Josh Blackwell: "I knew UNC, with Mack Brown, would definitely show up."

Safety talks surprise teams in the ACC

Redshirt sophomore safety Josh Blackwell met with the media during Duke’s bye week, which we’re presenting to you, in its entirety in two parts.

Blackwell is one of the team leaders in pass breakups through three games.

In the conclusion of Blackwell’s bye week comments to the media, he talked about the importance of the bye week, which allows the team to “get back to fundamentals. Get back to basics. Get healthy. Other than that, I don’t think anything really changes.”

Duke, and the other teams in the ACC, get two bye weeks this season, which is a change from previous years. It allows the Blue Devils to take an earlier-than-usual break and still have a bye later.

That helps the team “obviously, in getting healthy and reemphasizing what we started camp with.”

Blackwell talked about the scouting report on Virginia Tech.

“The receivers are good,” he said. “The receivers have always been good since I’ve been around.”

As for what teams in the ACC have surprised him this season, Blackwell seemed to think it was business as usual.

“Nobody’s really surprised me,” he said. “I mean, I knew UNC, with Mack Brown, would definitely show up. Wake Forest has done some pretty incredible things, but otherwise, no.”

Be sure to check out part one of Blackwell’s comments, where he talks about if there are any differences in conference play compared to non-conference, his role as one of the experienced leaders in the secondary and his impressions of Duke’s freshmen wide receivers.