The Blue Devils Went Down to Blacksburg: Virginia Tech vs. Duke Preview

The Duke Blue Devils travel to Blacksburg Saturday and feature a systematic offense captained by quarterback Thomas Sirk complemented by a strong defense under the leadership of R-Sr. all-over-the-field defender Jeremy Cash. The Blue Devils' record of 5-1 (2-0) indicates their success in 2015 so far. Although, pundits are quick to note the quality of their opponents (Duke's I-A wins combine for 7-13 record) could suggest Duke isn't as imposing as they seem. Regardless, The Virginia Tech Hokies have a lot to prepare for against the Blue Devils, and will need to play extremely well on both sides of the ball in order to finish the afternoon on top.

Offensive Formations

I watched Duke's games versus Boston College and Georgia Tech. In both films, Duke seemed to run most of their offense out of spread formations with Sirk in the shotgun or pistol. One of their favorite alignments was an unbalanced look (generally with the strength set to the field). What I mean by unbalanced is the tackle is uncovered on the line of scrimmage, with two men on the line of scrimmage outside the tackle on the other side of the ball. Take peek at the clip below. You'll see the TE and WR both on the line of scrimmage to the bottom of the screen. The tackle is uncovered to the top, and the TE is offset from the QB to the strength of the formation.

Duke tended to run a couple plays out of this look, or ones similar to it. In the clip above, they aimed to run the ball straight up the middle with the right guard pulling into the hole. Boston College has two large defensive tackles that take up a lot space inside, and they caused the power play to bounce outside. Note how in this play Duke H-Back Braxton Deaver (No. 89) blocks the first man off the edge.

From the same sort of setup, Duke executes an inside zone read. In this next clip, they are no longer in an unbalanced formation, but I've seen it run both ways.

Here, the offensive line zone blocks down to the right while TE David Reeves (No. 80) folds into the play to make a block downfield. He lets the defensive end go as what seems to be the option read for Sirk. I'm actually surprised Sirk didn't pull this ball, making me think he didn't have the choice to on this specific call. Sirk is not afraid to pull the ball and run, although he had much more success running versus GT than BC. More on that later.

Anyways, when Duke runs the ball, a fair amount of their rushes seem to come on plays like the inside zone and power highlighted above. Often they will string this plays together a few times in a row on a single drive. Why do they do this? Well, I made a point to highlight the action of the TE for a reason. In this next clip, you'll see why.

See what happened? From that same unbalanced look, with the same motion of the TE folding across the formation, Duke leaks Deaver into the flat for a long positive play. I wouldn't be surprised if the Blue Devils try and lull the Hokie defense asleep before trying to release their tight end down the field.

Sirk

Okay, back to Sirk. As I mentioned above, he's not afraid to run the ball. He's Duke's leading rusher with 53.5 yards per game and he's scored twice on the ground. However, although he's decently athletic, I wouldn't peg him as an explosive runner that will beat a defense with speed or shifty moves. He's much better at consistently finding the hole and hitting it quickly for a reasonable gain. I think the play below is a good example of his running style.

On this play, Sirk (No. 1) made his fake, found the hole and got upfield (he was tackled shortly after the clip ended). For him, I think it boils down to how well the offensive line can get create movement along the line and open some space. If the space is there, Sirk will generally find it. If it isn't there, he's not really going to create it himself. This tends to occur when Duke lines up in 5 WR sets. It's a bit strange how much Duke calls QB draws for Sirk out of an empty backfield because like I said, he isn't exactly the runner who can make something out of nothing. But be prepared to see some of that.

Now let's look at Sirk as a passer. He's completed 118 of 189 attempts for 1,260 yards, 7 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. Many of his passes come off of play-action fakes.

I can't tell if Boston College actually blitzed here or the linebackers got pulled in with the fake, then realized it was a fake and decided to hang out awkwardly in no man's land the rest of the play. Even so, with most of Duke's runs and passes starting off the same way, the Hokies' defense will need to play with discipline and be sure of what they are seeing before they commit to coming up in run support or dropping into pass coverage.

One other thing you'll notice about Sirk is his throwing motion. Except I don't really consider it a throw, more like a hefty heave. He also seems to stare down his receivers a lot. The announcers for this game complimented him for going through his progressions, but I really didn't see it. I think he tends to telegraph which receiver he is going for, and then if that doesn't materialize he immediately goes to the check down / dumpoff option. Furthermore, I wouldn't say he's the best under pressure, as he tends to deliver considerably less accurate throws with someone in his face.

Route Combos

All that being said, Sirk is accurate enough when it comes to hitting the shorter/underneath routes that seem to be common to the Duke offense. The Blue Devils appear to gravitate towards route concepts that complement each other rather than having their receivers beat defenders 1-on-1. By complement I mean the path of one route is designed to help open up a throwing lane to another route. Take a look at this next clip. Here Duke is aligned in a 5 WR empty backfield set (nope this one is not a QB draw). I'd like you to focus on the trips to the top of the screen.

The first receiver outside the tackle, Max McCaffrey (No. 87), drives hard to the inside, sits a second and continues across the field. The second receiver, Anthony Nash (No. 83), runs the same route. The action of the first receiver clears out any underneath support that may have covered up the second receiver.

A similar concept is seen in this next play. Here the focus is on the bottom of the screen. Again Duke has 3 receivers spread wide.

At the snap of the ball, the running back breaks to the flat, pulling his defender out of the play. The first receiver outside the tackle, David Reeves (No. 80), runs a short crosser to pull any additional players able to provide underneath support. Behind him, McCaffrey and Johnell Barnes (No. 4) run a series of staggered in-routes. Both receivers are open thanks to the space vacated by the Boston College linebackers covering the TE and the RB.

