Thursday, October 5, 2017

Duke Seeks Conference Win in Charlottesville

Now in its 105th season of football, Duke travels to face Virginia on October 7 at 12:20 p.m. The game will be broadcast live by the ACC Network with Tom Werme (play-by-play), Dave Archer (analyst) & D.J. Shockley (sideline). The Blue Devils are 4-1 overall and 1-1 in the ACC following last week’s 31-6 loss to No. 14 Miami.

Coming off an open date, Virginia is 3-1 overall and 0-0 in league play Duke owns an all-time record of 500- 512-31 in 104-plus seasons. Saturday’s game will mark the 69th on the gridiron between the two schools with Virginia leading the series, 35-33. The series began in 1890 with a 10-4 UVa win. Duke won 18-of-22 meetings between 1952-78. Virginia captured 17-of-19 games between 1989-2007.



Now in his 10th season as Duke’s head coach, David Cutcliffe is 56-62 with the Blue Devils and 100-91 overall. Cutcliffe earned ACC Coach of the Year honors in both 2012 & 2013. Under head coach David Cutcliffe, the Blue Devils are 33-5 (.868) when allowing 20 points or less. Dating back to the 2013 season, the Blue Devils are 32-17 (.653) in their last 49 regular season games. Duke enters the Virginia game having won 15 of its last 23 (.652) road games dating back to the 2013 campaign. Duke continues to lead the ACC in third-down defense having allowed just 11 conversions in 62 attempts (.177).

With 63 ground yards last week against Miami, RB Shaun Wilson became the seventh player in Duke history to reach the 2,000-yard plateau. In 41 career games, Wilson has 2,057 rushing yards while his career 5.40 yards per attempt average ranks fourth on Duke’s all-time chart. Over his last 12 games dating back to the 2016 season, QB Daniel Jones has thrown 15 TD passes against just four INTs Duke and Clemson lead the ACC in sacks per game (3.60).

The Blue Devils are led by DT Mike Ramsay, who has 4.5 sacks on the year and ranks fifth in the league with his 0.90 per game average. The last Blue Devil to lead the conference in sacks was Shawn Johnson in 2002. With scoring dashes of 50 and 65 yards versus Baylor, RB Shaun Wilson pushed his career total of 50+ yard TD runs to six to establish the Duke all-time record.


The previous school standard of four was held by George Clark (1944-47) and Jay Wilkinson (1961-63). In the ACC, RBs Shaun Wilson (82.4) and Brittain Brown (74.6) rank fifth and ninth, respectively, in rushing yards per game. Additionally, Brown is second among rookies behind only Travis Etienne of Clemson (77.8).