Duke's defense strong in 35-7 win over Navy - SCACCHoops.com

Duke's defense strong in 35-7 win over Navy

by Duke Sports Blog

Posted: 10/13/2013 7:04:51 AM


For most of the season the Duke defense has been the subject of most of the questions surrounding the Blue Devils and that same unit has received the brunt of the criticism.

Box Score

Duke defensive end Jonathan Woodruff (34) brings down Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds.

Duke defensive end Jonathan Woodruff (34)
brings down Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds.

The early questions about Duke’s lack of experience in the secondary, the talk about the unit as a whole, seemed to be pushed to the back burner with the first two games. The Blue Devils held their first two opponents North Carolina Central University (0 points) and Memphis (7 points)  to a combined 7 points. (Memphis also scored after an interception was returned for a touchdown).

Then came Georgia Tech and that staunch Duke defense from the first two games seemed like a mirage. Then came Pitt and the 58 points and the 598 yards of offense they gave up to the Panthers. Those preseason questions came back with a vengeance and there seemed to be few answers.

Duke bounced back with a victory against Troy but the defense, aside from improvements shown in the second half against the Trojans, still looked like the team’s weakest link giving up 512 yards.

So heading into the game with Navy it was no shock that many expected the Midshipmen to have no problem scoring and moving the ball. And early once again it looked like it would play out just like that but a funny thing happened on the way to a shootout: Duke’s defense stood up and stood their ground.

After giving up over 200 yards in the first half, the defense only allowed just over 100 yards in the second half as they shut down Navy and only gave up 7 points and 319 yards of offense; a marked improvement from the last several weeks. That improvement didn’t go unnoticed by Duke defensive coordinator Jim Knowles.

“Our defense is staring to show what we had hoped for all year. That our up-front people can control the line of scrimmage and when you can control the line of scrimmage you can play looser in your coverage and play explosives better.”

“We came out and did somethings early that really shut them down. And then they adjusted to some unbalanced things that hurt us, we adjusted back and were able to control the game from that.”

Knowles admitted that the bye week certainly helped as well as Duke’s experience this year with the option offense. He also indicated that he felt that the defense as a unit was finally starting to come together and that there should be some carry over next week against Virginia.

“Bye week helped a ton against the option but also seeing earlier against Georgia Tech. Having the same guys do it over and over twice this year, bye week it all ads up,” Knowles said.

“In today’s game of defensive football anytime you can hold anybody to 7. I don’t care who they are, that is a lot of carry over. It may be a different offense but it doesn’t matter . These kids want confidence and they feed off of that and they are really starting to believe.”

That wasn’t lost on linebacker Kelby Brown who used the bye week to help rest and battle back from an ankle injury that sidelined him for the Troy game. He said the week off helped the defense refocus and put a plan together to make the improvements it needed to.

“This bye week we just put our minds on what we were going to do. We came out hot. We had a great game plan coming in against Navy. We forced them to do other things they were not comfortable with,” Brown said.

The fact that the defense also got to enjoy the success of the offense who actually controlled the time of possession by nearly 10 minutes also helped the defense.

“When we can just sit on the sideline and watch our offense drive down the field that just creates a ton of momentum. It gives us rest. It just gives us confidence in our team as a unit,” Brown said.

Whether Duke’s defense continues to grow and improve as Brown and Knowles believes it is remains to be seen and whether the performance against a solid team in Navy is a permanent step forward or just one step before two steps back won’t be known until next week.

 

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