Opening statement
For a neutral football fan, it was an extraordinary contest. Two teams going after each other, felt like the game would come down to the last play of the game. It did, and that play unfortunately didn't go our way. But from what we learned about us tonight, and I think that's what I just talked to the team about, is that there's not... Don't concern about selves with narratives of what it means. It doesn't mean we're just in week five, you're gathering information as you go through the season. So there's two pieces to the puzzle. There's one, there's obviously things from our process that we've got to continue to improve upon to win a game like this on the road. Just too many mistakes. And I think the first thing that jumps
out is penalties. We felt like penalties would get us at some point, and tonight penalties got us.
In critical situations, whether they were or they're not, they're called a backup roughing the punter or the illegal hit out of bounds, and we're going to back them up with a holding penalty on their touchdown drive to go ahead. Critical mistakes and critical situations that we can't have. So that, amongst some other things, that we'll have to find a way to get corrected.
I think the positive from tonight is that you really can't learn about yourself until you're in that type of situation at the end of the game. And down 11, the way our guys battled, the way that we believed that we would win the football game, the drives we made, some of the individual efforts. I mean, some of the plays that Walker Eget made tonight were big time plays. And then you can't say enough about Nate Shepherd. It doesn't matter what the stats say in terms of what he did in the run game. They just were going to blitz like crazy upfront with movement and try to take that away. They played a lot of zone behind it because they played a lot of zone behind it. The checkdowns were available and he just made play after play, including the play on the last try that gave us a chance to win with a game-tying field goal.
On that point, I will say this, I've got so much respect for Gavin Strange thrust into duty this week. I thought he was extraordinary. I thought he had tremendous courage, though he kicked off very, very well. And again, he made some tremendous kicks. I mean, the PAT after Shepherd's touchdown with him in a left, the ball was almost lying flat on the ground. Kate Ronson did a great job of getting it up and making that kick. So believe in Gavin, proud of him, proud of the courage he showed today. That's not easy to get thrust into duty like that. So with that, let's do questions.
Defense seemed off compared to first four games
That's fair. And we gave up a long run for a touchdown. We did some things that have not been in our identity. I do felt like we made some adjustments and then we played better when our offense was taking control of the game. But the last drive, again, if you think about the last drive, a kickoff return gets them... They don't ever feel the stress of really being backed up on that drive going against the clock. And so they're really almost one first down and then they're across midfield. And then again, we got a chance to back them up and we get called for the personal foul. So just look, like I keep saying, there's more to this. There's more learning to do. There are things that were shown tonight to be the true version of the team that we want to be that we're not quite there yet.
On team’s energy
I thought our energy was terrific. I thought they felt like they were in control. And honestly, I felt like we played like that. I thoht Georgia Tech was outstanding tonight. I thought they played great. And like I said, you have to give them a lot of credit, but they had the point too where they were down that drive with their back against the wall with what they were staring at. So like I said, that's just a great college ball game. That was two teams that were giving everything they had. And you could say they made one more play than us. We said we made one more mistake than them. It's a combination of all the above.
On the controversial roughing the passer call
Look, we need to protect quarterbacks off of that. It was the body weight over the top. When you look at it, the defensive players have the hardest... The two people that have the hardest job on the field is the referees and the defensive players because hard attack guy not laying on him. But Tyshawn did put an arm out, did kind of roll over the back. But like I said, those things in real speed look like the way they look and it was such a critical situation where you get them backed up punt, you're probably getting the ball midfield and then for them to turn around, again, that's not why it turned into a 90-something-yard drive, but it gave them the catalyst to get going and take momentum away from us.
On Walker Eget’s poise and play
Those are big-time quarterbacking plays. I mean, you're in the red area, there's not a lot of room. You're in third-down situations. I would say you could evaluate quarterbacks when the first thing's not there. It's easy when you call the play and the guy comes open. I though the way that Walker navigated, kept his eyes down the field, was able to scramble the run for the long yards and then to scramble the throw to Jared. Jared made a great catch and you need that. To win games like this, you need those type of big time plays. I think Walker's confidence is just growing week by week.
This article originally appeared on Duke Wire: Everything Duke HC Manny Diaz said following the loss to Georgia Tech
