Duke's Loss to Richmond Feels Like Old Times

Duke's 24 to 16 loss to Richmond has to leave Duke fans and players feeling like its Deja-vu all over again.

The loss in the season opener spoiled all the hype generated for weeks and even months leading up to Saturday's game.

The game was supposed to show the growth the Blue Devils have made under second year coach David Cutcliffe. Unfortunately for Duke (0-1), this game had all of the characteristics of a classic inept performance from the Blue Devils.

An inability to stop the Richmond Spiders (1-0) in key moments of the game, horrible special teams, and absolutely nothing that resembled a rushing attack, sank Duke's attempt to win their season opener for the second straight year.

The bottom line is Duke didn't perform very well and the fact that it came against a FCS school magnifies the loss even more.

Lost in the wake of all this is that Richmond is a very experienced and skilled team, not to mention they are coming off a national championship last year.

Yet most, including myself, felt like Duke had the advantage athletically, not to mention the home-field advantage.

The fact is the Spiders were the better team and deserved to win, yet the Duke camp will be pointing their fingers at this game as being one they were expected to win but didn't.

There were positives in the game as Duke found that their receiver by committee approach proved very productive.

Austin Kelly and Johnny Williams both put up good numbers and Thad Lewis was impressive throwing for 300 plus yards.

However, Duke isn't winning many games if Lewis has to throw the ball 60 times per game.

Duke's defense gave up too many big plays and Duke for their impressive passing numbers showed nothing on the ground with either Re'quan Boyette or Jay Hollingsworth.

So from here Duke goes back to the drawing board. They travel to play Army (1-0) next week. Without some semblance of a rushing game and much improved defense this is shaping up to be a long season for the Devils.

It is by no means the end of the season, but a lot of hope coming into this season was lost along with the game Saturday night.