Miami throttles Duke in Blue Devils’ finale
Duke offered little resistance in losing its final game of the season by a 47-10 margin to visiting Miami on Saturday at Wallace Wade Stadium.
David Cutcliffe offered more resistance in the post-game news conference when asked if he had given consideration to this being the last game in his 14-year tenure as Duke’s coach.
“Right now, that’s not where my mind is. I’m not going to go into any thoughts or details on that right now,” Cutcliffe said. “I’m not going to do a post-game press conference about me.”
The result put the finishing touches on a winless season in ACC play for Duke (3-9, 0-8 ACC) – the program’s first such season since 2007, a year before Cutcliffe’s arrival in Durham.
It marked the sixth straight game that Duke gave up more than 45 points, and made this seven of eight ACC games in which the Blue Devils lost by at least 25 points.
“It’s a bit of the same story. … Offensively it got a little worse before it got better. We had some moments, but moments don’t get it done,” Cutcliffe said. “… It would be consistency, if it would be one word. We don’t get off the field on third downs and we don’t finish drives for touchdowns.
“Both sides of the ball not performing would be a collapse, and that would be what has happened on the field.”
The Blue Devils’ touchdown came on a 94-yard kick return by Jaylen Stinson, his second kick return score this month.
Otherwise, success was hard to come by against a Miami team that won five of its last six games.
A silver lining for the Blue Devils was that Mataeo Durant had 68 yards, enough to break Steve Jones’ 50-year-old Duke record for rushing yards in a season. Durant finished with 1,241 yards, breaking Jones’ record by 5 yards.
“It’s a lot I can take from the experience,” Durant said, after giving a shout-out to his offensive line. “The people at Duke are amazing, they’ve turned me into a better player and a better man.”
Miami rolled up 530 yards of offense, 390 coming in the air. Freshman quarterback Tyler Van Dyke continued his roll since taking over for D’Eriq King, completing 34 of 49 passes for 381 yards and three touchdowns, two of them going to Charleston Rambo.
