{"id":118,"date":"2010-08-02T13:47:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-02T20:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/capitalsports.us\/?p=118"},"modified":"2010-08-02T13:47:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-02T20:47:00","slug":"duke-looks-to-run-and-pass-plenty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/?p=118","title":{"rendered":"Duke looks to run (and pass plenty)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/image02.webshots.com\/2\/3\/95\/47\/48639547wndVBM_ph.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 146px;\" src=\"http:\/\/image02.webshots.com\/2\/3\/95\/47\/48639547wndVBM_ph.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>Duke&#8217;s football fortunes rose and fell last year on the arm of quarterback Thaddeus Lewis. The senior helped the Blue Devils rank No. 9 nationally as they averaged 305 yards per game.<\/p>\n<p>  But the Devils were dogged by an ineffective ground game. They ranked at the other end of the national rankings &#8212; No. 120 &#8212; by averaging just 63.5 rushing yards per game.<\/p>\n<p>   This season, with Lewis gone, coach David Cutcliffe and the Devils aim for<a href=\"http:\/\/heraldsun.com\/view\/full_story\/8962624\/article-Hitting-the-ground-running?instance=main_article\"> more balance to their offense. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>    Cutcliffe and senior center Bryan Morgan both say last year&#8217;s offense was so one-dimensional because they were playing to Lewis&#8217; strengths. But if Duke is to match or exceed last year&#8217;s 5-win total, Duke will need Renfree to be a highly productive passer while getting strong contributions from running backs<a href=\"http:\/\/espn.go.com\/blog\/acc\/post\/_\/id\/12908\/nowhere-else-to-go-but-up-for-dukes-running-game\"> Jay Hollingsworth and Desmond Scott.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>    What we don&#8217;t know is if Duke&#8217;s offensive line can handle that much run blocking. Pass-blocking is a different skill because, if a quarterback has a quick release, he doesn&#8217;t need his linemen to hold their blocks very long.<\/p>\n<p>    Run-blockers must pile-drive the defenders to clear holes that allow the running backs to get into the secondary for big gains.<\/p>\n<p>    This is an important season for Duke since they enter the start of practice with a lot of momentum.  Cutcliffe&#8217;s decision to say no to Tennessee was a boost to the Devils fortunes. Strong play from their offensive line, in both run and pass blocking, would be an even bigger boost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Duke&#8217;s football fortunes rose and fell last year on the arm of quarterback Thaddeus Lewis. The senior helped the Blue Devils rank No. 9 nationally&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capitalsportsnc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}