Duke football squanders chance at significant home victory

The Duke football team squandered a chance at a significant home victory on Saturday. 

It was a chance for the Duke football team to try and exorcise some ACC demons, but the Blue Devils could not close out a victory against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

After digging an early 14-0 hole, Duke was able to rally and bring just a 3-point deficit, 17-14, into halftime.

The Blue Devils tied things up after its first possession of the second half before Georgia Tech took its lead back on the following drive.

However, Duke then scored the next ten points to take a 27-24 lead and had the football with just 3:33 left in the fourth quarter, needing a couple of first downs to run out the rest of the clock and pick up its first conference victory of the year.

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Unfortunately for David Cutcliffe’s squad, the offense could not get the job done, eating up 1:54 of the game clock and forcing the Yellow Jackets to use all three of its timeouts but still having to punt the ball away.

With the game resting in the hands of the Blue Devil defense as Georgia Tech had the ball in the shadow of their own goal line, the Yellow Jackets went 88 yards in 51 seconds on just six plays to take a 31-27 lead.

Gunnar Holmberg then tried to lead a miraculous last-second drive. But with the ball at the Georgia Tech 41-yard line, he was intercepted with 15 seconds left as the Blue Devils dropped its second consecutive game.

Duke football continues dramatic slide in ACC games

After Duke’s most recent loss to Georgia Tech, the Blue Devils are now 21-37 in ACC games since the start of the 2015 season.

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Things will not get any easier for Duke as the Blue Devils will go on the road to face the Virginia Cavaliers on Saturday afternoon.

Kickoff is scheduled for 12:30pm EST from Scott Stadium, and the game can be seen on various Regional Sports Networks.