Friday night as the winds whipped off of Lake Michigan, Duke head coach Manny Diaz took an important step toward putting his fingerprints all over the Blue Devil football program. Sure, beating Northwestern isn't going to be cause for a parade in Durham. However, it was an important step in getting Duke to bowl eligibility, which has to be the program's top goal in Diaz's first season on the job.
After the game, Diaz met with the media to discuss his team's gutsy double-OT win. As you might expect, he had plenty of positive talking points to cover. He started by praising his team's effort.
“I told the team just a moment ago that I’m in awe of their effort," he said. "Of all the adversity we went through tonight, some self-inflicted, some caused by an amazing effort by Northwestern, our ability to persevere and overcome was remarkable. I really felt like after we survived the blocked punt and interception on back-to-back drives and gave away zero points, which is an insane effort by our defense, that from that bmoment on that we gained momentum to win the game.
“Our offense improved during the game. You have to give credit to Northwestern’s defense. They are a tough nut to crack. We finally were able to find weak points in the defense and exploit some of those and sustain drives. We missed a field goal and nobody flinched. We got the ball right back, drove down and thought we were going to win the game at the end of regulation. We sent it to overtime.
“Then the defense gave up a touchdown in overtime, but the offense had their back right away. We had back-to-back overtime touchdowns. The second overtime, Chandler Rivers made a tackle on the
quarterback sweep on third down to set up fourth-and-long, which is a tough situation for them to be in. There’s a lot to fix, but I’m really proud of the team and happy to be 2-0 heading back home.”
One reason Duke had to go to two overtime periods to claim this win was all of the miscues and errors the Blue Devils made. They had a blocked punt, a missed field goal, two turnovers, and nine penalties for 80 yards. Still, Diaz said they maintained their composure throughout the night.
“We never panicked," he said. "Justin Pickett, one of our captains, was just extraordinary. The drive with the missed field goal, he just came off and said we were good and going to be OK. That positivity on the sidelines kept focusing us.
“We’re big believers in playing the next play and whatever happens, move on to the next play. Our team epitomized that tonight.”
Quarterback Maalik Murphy came up big in the second half, especially in the fourth quarter and overtime, after strugling for most of the game. Of course, Diaz had plenty of praise for his signal caller.
“The offensive staff did a nice job of sussing out what Northwestern was doing," he said. "I mentioned during the week, Northwestern makes it hard. They play umbrella coverage and keep all their defensive backs deep. They really limit you from being able to throw the ball down the field. They can change their run support whether it’s the safeties down, the corners come inside, whatever it is. They do a good job with what they’re doing.
“This is why we needed to be on the field. We were just not on the field enough in the first half. The
longer you’re out on the field, the more you can figure out what somebody is doing on defense. Getting those at bats in the third quarter allowed us to fine tune how we wanted to attack.
“I thought Maalik was very much in control in the fourth quarter. He’s another example of a guy who
didn’t panic when he threw the pick. He went out there and made the plays to win the game.”
On the other side of the ball, Alex Howard led the Blue Devils with 14 big tackles (8 solo) but it was junior corner Chandler Rivers who may have made the play of the game when he stopped speedy Northwestern QB Mike Wright behind the line to force a 4th-and-nine in the second overtime, a down that the Wildcats couldn't convert to keep the game alive. Diaz broke down that play for the media.
“We were in a goal-line defense in that situation," he said. "They were leaning on us. There was one momentbwhere I thought maybe we were wearing down on defense a little bit. Anytime you can run thebquarterback, you have an extra blocker. How we were aligned, in theory, was a good play. It did bringbthe ball off the line of scrimmage, though.
“For Chandler to shoot through there and create a tackle for loss was huge. It’s what I mentioned during the week. We love TFLs because they can create long passing situations. To get them to fourth-and-long is uncomfortable for any quarterback.”
Diaz is now the seventh Duke head coach to win his road debut with the Blue Devils. However, it wasn't easy as the game came down to the wire. Still, he found a way to squeeze just enough juice out of his team to prevail and that's the sign of a quality coach.