2011 Duke Blue Devils Football: Duke vs Stanford

Duke hosted Stanford in a game of two of the country’s academic giants. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a meeting of two of the country’s college football giants. It was David versus Goliath on that score.

Stanford entered the game as the number 6 team in the country and pounded perennial ACC doormat Duke in a dominating, but not overwhelming, fashion. Stanford might leave Wallace Wade Stadium with the nagging feeling that they should have put a bigger beatdown on a team that was coming off a loss to FCS Colonial Athletic Association also-ran Richmond.

Duke hung around a little longer than expected, trailing only 17-7 at the half, but managed to pull away in the second half by scoring four touchdowns before Duke added a final score with under a minute to play. Duke pulled within three points late in the second half, as Lee Butler picked off Andrew Luck and returned it 76 yards for a touchdown with a little over two minutes to play, but Luck quickly led the Cardinal down the field to open up a 10 point halftime lead.

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Luck was efficient, going 20 of 28 for 290 yards, good enough for a 10.4 yards-per-attempt average. He threw four TDs and one INT. His primary target was Chris Owusu, whom Luck hit 7 times for 106 yards. Owusu had one touchdown on the afternoon, but teammate Coby Fleener bested him with two (on only two receptions) for 63 yards, including a 60 yarder for the first score of the second half. Zach Ertz was the other recipient of Luck’s other touchdown pass, and he had 44 yards on 3 receptions. No other Stanford receiver had more than two receptions, but Luck did hit a total of ten receivers on the game, a testament to his ability to survey the whole field and look at every available checkdown.

Stepfan Taylor got the bulk of the carries, going75 yards on 14 carries (no other back had more than three), but 275-pound fullback Geoff Meinken was second in terms of yards with 61 despite only getting the ball three times. His 40 yard run was the game’s longest.

Duke’s offense fared a little better than its defense, managing 335 yards, 305 of which were through the air. Duke also converted 4 of 6 fourth-down attempts, though it was a dreadful 3 of 16 on third downs.

Three Duke signal callers saw game action. Starter Sean Renfree was 19 of 27 for 179 yards. Freshman Anthony Boone also saw considerable action, and had a very solid effort, going 7 for 9 for 70 yards and he ran in the Blue Devils’ final touchdown of the game. Brandon Connette was 1 of 2 for 35 yards.

Duke didn’t have nearly the success on the ground as it did in the air. Juwan Thompson led the Blue Devils with 43 yards on 9 carries.

Duke Blue Devils vs Stanford Cardinal Football Recap