Welcome back to college football. Following a cancelled spring, in addition to an interrupted off-season and fall camp, the Fighting Irish take the field this Saturday to begin the 2020 campaign. It’ll be our first glimpse of organized Notre Dame football in 259 days. Brian Kelly heads into his 11th season with about as much job security as he’s ever experienced in South Bend. Notre Dame is coming off its 3rd straight 10+ win season, 3 straight finishes inside the AP Top 12, and 33 wins overall since 2017.
Duke head coach David Cutcliffe enters his 13th season in Durham (tied with Dabo Swinney at Clemson as the most senior ACC coach) and after a really impressive two-year period in 2013-14 (29-8 record) the Blue Devils have leveled off to a below average ACC program. Over the last 4 seasons, Duke is 10-22 in league play and have lost their last 3 games against ranked teams by a combined score of 115-16.
This includes last year’s 38-7 loss to Notre Dame played 10 months ago in Durham.
Duke (+20) at #10 Notre Dame
Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, Indiana
Date: Saturday, September 12, 2020
Time: 2:30 PM ET
TV: NBC
Still, the marriage between Duke and Cutcliffe remains strong as he signed an extension last summer that will see him stay with the program through the 2022 season. He heads into 2020 having taken over the offensive play-calling duties from Zac Roper as the latter remains on staff as the nominal offensive coordinator in addition to quarterbacks coach.
Duke’s Offense
Thing started off pretty well for the Blue Devils offense last year once they got the Alabama opener out of the way. They averaged 40.4 points per game over their next 5 games with a pair of ACC wins included against Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech. Then, the wheels fell off and Duke only scored 98 points over their final 6 games while finishing dead last in the entire ACC in yards per play.
Duke fans were dismayed by Roper’s conservative play-calling but it was pretty clear they lost faith in senior quarterback Quentin Harris last year. Harris waited patiently behind 6th overall NFL pick Daniel Jones to become the full-time starter and just could not develop his passing abilities. Harris only threw for more than 200 yards against a Power 5 opponent once last year with 8 touchdowns and 12 picks in those games.
Duke is hoping to turn the page quickly for 2020 and that Cutcliffe’s play-calling can work some instant magic.
Redshirt junior Chris Katrenick has played 114 snaps under center and had been in a quarterback battle with fellow redshirt junior and Clemson transfer Chase Brice and redshirt sophomore Gunnar Holmberg. The expectation nationally was that Brice–who has a lot more experience even while backing up Trevor Lawrence–is much more talented and would win the job, which he did at the beginning of this week.
Expectations are pretty high for a lot of improvement as there’s basically nowhere to go but up. A veteran offensive line returns (although starting center Jack Wohlabaugh recently tore his ACL) and is helped out by the grad transfer of Stanford’s Devery Hamilton who made 10 starts on the Farm and is looking to start at tackle. They are struggling with some injuries at running back but return one heck of a dynamic duo to catch passes in receiver Jalon Calhoun and tight end Noah Gray. These two combined for 97 receptions last year with Gray picking up All-American honors.
Duke’s Defense
Despite giving up at least 30 points in half of their games last year, SP+ ranked Duke’s defense a solid 36th nationally in 2019. Only Clemson, Miami, and Pittsburgh were ranked higher in the ACC a year ago. So, this side of the ball has been a good foundation for the Blue Devils and they hope 2020 continues along that path.
Their edge rushers could be a problem for Notre Dame. Redshirt junior Chris Rumph (47 tackles, 13.5 TFL, 6.5 sacks) is coming off a big year and is being scouted as a potential 1st-round pick next spring. He’ll be teaming up with senior Victor Dimukeje (41 tackles, 9.5 TFL, 8.5 sacks) for a potent situation on the ends of Duke’s line.
The linebacker situation isn’t great, though. Last year’s leading tackler Koby Quansah is gone after posting 105 tackles with 12 tackles for loss while they lost another potential returner starter due to COVID concerns. With precious few upperclassmen on the roster or with no experience to their name, the Blue Devils are working in a lot of younger linebackers.
It seems like 2020 will be a lot like 2019 for Duke, including a really nice pass rush and strong secondary. There are a lot of veteran options at corner and safety especially with Mark Gilbert coming back for a 5th season as the former All-American missed the last 23(!!) games for Duke with injuries.
Prediction
If you’re Duke you can’t be too excited about opening this uncertain season with a road trip to a nationally ranked team that beat you by 31 points not that long ago. Here are my 3 questions as we inch closer to the season opener:
1) Can Duke find immediate improvement at quarterback with such a truncated off-season and split reps during camp?
Chase Brice has since changed his number from 7 to 8 but while at Clemson he physically looked so much like Jimmy Clausen in appearance that it was freaky. Who knows what Duke thinks they have in the transfer but one thing is true, those outside of the program have no clue.
What we do know is that Duke’s passing game was abysmal last year against the Irish. Harris accumulated 102 yards on 28 attempts with just 5 passing first downs while Duke limped to just 197 total yards. You have to think the incoming transfer of Brice with the combination of Cutcliffe taking over the play-calling duties will be a proper step in the right direction.
