Duke Travels To Charlottesville

[Inveigle]

Duke heads to Charlottesville to face Virginia Saturday at Noon from Scott Stadium. After a stunning upset of Boise State two weeks ago, the Virginia Cavaliers are off to their best four-game start since 2007 at 3-1. They are also coming off a BYE week while Duke suffered it's first loss. To get back in the win column Duke will face a better Virginia team that beat them in Durham last season.

Despite their only loss against Indiana, quarterback Kurt Benkert has been fantastic through four games, throwing ten touchdowns to only one interception. Virginia’s 1,249 passing yards are the highest for any UVA team through four games and the 65.7% completion percentage is the highest since their 2004 season. They are ranked 17th in the nation in passing yards per game.

Overall, their offense has been extremely productive as well, generating 1,764 yards and 17 total TDs through four weeks. Virginia has scored 125 points, a point differential of 40 points over its opponents. These figures are all the UVA’s best since 2004 as well.

Virginia is also taking care of the ball, considering the Cavaliers have only committed one turnover and have a turnover margin of plus four. At this point two years ago, UVA had committed nine turnovers with a negative nine turnover margin.

Virginia's defense is ranked 43rd in the nation in points per game allowed. They also may have one of the nation's best linebackers in 6'2" 240 lbs. Senior Micah Kiser, who was a pre-season All-ACC player and a finalist for the Butkus Award. Last season he was a main reason Daniel Jones suffered 5 interceptions and a fumble lost against UVA. Virginia's Quin Blanding is a true Sophomore Safety that was ACC Rookie of the Year in 2016.

Duke will have it's hands full even though they are a road favorite at -4.5.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

The wheels come off completely this week, in that racist city.

 

[Devilsforlife]

I'll be pleasantly surprised if this is not a loss.

Jones probably tosses five picks like last year and gets knocked out. In the first half.

 

[aiw]

I'm not saying it this time. It's all over.

 

[rhfarmer]

This feels like a loss.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Virginia is favored by 2.5 now. Went from Duke -3 to Virginia -2.5 in one day. No explanation.

 

[Inveigle]

Virginia is favored by 2.5 now. Went from Duke -3 to Virginia -2.5 in one day. No explanation.

Obviously bookies were waiting to see my post.

 

[Inveigle]

It's never a good thing to see highlights of last week's opponent on this week's Game Day.

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

Line has swung back to Duke -1. I don’t follow college football betting markets as closely as nfl but seems like duke has seen some pretty volatile line movements this year after the opening line is posted. Maybe a function of less volume on the game and a few big bettors moving the lines with big bets ?

 

[dukeberto]

What an upsetting game.

I don't know what the fuck Roper is doing. We could not connect on long throws at all early in the game, but he insisted on calling at least one on every single drive in the second half. RUN THE DAMN BALL ON FIRST DOWN. Why are we digging ourselves in a hole to start each drive by calling a long pass?!!?

I felt like I was taking crazy pills. Over. and. over. and. over. again.

You have a workhorse for a RB in Brittain Brown. You have a homerun threat in Wilson if he can get outside. We have decent TEs that can work on crossing routes. But no instead we decide we need to throw it deep to Rahming, who in all fairness can be great out of the slot, but will never be Crowder on a deep route.

 

[physicsfactor]

It's like Duke had a "Coaching for Dummies" book that they followed to the letter. "If defense gives X look with Y men in the box, you must throw deep." And I agree that occasionally you have to try to make the defense pay for not respecting a certain level of the field, but when it literally never works out, you might ought to scrap it and hope running into the teeth of the defense works out better.

Why does Duke never run play-action passes to TEs in the middle of the field?

 

[Topher]

It's like Duke had a "Coaching for Dummies" book that they followed to the letter. "If defense gives X look with Y men in the box, you must throw deep." And I agree that occasionally you have to try to make the defense pay for not respecting a certain level of the field, but when it literally never works out, you might ought to scrap it and hope running into the teeth of the defense works out better.

Why does Duke never run play-action passes to TEs in the middle of the field?

I'm pretty sure they've run like 3 all season and they all went for touchdowns

 

[physicsfactor]

Now that I think about it, they did try one against UVA, and it was wide fucking open. But Jones throw it too low, and it was tipped by the safety who was fooled by the PA.