This type of route concept works extremely well against man coverage (as you can see above). Ins and slant routes are hard to cover without any help underneath. The best a defense can hope for is a tackle made immediately after the catch. One way to combat this is with zone coverage for the underneath routes instead of matching up man-to-man. That way, the linebackers can pass the receivers off from one zone to another, maintaining their positions in the middle of the field to disrupt passing lanes. I would expect to Hokies to try and incorporate some underneath zone coverage to help defend this route concept.

On this next play, watch the action of the two receivers to the bottom of the screen.

At the snap of the ball, the outside receiver, Barnes (No. 4), comes in, while the inside receiver, McCaffrey (No. 87), goes out. This is known as a switch route, with the inside guy running the wheel pattern. The reason McCaffrey is open is due to the interaction of his route with his teammate's. As McCaffrey runs towards the sideline and Barnes comes in, the GT defender has to adjust his path around Barnes. In this case, the defender goes underneath Barnes just as McCaffrey breaks down field. Boom, separation.

T.J. Rahming

To conclude my preview of the Blue Devils' offense, I'd like to highlight the play of freshman wide receiver T.J. Rahming (No. 3). Rahming is not particularly big (he's listed at 5' 10", 165 pounds), but is a shifty, speedy athlete that can hurt a defense when he's in space. In the first clip below, Rahming is lined up as the second WR from the bottom of the screen. He runs a simple sit and shake route, where he "sits" after 5 yards for a second, then "shakes" into the middle of the field. After the catch, you can see the speed with which he can take off down field.

In fact, a better example may be the next play. This is pretty much the exact same play versus Georgia Tech at the goal line. Here you can see how the shake motion throws off the defender just enough to leave Rahming wide open for the TD.

You may be thinking, "Okay, Rahming is good, the Hokies will need to key on him". Not a bad thought. but remember how I mentioned Duke likes to design routes that interact to get receivers open? Look at this play.

They run a complementary route concept (rub/wheel route) using their star wide receiver as a decoy for the wheel. The Boston College linebacker in man coverage with the running back has a very tough time getting into position to make a play on the pass. A solo man-to-man matchup between a linebacker and the running back is just not going to work against a play like this. I would hope to see the Hokies communicate with each other as they see a play like this develop, running a combination coverage that allows the defenders to switch receivers as they cross paths.

Duke's Cash-Money Defense

My general thought after watching Duke's defense is they are pretty good. They are good at stopping third downs, and tend to prevent big plays from happening often. Their base defensive font is four down linemen, and active positioning of their linebackers. The big callout is the presence of safety/linebacker hybrid Jeremy Cash (No. 16). Cash is an aggressive, physical and fast defender with the motor of the Energizer Bunny (not literal). Take a look at these two plays below.

Really not too much to say about them other than Virginia Tech's offensive line needs to be ready for Cash's speed and swim move. Not only is Cash active in where he may line up, but he's also very active with his hands. He uses his hands well to create leverage to get around defenders. I'm sure the Hokies have been practicing all week with the thought in mind that the need to have a hat (helmet) on Cash (that continues blocking him) every play, otherwise he's going to be very disruptive to the Virginia Tech offense.

Coverages

I wasn't able to catch too much video of Duke's passing defense versus Boston College. By that I mean it really just wasn't on screen often, because the Eagles did not move the ball well through the air much vs. Duke. Additionally, I don't like to put much weight into how a team plays defense vs. Georgia Tech thanks to that triple option offense. From what I was able to see, it appears that Duke runs a sort of inverted cover 3. In the clip below, focus on the bottom of the screen. At the snap of the ball, you'll see the safety with more depth than the CB. However, the safety quickly drops down to cover the underneath on his half of the field, while the corner drops into coverage for his deep third of the field. This is exchange between the corner and safety is what I am referring to as inverted.

This type of coverage could create a dangerous situation where a quick slant may look open at the snap of the ball, but the safety will quickly drop down to cover it. Lo and behold, I've got a clip showing exactly that!

The point is, Duke appears to jump down hard on routes that go towards the middle of the field. The setup and technique of their defenders works to push receivers to the edges of the field. The Hokies' offense will have to work hard to create passing opportunities over the middle, or be ready to challenge the Blue Devil defenders for jump balls thrown down the sideline.

The over-aggressive play of the Duke secondary has gotten them in trouble from time to time covering play-action passes. In this next clip, you'll see BC leak their FB out of the backfield and down the sideline on a play action pass. This play has Sam Rogers written all over it. I hope that happens.

Pressure

Duke hasn't shown to be a team that brings a lot of pressure. With that though, they do dabble in a couple blitz calls. I noticed a few cornerback blitzes here and there, but mainly that they would run their house blitz in critical situations (3rd and longs, 4th down plays).

They're not particularly concerned with disguising the blitz. Duke brings 7 for the 6 that BC can block, playing straight man or cover 0 behind it. When a team brings more rushers than can be blocked, the offense either figures out a way to block it anyway, or get rid of the ball fast. In those situations, receivers need to be able to beat their man at the line of scrimmage and get their heads around fast, because time is a luxury at that point.

Versus the Run

Last clip here. All this talk so far about the Blue Devil defense really is painting a grim picture for the Hokies' offense isn't it? Is there any hope? Well, I think if Tech is going to find it it will have to be with the running game. Specifically, runs up the gut.

On this play, BC lines up in the good 'ol I formation, and runs the ball straight up field. The Eagles' offensive line allows the Duke defense to do what it likes, which is get their defensive ends up field to contain the ball. The interior linemen move to the Blue Devils' second level quickly, tying up the linebackers. A hefty dose of I formation runs may be what is needed to expose this Blue Devil defense. It could bring back memories of the VT ground game from the past. Will it happen? Probably not. But it would oh so sweet if it did.

Enjoy the game everyone!