Duke football looking for first win of the season against mysterious Virginia

The Duke football program hits the road still looking for its first victory.

Duke will be playing its third game of the season on Saturday afternoon against the Virginia Cavaliers, who will be taking the field for the first time this year.

These two teams were scheduled to meet much later in the season, but after last week’s game between Virginia and Virginia Tech was postponed because of a COVID-19 outbreak within the Hokies program, Virginia needed an opponent for this week or it would have gone at least four weeks before playing a game.

More from Ball Durham

However, that leaves the strange situation of a Blue Devil team, who is not playing good football whatsoever, facing a Virginia team who lost a lot of talent from last year and has yet to suit up against a different opponent this season.

Duke will be without two of its starting cornerbacks in Mark Gilbert and Josh Blackwell, who both sustained injuries in the loss to Boston College that required surgery this week and have been ruled out indefinitely.

Quarterback Chase Brice and the Blue Devil offense have been stagnant at best, only scoring one touchdown this season thanks to a rush from Brice back in Week 1 against Notre Dame.

Turnovers in the red zone killed Duke last week, and not only will that not fly against Virginia on Saturday, but also no football team will have success it constantly turns the ball over in scoring position.

ALSO READ: Sluggish Duke dealt major injury blow in secondary

Virginia starting quarterback Brennan Armstrong does not have much experience, only throwing 20 passes last season, 25 for his career, with one touchdown and two interceptions in his redshirt freshman season.

The question remains if Duke will be able to take advantage of the inexperienced Cavaliers; on paper, the Blue Devils should, but they also should have defeated Boston College on paper.

ALSO READ: Victor Dimukeje named as one of ACC Players of Week

It’s tough to pick David Cutcliffe’s team to win right now, and rightly so based on their results, but this seems like a ‘must-win’ very early into this strange 2020 season.

Kickoff is at 4:00pm EST from Scott Stadium, and fans can view the game on the ACC Network.

PREDICTION: Virginia 23, Duke 16

Home/Duke Football