wade Stadium.

One question that doesn’t need answering, in Elko’s mind, is whether the Blue Devils will compete.

“For 10 months, I’ve watched the competitive spirit of this team grow, I’ve watched them compete,” Elko said. “So a lot of people were very complimentary of the fact that we fought to the end. And obviously I’m proud of the fact that we fought to the end.

“But that certainly didn’t surprise me. I didn’t anticipate it would come out any other way.”

Duke’s last ACC win came in a 38-24 conquest at Syracuse in 2020.

This is a bit of a peculiar matchup, going back to both teams running coaching searches on the same timeline. When Duke hired Elko, Tony Elliott was a candidate – until he took the position at Virginia.

Elko and Elliott matched up, defensive coordinator against co-offensive coordinator, respectively, four times in a five-year span. Those were Elko’s last two seasons at Wake Forest (2015-16) and his first two seasons at Texas A&M (2018-19), with his season at Notre Dame in between.

“I’ve gotten to know Tony really well, him and his family over the years, he’s a great guy, he’s a great coach,” Elko said.

Elliott inherited one of the league’s best quarterbacks (Brennan Armstrong) and one of the league’s best assortments of receivers (Dontayvion Wicks, Keytaon Thompson, Lavel Davis Jr. and Billy Kemp IV).

Armstrong averaged 427.3 total yards per game last season; Wicks had 1,203 yards and nine touchdowns, averaging 21.1 yards per catch.

It hasn’t translated this year.

Virginia is 2-2 and coming off of a Friday night loss at Syracuse in which the Cavaliers had 287 yards on 67 plays (4.3 yards per play).

“I think they’re an exceptionally talented offense,” Elko said. “I know it hasn’t clicked for them the way they’ve wanted it to at this point, but they have a lot of weapons.”

Virginia beat Duke 48-0 last season and has won seven straight matchups against the Blue Devils.

“We’ve lost seven straight games to them, we know what they’re capable of,” Elko said. “We certainly expect that we’re going to get their best on Saturday night.”