In the first quarter, it really looked like Duke would win this game 40-13. Their offense was humming. QB Anthony Boone looked like he could do no wrong. Then came the second and third quarters where it didn't seem like the offense had any spark. Was that driven by Virginia's defense or Duke's offense? I'd say Duke's offense. I suspect that if Brandon Connette was still with the team that Coach Cutcliffe would have put him in for Boone. Boone's passes were all over the place. In fact, I really think that Virginia's QB Matt Johns had the far better game. Anthony Boone had the better completion percentage; however, it just looked to me that Matt Johns' passes were far more accurate. What won this game for Duke was the defense that kept Johns in check.
Best play of the game: Boone and RB Shaquille Powell not connecting properly on the hand-off. The ball bounces, Powell just picks it up and takes off for a decent gain.
Update: As with last year, I'm starting to watch the college ranking polls and trying to figure out if it is possible that Duke will make it onto the list come Sunday. This week, two teams ranked between 20-25 lost: Stanford and Texas A&M. I figure both are out of the poll. In the AP 25, Duke is #28. In the USA Today, Duke is #29. UCLA and LSU are ahead of Duke in both the AP and USA Today polls. In the USA Today poll, Minnesota is ahead. LSU won fairly easily while UCLA and Minnesota didn't win by much. On the other hand, West Virginia was ranked behind Duke in both polls and beat Baylor, which was #4 in both polls. So my thinking is that West Virginia will definitely leap frog us while we might just leap frog UCLA though not LSU. I figure at a minimum, we'll be at #27 in the AP and #28 in the USA today, meaning we'll need to wait for a future poll to get us into the Top 25. So here's hoping a couple teams ranked 20-25 lose next week while Duke takes the week off.
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