Jonathan Brewer confident in Duke football run attack despite injury

Duke has had a crowded backfield through its first two games of the season with multiple guys seeing at least a decent share of the carries. In Duke's 26-20 double overtime victory at Northwestern last Friday night, Jaquez Moore was injured in the first quarter after an eight-yard carry.

Unable to put weight on his foot when he got up, Moore headed to the locker room and came back to the field in a walking boot, sidelined for the rest of the game. The severity of the injury is unclear, but Moore will certainly be out for at least a few games.

Now, offensive coordinator Jonathan Brewer will turn to other guys in the backfield to take over for the loss of Moore, who led the way. Star Thomas is a transfer from New Mexico State who has tallied 30 carries for 81 yards so far this season. Sophomore Peyton Jones has just eight carries for 30 yards so far on the season, but will likely see that workload increased.

Brewer talked about the progress that the run game has made in his recent press conference ahead of Duke's next matchup against UConn.

" I felt like we made a huge stride in the running game. I know it didn't show up on the stat sheet this week, but what you don't see is that the reason Maalik [Murphy] is throwing RPOs is because they're overloading the box. If they're not over the box, then we're getting four to eight yards in the rushing game each time we hand the ball off."

Duke currently sits in sixteenth in the ACC in rushing yards per game (76.0) and total rushing yards on the season (152). In 2023, it finished ninth in rushing yards per game (167.2) and total rushing yards (2,174). It's also been towards the bottom of the conference in attempts per game in each of those seasons.

Brewer then touched on his confidence in the next guys to step up in the backfield to continue to make the run a threat to opponents.

"I think Peyton [Jones] and Star [Thomas] are the two guys that have been getting the most reps. It was good to see Peyton go in the game and finally cut his teeth in a real live game. Star obviously took the majority of the reps, and he has so much experience anyway, it wasn't a big shock to him in that world. I can see us really focusing on those two guys."

Thomas had over 100 carries in both of his seasons at NMSU, so a large workload is natural to him. Jones only totaled twenty carries across his freshman season in 2023, but will hopefully develop into a nice complementary piece alongside Thomas until Moore is able to take the field again.

UConn has allowed 248 and 124 rushing yards respectively to its first two opponents this season, so Brewer will look to find schemes to attack the Huskies and bring the ground game to life for Duke this Saturday.