Duke football forces three first-half fumbles in dominant win
By Hugh Straine
After allowing Blue Raider running back Jaiden Credle to find a hole en route to a 66-yard touchdown run on the third play of the game, the Duke football defense was lights-out for the remainder of the contest, helping the Blue Devils improve to 4-0 on the season.
It didn't take long for Duke to answer back and tie the score 7-7, and the defense came back on the field just to get right back off. On the first play of the drive, senior cornerback Joshua Pickett leveled MTSU running back Terry Wilkins to knock the ball free and the ball was recovered by senior defensive tackle Kendy Charles to give Duke the ball right around the MTSU twenty-yard line, which would eventually lead to a touchdown.
After allowing a Blue Raider field goal on its next possession, it was utter domination from the Blue Devil defensive front from there on out.
On the next MTSU drive, the suffocating pressure of the Blue Devils again worked in its favor. On the second play of the drive from around MTSU's fifteen-yard line, sophomore defensive end Wesley Williams blew past the Blue Raider offensive line and got to MTSU quarterback Nicholas Vattiato fourteen yards behind the line of scrimmage and knocked the ball loose. Senior linebacker Alex Howard recovered the ball at the one-yard line to again put the offense in a prime spot to score.
It was an absolute throttling from this front seven for Duke, having no issues at all getting to the quarterback and completely overwhelming the protection from the Blue Raiders. It consistently brought heavy pressure and made it impossible for the Blue Raiders to find any sort of rhythm on the offensive end of the ball.
Then, later on in the first quarter, Duke forced its third fumble on another run. On the second play of the MTSU drive, freshman corner Kimari Robinson was again able to smack the ball loose from Wilkins, recovered by freshman safety DaShawn Stone inside the MTSU 25-yard line.
The Blue Devil defense put its offense in prime positions to score and completely blow the doors off of this game early on. Duke scored touchdowns on all three of these drives after recovering these fumbles, running away in the first half with a 35-10 lead at the halftime break.
Duke would allow one more MTSU touchdown early in the third quarter, but that's all the scoring the Blue Raiders would have the luxury of having for the rest of the game.
The Blue Devils forced five punts by the MTSU offense and allowed just a 5-17 performance on third downs. It completely shut down the Blue Raider passing game with its pressure, giving up just 127 passing yards total.
Duke is ranked #2 nationally in tackles for loss (34) and tacked on twelve more yesterday with six of those being sacks on the quarterback.
The Duke linebacker core of Howard and senior Cameron Bergeron led the team in tackles, each with eight. Howard also added 3.5 tackles for loss and a fumble recovery in the victory. Williams finished the game with two sacks of his own and a forced fumble.
With this defense leading the way, Duke was able to turn a 7-7 game into a 35-10 lead by the end of the half thanks to the three forced turnovers by the Blue Devils. This is just the fourth time in program history Duke has started a season 4-0, and it looks to keep its momentum riding high as it faces its first ACC opponent in North Carolina next week.