Every week, it seems we have to endure awful roughing-the-passer calls. Some are worse than others, and Duke got hit with one of the worst I've ever seen.
Tied 7-7 in the second quarter, Duke was about to get off the field on a 3rd-and-8 from Georgia Tech's own 10-yard-line. Alberto Mendoza threw an incomplete pass to bring up fourth down, but wait, a flag!
Duke was flagged for roughing the passer on this:
They just called this roughing the passer on Duke.
— Brian Stultz (@brianjstultz) October 10, 2026
What are we even doing here? pic.twitter.com/o8dYTuG3Ju
What are we doing? Tyshon Reed was flagged for this: a 15-yard penalty and an automatic first down for the Yellow Jackets. How is this roughing the passer? The contact comes almost simultaneously with Mendoza releasing the ball. It's an absolute joke of a call.
To make matters worse? Of course, this ends up being a scoring drive for Georgia Tech, and the Yellow Jackets took a 14-7 lead. So instead of Duke forcing a punt from 10 and getting good field position, Georgia Tech ended up getting a touchdown out of it.
Just an absolutely brutal call that could very well cost Duke the game.
The refs helped Duke dig a halftime hole vs. Georgia Tech
Duke trails 14-10 at halftime. Walker Eget and the Blue Devils drove down the field on the ensuing drive and got a field goal to cut the lead to four, but they still trail at halftime to the 1-3 Yellow Jackets.
We said this morning that this would not be an easy game. Georgia Tech is a proud program that has had a rough start to the season, but they have a lot of talent. This was always going to be a fight, and Duke couldn't afford to dig any sort of hole for themselves.
The frustrating thing here, though, is that there's no coaching point to make to Reed. He did nothing wrong. He hit the quarterback a few milliseconds after he released the ball and was flagged for it.
Manny Diaz was incensed at the call. He spent a long time chatting with the officials and voicing his displeasure with that penalty.
As he should've. It's the type of call, with such thin margins in a road league game, that could outright cost the Blue Devils the game. That just can't happen. There's got to be some accountability here.
Of course, there won't be. Hopefully, Duke can bounce back in the second half and prevent that one call from costing them the game and ending their perfect season.
Add us as a preferred source on Google