Duke Defeats Wake Forest, Now Bowl Eligible

It wasn’t easy but Duke overcame Wake Forest 31-23 to finish the regular season 6-6 and become bowl eligible.

Daniel Jones finished 25-44 for 346 passing yards including two touchdowns. He also had one interception. Duke’s backs combined for 97 yards.

On the other side though, Duke’s defense limited Wake’s high-powered offense to 191 yards passing and 145 passing for a total of 336 yards, meaning that Jones came up with more yardage than Wake’s entire offense.

As we’ve pointed out in the past, Duke tends to do better in the 4th quarter than opponents: Wake won the first quarter 10-3. The second quarter was 7-7 and the third was 7-6 Wake Forest.

But the fourth quarter was 14-0 in favor of the Blue Devils. Wake coach Dave Clawson knows it too:

“I can’t remember stopping them on third down more than once or twice the whole second half. It was awful. We just didn’t execute at all. We had a coverage for a specific play that they ran, and they ran it exactly the way we practiced against it and they converted a third down.

“And then on fourth down, we undercut that one route, which makes no sense at all. We just did some really dumb things on defense.”

Party on Duke faithful: the bowl train may be back on track.

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Two-game win streak after six-game skid earns Duke a ‘critical’ achievement

• Box Score
• Team Stats
• Duke tops Wake Forest 31-23 to become bowl eligible