Duke Football: This season’s Blue Devils were born to run the ball

The Duke football team’s rushing attack has improved across David Cutcliffe’s 11 seasons as coach, and this has the potential to be the first season that it outgains the passing game.

In David Cutcliffe’s second season as the head coach of the Duke football program, the Blue Devils averaged just 63.5 rushing yards per game compared to 305.0 through the air.

After that year, the gap between the running and passing games in Durham gradually started to narrow. And then across the combined 2013 and 2014 seasons — the winningest two-year stretch in the program’s history — rushing yards accounted for 44 percent of the total offense.

Is it a coincidence that the most successful seasons on record for Cutcliffe also happened to be the two-year stretch when the team’s rushing yards came closest to matching its passing yards during Cutcliffe’s time at Duke?

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Maybe it is.

But maybe it’s not.

If the success of the ground game just depends on the strength of the Blue Devils’ personnel each season, then this team is equipt to be Cutcliffe’s best yet at running the football.

Redshirt sophomore running back Brittain Brown has an obvious knack for quickly hitting the hole and coming up with a half dozen yards on seemingly every carry.

While the 6-foot-1, 205-pounder may not be the fastest back in recent years, the combination of the quickness of his first few steps, his shiftiness, and the blow he unleashes on linemen and linebackers after initial contact is unparalleled compared to previous guys at his position under Cutcliffe.

During Duke’s 34-14 opening win over Army last week, Brown amassed 75 yards on the ground on just 11 carries (6.8 yards per carry). Last season, Brown averaged 5.4 yards per carry.

Besides Brown, though, the Blue Devils should never forget to take advantage of the legs of their junior quarterback, Daniel Jones. Although Jones has become an effective passer and has plenty of talent to rely on this year at receiver, he is at his best when he keeps a lookout for openings in the middle of the field during passing plays and takes off as soon as one appears.

Right now, Duke owns the longest winning streak (four games) of any team in the ACC.

And if the 2018 Duke football squad wants to take off from here and reach the same level of success it did in 2013 and 2014 — or greater — it should heed the advice of a slightly revised quote from Jenny in Forrest Gump:

Run, Duke, run!

The Blue Devils will play at Northwestern on Saturday at 12 p.m. EST on ESPNU.