Brandon Hill: "I love seeing our guys make plays"

Linebacker had 11 tackles

Linebacker Brandon Hill nearly doubled his season tackle total, getting 11 against the Hokies to bring him to 25 on the season. He had three solo stops, half of a tackle for loss and a pass breakup in Friday’s 45-10 win.

He wanted to talk about his teammates, though.

“The biggest thing is I love seeing our guys make plays,” he said.

One of those plays was the pivotal fumble recovery by Koby Quansah that set up Duke’s first touchdown.

“Koby’s one of my guys,” he said. “We came in together, and we kind of grew up in the program together. Seeing him do that was awesome. I’m ecstatic for the guys. Coach Cutcliffe talked about winning by blending offense, defense and special teams all together. That was a huge momentum shifter for us.”

Another key play came earlier in the game, when Duke’s defense stopped Virginia Tech in the red zone, forcing a field goal that gave the Hokies their only lead of the night at 3-0.

“At the end of the day, we don’t want any points on the board, but we got what we wanted from that. Not letting them score a touchdown and keeping them to a field goal—that’s a win for us.”

Hill said it was a priority for the Blue Devils to make sure Virginia Tech didn’t get back into the game after Duke got on top.

“We knew coming in they’ve been this great team. We had to work hard to make that happen, but I think we got the job done.”