Virginia blows out Duke

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Things went from bad to worse for Duke’s football season with a 48-0 humiliation of a loss to Virginia on Saturday at Scott Stadium.

Duke (3-4, 0-3 ACC) lost its eighth straight ACC game, dating back to last season. It’s the longest losing streak against league opponents since the Blue Devils lost eight straight spanning the 2009 and 2010 seasons.

“That’s always tough as a team, but I think by now guys that have played a good amount of football have been through three wins and four losses and have been through the ups and downs of it,” quarterback Gunnar Holmberg said. “Just continue to compete is something we’ll always do.

“This team really loves each other and you never want to let the guy next to you down.”

This was also Duke’s seventh straight loss to Virginia – and the average margin of defeat in the last four games has been 28.5 points.

The ownership has to spread throughout Duke’s program, as coach David Cutcliffe reiterated after this blowout.

“We’re all accountable. Every one of us,” Cutcliffe said. “The more you grasp ownership, the more you realize after you step away – we’ll take our time, we’ll be patient with this – none of us have all of the answers.

“We’re going to hear a lot of people with a lot of answers and it’s just not that easy.”

Things don’t exactly get easier from here for the Blue Devils – after next week’s off date, they play three of the remaining four teams in the ACC without a league loss in Wake Forest, Pittsburgh and Virginia Tech (though Pitt and Virginia Tech are currently playing).

“I think it’ll be good for guys, kind of just let your bodies rest and get back to 100%,” Holmberg said of the off week. “We’re in the middle of a three-game losing streak, I think it’s good to let your mind reset too, a little bit.”

Virginia (5-2, 3-2) did mostly whatever it wanted offensively in the first half, scoring on all six of its possessions. The 34-0 lead at halftime and Duke’s three turnovers turned the second half into more of a formality.

The one time that Duke stopped the Cavaliers in the first half, Duke’s Darrell Harding Jr. was called for a roughing-the-punter penalty.

Virginia scored four plays later on Keytaon Thompson’s 1-yard run, and Armstrong added a 7-yard touchdown scramble and 7-yard touchdown pass to Jelani Woods later in the first half.

The Cavaliers’ 34 first-half points were the most they’ve scored against an ACC team since a 2004 game against North Carolina. It was Virginia’s first shutout against an ACC team in 13 years.

“There were a lot of things that seemed to be outliers today,” Cutcliffe said. “I thought we had a better matchup on both lines of scrimmage, and that didn’t hold to be true.”

Duke’s first drive of the game, after the Blue Devils held Virginia to a field goal on the game’s opening possession, wasn’t all doom-and-gloom. Duke converted three third downs, Holmberg hitting Jake Bobo for 12 yards on third-and-7 and Jalon Calhoun for 16 yards on third-and-10, plus a 24-yard run by Mataeo Durant on third-and-1.

But on third down at Virginia’s 8-yard line, Holmberg’s pass went through Bobo’s hands on the goal line. Kicker Matt Alswanger, replacing Charlie Ham after the latter’s struggles last week, banged a 25-yard field goal attempt off of the left upright.

“For me to sit here and tell you that that doesn’t hit you hard, absolutely it does,” Cutcliffe said. “When you’ve lost two games, now a third, you really have to work hard at (not) saying, ‘Here we go again.’ You can’t.

“Life will have patterns like that, football will have patterns, and it’s up to us to break them. If you don’t, who’s going to?”

That was the closest Duke came to scoring until its final possession. With the outcome decided long before and reserves in, quarterback Riley Leonard fumbled a snap at Virginia’s 1-yard line and the Cavaliers recovered for their fourth takeaway of the game.

Holmberg started the game 5-for-7 for 43 yards on Duke’s opening possession, and before he was removed for Leonard in the fourth quarter, he was 5-for-7 for 47 yards on his final possession.

That meant in the seven Duke possessions between, he completed 10 of 20 passes for 44 yards.