Preview: Duke at Virginia

You don’t need to scan too far into Duke’s football history to understand what’s left to play for this season.

The Blue Devils won’t get to the ACC championship game. Last weekend’s loss nixed the chance at a 10-win season. Without the ACC’s divisions, the next two games against former Coastal rivals are just … games against other teams in an amorphous blob of a 14-team league.

What’s left is the chance of finishing the season with nine wins, something that’s only happened four times since the end of World War II.

“I talked to the leadership group about this, we’ve got a lot of older guys in this program that, their legacy is going to be how the season finishes,” coach Mike Elko said. “And they have a lot of pride in that.

“We kind of want to lump seasons into success and failure, but there’s a lot of degrees in this thing. Between 6-6 and 8-4 is a huge difference.”

To stick the landing of this season, Duke has to beat two ACC teams that entered the week with two wins each and have shown the capability of playing better than their records indicate.

Virginia is up first, a Cavaliers team that has lost by three to three bowl-eligible teams (N.C. State, Boston College and Miami), by seven to another one (Louisville), by one to an undefeated team (James Madison), and won a game where Duke just lost (at UNC).

Bouncing back means the Blue Devils put last weekend’s emotional loss to the Tar Heels in the past.

“It was a tough loss, everyone was hurting,” linebacker Tre Freeman said. “But we have a good locker room, everybody can pick each other up. So we’re just going to move on and focus on Virginia.”

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Here’s a primer on what you need to know for Saturday’s game:

Time: 3 p.m.

Location: Scott Stadium, Charlottesville, Va.

TV: The CW.

Announcers: Evan Lepler (play-by-play), Dave Archer (analyst) and Wes Bryant (sidelines).

Radio link: Listen to the crew that knows Duke best.

Forecast: Sunny, low-60s at kickoff; clear and low-50s by game’s end, winds around 5-8 mph.

Series; last meeting: Virginia leads 40-34; Duke won 38-17 in Durham last year.

Records: Duke 6-4, 3-3 ACC; Virginia 2-8, 1-5.

Stat to watch: 40.3% | 41%.

The first percentage is Duke’s third-down defense; the second is UVA’s third-down defense. Those are 11th and 12th in the ACC, respectively.

Neither defense has been all that great at getting off of the field on third down and it feels like whichever one can succeed here, both facing freshman QBs, will have a sizable advantage.

Duke’s third-down defense has actually been decent … other than when it hasn’t. Making sense of that means realizing Duke has held three teams under 30%, another three under 40%, but allowed over 50% three times.

UVA has more consistently surrendered third downs, as nine of 10 teams have been between 36-54%.

Quote of the week: “He’s a very confident quarterback. All three of our quarterbacks are confident in their abilities to play the game and lead the offense. He’s young and he’s eager to learn. He meets with the receivers every day … to make sure we’re on the same page. And he’s very talented. I think the mindset combined with his talent is going to take him very far.” – Jordan Moore on Grayson Loftis

Opposing offensive player to watch: Receiver Malik Washington (No. 4).

Don’t let UVA’s record obscure the part where it has one of the best receivers in the country.

Washington is second in the country in receptions (88) and yards (1,199). He’s a surefire semifinalist for the Biletnikoff Award (best receiver in the country) and has been a star in his first season at UVA.

The 5-8, 194-pounder transferred from Northwestern last year. So, Duke has actually faced him before — Washington had seven catches for 51 yards against the Blue Devils last season, when Duke beat Northwestern in the second week of the season.

“He’s playing at an elite level,” Elko said of Washington. “Obviously very dynamic catching the football, running routes. But also using him in the screen game and some of the jet-sweep game. They’re really finding ways to get him the football.”

Opposing defensive player to watch: Safety Jonas Sanker (No. 20).

The Cavaliers’ leading tackler has only come off the field for 12 snaps, according to Pro Football Focus.

Sanker has 90 tackles, which is third in the ACC behind N.C. State’s Payton Wilson (112) and UNC’s Cedric Gray (96). Sanker also leads UVA in passes broken-up (eight) and has forced two fumbles.

The 6-1, 210-pounder is a homegrown talent, as he’s from Charlottesville. He started nine games last season and was second on the team with 63 tackles, with a season-high 11 when UVA played at Duke.

Young Blue Devil to watch: Quarterback Grayson Loftis (No. 12).

The kid has started two games and has the team lead for touchdown passes.

Granted, he only had to throw four to get there. Riley Leonard and Henry Belin IV both threw three this season, and Loftis threw that many last weekend in the overtime loss to UNC.

The freshman has done everything you could ask of a third-string freshman quarterback. He made game-winning plays in the fourth quarter to beat Wake Forest, and was excellent in clutch moments against the Tar Heels last weekend.

Theoretically, things become easier with more experience for Loftis — so the best could be yet to come.

Prediction: It’s all about response for Duke.

This is a game Duke should be able to impose its will physically. As crazy as it seems to say about a freshman quarterback, Duke probably has the steadier option.

But emotions will be critical. Not just for Duke, coming off of the overtime loss against its rival. But it’s Virginia’s first game since the one-year mark of the killings of three players, and Saturday will see Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry honored.

The team that better handles the gravity of the situation probably wins this game.