2) Unlike last year, will the Blue Devils solid defense be able to bother the Irish offense for more than just a few series?
This is a potentially pretty good Duke defense if they can paper over their inexperience at linebacker. Then again, Tommy Rees and Ian Book have to be licking their chops with a number of play-action looks and confusing crossing routes. Whatever the over/under is for tight ends catching passes I’m taking the over on Saturday.
Last year, Rumph and Dimukeje combined for 1 solo tackle, 2 hurries, and a pass break-up against the Irish. They really couldn’t bother Notre Dame all that much, and remember, this was after the injuries to Kramer and Hainsey on the right side. Coming up against this healthy and even more veteran Irish offensive line is a tall task for the Blue Devils.
3) Will Notre Dame be sharp and avoid sloppiness in the opener?
This game shouldn’t be close but the general weirdness of the off-season, a re-working of the schedule, and an Irish offense breaking in several new skill position players could make it closer than it needs to be. It’s also possible there’s a longer-than-normal feeling out of each other as both sides get used to live football again.
I’m also curious to see if Notre Dame’s offense, with a pair of young running backs atop the depth chart, foregoes a particularly complicated and wide-open gameplan to start 2020 off. Instead of asking these backs to pass block a bunch early on I’m expecting a conservative first quarter to get these guys comfortable in their new roles.
Something interesting to consider if this is a sleepy, close game in the first half or even spilling over into the second half: Duke is replacing their placekicker and punter while their long snapper is not playing this year due to COVID concerns. Notre Dame is breaking in a new long-snapper in redshirt sophomore walk-on Michael Vinson but should have a massive edge in the kicking game.
I like the Irish to win comfortably over what should be a slightly improved Duke team who might not be ready to show much of that improvement in game one of 2020.
So is this offensive line all it’s cracked up to be???
RTDBK !!
42 for 288 yards last year against Duke. Anyone guessing 3 bills on Saturday!??
This is totally unrelated to the Duke preview, but does anyone know why all of the afternoon home games are starting at 2:30 PM this year. In years past they almost always started at 3:30, although I believe a couple later in the year might have started at 2:30.
Just curious.
Good questions, seems like the past 2 years they’ve been adding in a lot more 2:30 starts.
Seems like NBC gets an hour head-start on the afternoon bank of games which usually start at 3:30 EST? Also, wasn’t there, at least in years past, a Daylight Saving Time hiccup where the games shifted times due to portions of IN not observing?
IIRC, when I was a student (05-08 seasons) all the afternoon games were 2:30 kicks. The shift to 3:30 for some in the middle of this decade was new, I believe.
I’m the same class, and I sorta remember November games being 1:30 kickoffs.
OK (says the old guy) — when we first did the NBC deal, I remember distinctly the President himself or maybe the VP (justifying) said this would allow all our home games to be at 1:30 PM, so weekends would be normal and predictable for our fans… no weird TV scheduling, etc….
So everyone can get to dinner in Chicago.
My prediction of importance: everyone has been understandably happy to be rid of Doug Flutie to not realize it’s going to take about 2 quarters to figure out vapid empty suit Tony Dungy isn’t really an upgrade, just a slightly less annoying version of the same analyst.
I’ll take vapid and boring over aggressively wrong and self-impressed any day.
The guys at II had it right in their podcast about Flutie…He’s an ok announcer who ND fans feel compelled to skewer. That said, ND broadcasts should have a more talented color man. Tony Dungy , I’m not so sure he’s a great upgrade.
” aggressively wrong and self-impressed “…Are you talking about Mike Mayock ?
No, Flutie. He spent the entire game either talking about himself, or doubling and tripling down on some asinine comment he made earlier.
This is the attitude the II guys were talking about.
Well, for one thing, if NBC doesn’t want announcers fans feel “compelled to skewer,” they might want to avoid guys who played at schools that hate us.
For another, Flutie was frequently ridiculous and spent the whole game harping on obvious nonsense. “Sam Darnold has ND right where he wants them” down 28-0 is the most glaring example of this.
Mike Mayock was my favorite analyst for ND games. In my view, Flutie was not horrible, but they could do much better.
I agree spidey. I liked Mayock too. Flutie was pretty whack to me. Even though he’s kinda a goober, I think Chris Simms would be a solid analyst and way better than Dungy or Flutie.
It’s a shame Brady Quinn being a Notre Dame legend actually seems to work against him getting that job for NBC.
I couldn’t handle Simms’ voice for a whole game. He’s always talking like a train is passing him and he has to speak up. It’s not yelling, but it’s…aggressive?
But Dungy is going to be bad too. Tirico will really need to drive this broadcast for it to work at all.
I hear ya. I may be giving him a pass since he’s on the sideline and maybe over modulating. Simms is pretty good on the Florio PFT radio show and not projecting his voice like that, so I guess I assume he would be more natural in the booth versus on the field.