DURHAM – Everything about a defense’s performance tends to look good when there’s a zero on the scoreboard – especially in this age of college football.

That’s certainly the case for Duke, coming off of a 30-0 win over Temple last week in the first game Mike Elko’s tenure as the Blue Devils’ head coach.

Within the performance against the Owls, though, is how well Duke tackled. Always a point of concern for coaches entering season openers, the Blue Devils rarely missed their targets in the open field.

“I thought we executed well, I thought we tackled well,” Elko said Monday afternoon. “When you go into an opener, those are going to be the two things that kill you.

“If you don’t play well in an opening football game, you’re going to see a lot of missed tackles and a lot of guys not on the same page.”

Check and check.

Duke’s defensive cohesiveness was impressive, given the Blue Devils started three newcomers (freshman Vincent Anthony Jr., cornerback Datrone Young and safety Darius Joiner) and two others who played less than 100 snaps last season (nickel Brandon Johnson and cornerback Joshua Pickett).

It was the tackling that stood out, though – especially given where Duke was in that department last season.

According to Pro Football Focus, Duke had six missed tackles on Temple’s 59 offensive plays. Compared to last season’s data, with PFF recording 172 missed tackles on 904 total plays against Duke’s defense, it’s quite the improvement.

The Blue Devils missed a tackle on roughly one out of every 10 plays for Temple; last season it was a missed tackle on roughly one of every five plays by opponents.

It’s improvement that can be attributed to Duke practicing live tackling more often during fall camp, as Elko explained.

“A lot of people get scared tackling one-on-one in training camp and we did it,” Elko said. “We felt like our runners and receivers had to learn to make people miss, and we felt like our second- and third-level (defenders) had to learn how to tackle in space.”

And when the Blue Devils weren’t live with tackling, they got creative around the rules. The NCAA only permits teams to practice in full pads eight times before seasons begin.

“You’ve gotta get your guys to buy into learning how to tackle without tackling,” Elko said. “Some of that is individual work. You see us doing a lot of stuff with the doughnut tackle rings and different footwork things. …

“Even when you get into periods where you’re not tackling, there’s a certain body position that you demand they get into on the finish because it’s the position that you or I could finish the tackle from. If they can get into that body position, they should be able to finish it.”

As you’d expect, linebackers Dorian Mausi (six) and Shaka Heyward (five) led the Blue Devils in tackles – and neither of them was charged with a missed tackle.

“I thought Shaka Heyward played really well at the linebacker position, he was our defensive player of the week,” Elko said.

Mausi and Heyward were charged with the second- and third-most missed tackles (17 and 14, respectively) for Duke last season.