Duke didn’t just beat Boston College on Saturday. The Blue Devils looked like they had rediscovered themselves.
After a rough stretch that had Manny Diaz’s team sitting at 1-2 in league play following losses to Georgia Tech and North Carolina, Duke steadied things with a win at Virginia. But the performance at Wallace Wade Stadium was something else entirely. Boston College arrived with back-to-back wins, and left on the wrong end of a 47-2 blowout.
The score tells the story, but the details make it even more lopsided. Boston College’s only points came when Duke blocked a PAT and the Eagles returned it for two. Outside of that, Duke controlled every part of the game and never let Boston College find any rhythm.
That mattered because the Eagles had been running the ball well before Saturday. Against Georgia Tech in the previous game, Boston College piled up 399 rushing yards, and quarterback Mason McKenzie had already totaled more than 600 rushing yards on the season.
Duke shut that down cold, holding the Eagles to 78 rushing yards on 33 carries, a 2.4-yard average. McKenzie finished with just 24 yards on 13 attempts.
The Blue Devils were just as disruptive in the backfield and on passing downs. They finished with six sacks, 11 tackles for loss, and forced Boston College into 2-of-13 on third down and 0-of-4 on fourth down. It was the kind of complete defensive control that made the afternoon feel over early.
Offensively, Nate Sheppard was the headline. He ran for 97 yards and five touchdowns on 20 carries, giving Duke the kind of punch that kept the pressure on all game. Walker Eget also handled his business, completing 11 of 18 passes for 201 yards and a touchdown.
Diaz saw the game as more than just a blowout win. For him, the key was the way Duke responded from the previous week.
"The biggest thing to me is that the team got better from last week," Diaz said. "And what happens is when you have a big win, you can start to feel good...On one hand, we can be proud of what we did and what we accomplished, but if we think we've arrived and we've done it all, we're not going to have the outcome going forward that we want."
Duke now turns its attention to a road trip to Raleigh to face NC State (4-4, 2-3 ACC), before heading to Coral Gables for a matchup with No. 1 Miami (8-0, 6-0 ACC).
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