Duke dials up ‘Waffle House’ for the win
CLEMSON, S.C. – Duke was 3 yards away from taking a lead in the final minute at Clemson. The Blue Devils hadn’t won in Memorial Stadium since 1980.
Nate Sheppard just scored a touchdown. With 40 seconds on the clock, kicking a PAT to tie the game and play for overtime wasn’t appealing for coach Manny Diaz.
The 2-point conversion playcall for this moment?
“It’s called ‘Waffle House,’ the play,” quarterback Darian Mensah said. “It’s always open.”
Sure enough, there was Sahmir Hagans streaking across the formation. Mensah hit him in stride and the senior receiver went into the end zone without a Clemson defender close enough to make a play.
Duke played for the win and came away with a 46-45 triumph at Clemson on Saturday.
“If we wouldn’t have felt so strongly about the play, then we wouldn’t have gone,” Diaz said. “The decisions are only as good as the execution. I just thought our execution was really good.”
Along with the 2-point conversion to win it, Duke was 5-for-5 on fourth downs. Two of those came on the Blue Devils’ first possession — a couple of throws from Mensah to Cooper Barkate.
It’s a result that had Diaz giddy about the step his program took. And it’s a win that keeps Duke (5-3, 4-1 ACC) in the hunt for a trip to Charlotte on the first weekend of December.
“It’s bigger than just a win. It’s what this program needed,” Diaz said. “We needed to know that we can beat someone as good as Clemson in a stadium like this while they were playing well.”
A work of art? Far from it.
Duke’s offense was hot and cold, finishing with a 94-yard game-winning drive that was extended with a fourth-down pass interference call.
Duke’s defense was more cold than hot, getting a few stops early but reverting to early season tackling woes.
In the end, a Duke team that has been its own worst enemy at times made crucial plays to win its first one-score game of the year.
“Yesterday in the hotel, Coach (Justin) Watts, our tight ends coach, he gave us a little speech and basically called how it was going to happen,” Hagans said. “Said we were going to get the ball last, score and if we got the chance to go for two, we were going to run that exact play.
“He called it. He said if it was open, I’d get it and score.”
Duke’s defense gave up scores on six straight drives. Five of those were touchdowns — the last of those, a 75-yard screen pass on which T.J. Moore was untouched.
You can’t dismiss those. At the same time, you’ll remember more the stop Duke got while it was down 45-38 to get the ball back.
And Duke’s defense won the game, with Clemson committing offensive pass interference, throwing a couple of incompletions, and then playing pitch-it-around before Duke ended the game with a takeaway.
“We didn’t let the moment get to us,” Que’Sean Brown said. “We trusted our coaching, nobody panicked and that’s what happens.”
Extra points …
– Barkate had 127 yards and a touchdown on six catches. In his last two games, he has 19 catches for 299 yards.
– Luke Mergott led Duke with 12 tackles. He had 11 against Georgia Tech in Duke’s last game. Those are the first two double-digit tackle games of the redshirt sophomore’s career.
– Moussa Kane, a backup cornerback, had Duke’s only sack. It came on the third play of the game. He was pressed into duty because Kimari Robinson missed this game, and had to play a larger role when Landan Callahan — who started for Robinson — exited the game with injury in the second half (he later returned).
– Duke “won” the turnover battle. But the game’s only turnover was on the last play when Clemson threw one lateral too many and lost a fumble.
– Duke went 0-8 in the ACC in 2021. Since then, the Blue Devils are 18-11. Saturday’s result guarantees a fourth straight season of .500 or better in league play.
