Duke Football: Blue Devils ignore excuses, continue hot start to season

Obstacles keep emerging, but the Duke football program keeps winning and making it appear as if everything is going just right.

Normally, when a team has several backups having to start due to injuries, one can expect plenty of mistakes. But this Duke football team showed that it doesn’t care about the norm by ending its 40-27 win at Baylor on Saturday without a single penalty or turnover.

The program has now won six straight games for the second time under coach David Cutcliffe and just the third time since Steve Spurrier left town in 1989. And for the first time in 30 years, the Blue Devils have had 3-0 starts in two consecutive seasons.

Other than allowing a punt to be blocked and returned for a touchdown and some errant passes by backup-turned-temporary-starter Quentin Harris — the redshirt junior finished 12-of-30 passing for 174 yards and three touchdowns and rushed for 83 yards on 14 attempts while filling in for an injured Daniel Jones — there wasn’t anything not to like about the team’s performance.

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The most crucial aspect of the performance was Duke’s ability to capitalize on two costly turnovers by Baylor.

The first — a fumble forced by redshirt freshman cornerback Josh Blackwell and recovered by junior safety Dylan Singleton at the Baylor 34-yard line — resulted in the first score of the game, a 31-yard rushing touchdown by Deon Jackson (the sophomore finished with 83 yards on 10 carries). The second — safety Leonard Johnson picked off Baylor quarterback Jalen McLendon late in the fourth quarter and returned it 53 yards to the house — pushed Duke’s lead to 40-20 and emptied the remaining occupied seats at McLane Stadium in Waco, Texas.

In between the two turnovers, Harris showed he is plenty capable of directing the team to a win, yet he also showed he has plenty of room to improve. The 6-foot-1, 195-pound Connecticut native entered the game having only attempted 15 passes in his career.

After beginning the game only connecting on one of his first eight passes, Harris settled down and made enough on-the-money throws to put points on the board for the Blue Devils. Senior receiver T.J. Rahming came down with two touchdown receptions, and fellow senior receiver Johnathan Lloyd had a 66-yard touchdown — a one-handed grab — that came off a perfectly thrown deep ball from Harris.

There is still no word of when Jones will return.

Next. Predicting which 2019 basketball recruits will land in Durham. dark

Up next for the Duke football team is a home game against N.C. Central next Saturday at 3:30 p.m. EST on ACC Network Extra.

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