Duke’s defensive snap counts necessary, hopefully not to be repeated

DURHAM – Shaka Heyward didn’t come off the field much for Duke last season.

The Blue Devils’ middle linebacker played 834 of Duke’s 904 total defensive snaps – roughly 92.3%, all according to Pro Football Focus.

And yet, the 95 snaps that Heyward played against Northwestern on Saturday were the most of the fifth-year linebacker’s career.

Duke held on against the Wildcats and nothing is going to overshadow the Blue Devils’ 31-23 win in Evanston, Ill. It pushed the start of Mike Elko’s coaching tenure to 2-0 and scored a significant upset in a game that some sports books had the Blue Devils as a double-digit underdog.

As you assess the numbers behind the win, though, an alarming number of high snap counts for Duke’s defensive players jumps out.

Elko felt it happening in the course of Saturday’s game – it was just a circumstance that he couldn’t mitigate.

“We didn’t want to be there, obviously,” Elko said of the high snap counts. “It was a really interesting game because the way the first half played out, I don’t think I would change it. But it just was an awkward one from a snap-count standpoint.”

Duke’s first three offensive drives all resulted in touchdowns, took a combined 16 plays, and were all under 3 minutes. And then the next two possessions were three-and-outs, so it amounted to starting the game with five short offensive possessions.

“And then defensively, we really did a good job of limiting explosive plays, but we didn’t do a great job of getting off the field,” Elko said. “I felt it building on the sideline and when I got in at halftime, I think it was like 46 to 23.

“So we challenged our defensive guys in the locker room at halftime because we knew where it was going.”

That answer was loudest on Duke’s final defensive play of the game, when Jaylen Stinson and Darius Joiner crashed into Evan Hull at the goal line and Stinson jarred the ball loose, with Brandon Johnson recovering the fumble in the end zone.

“It was just like, ‘Hey listen, this is what we trained for. This is what the summer was all about. This thing might get up to 100 and we’re just going to have to go,’” Elko said of the challenge. “We tried to manage the clock in the second half on offense … but we knew part of our advantage was playing a little bit faster.”

As you’d expect, given one was a 30-point win and the other was down to the last minute, the distribution of snap counts from Game 1 to Game 2 was a stark difference.

Duke played 24 defensive players at least 10 snaps against Temple. Joiner (41) and Stinson (40) were the only ones who played at least 40 snaps, and there were 59 total.

You can see here: Nine Blue Devils played more snaps against Northwestern than Temple even ran offensive plays in the first game.

This isn’t to say that it’s inevitable Duke’s defensive players will break down this season because of the high snap counts.

The confidence in strength and conditioning coach David Feeley’s offseason program has perhaps never been higher. Duke got to the end of Saturday’s game feeling like it was the stronger team, able to play such high reps and still make one last play to clinch the win.

“We worked all winter, summer, just for those times,” Stinson said. “I felt like we were the strongest team and it ended up helping us pull through.”

It’s natural to expect Duke to be able to limit snap counts in this weekend’s game against North Carolina A&T, an FCS-level team that’s started 0-2. In all likelihood, snap counts after that game will closer resemble the opener against Temple than they’ll approach similar numbers as the Northwestern game.

That’s also where it matters that Duke’s staff keeps the players’ mindset in the right frame, as was written Monday.