Everything Duke Head Coach Manny Diaz Said Following Loss To No. 5 Miami
The first half was a fantastic outing for the Duke Blue Devils Before Cam Ward turned into superman and dominated Duke in the second half.
Following a terrible second half that caused the loss, Duke head coach Manny Diaz talked after the game to praise the Hurricanes and look forward as his team looks to next week.
Opening statement:
“Congratulations to Miami for winning a terrific football game. I think it showcased for the strength of this conference and how good this league is. It’s a game of turnovers and explosive plays. It’s hard to beat anyone on the road if you lose those two battles. It’s definitely hard to beat a team as talented as they are and I thought that was the telling difference in the second half, giving an offense like that short fields and then allowing the quarterback is good enough as it is and to have breakdowns in our coverage to leave guys wide open allowed them to get separation on the scoreboard and then really take control of the game…I’m proud of the way our guys competed. We came here absolutely believing that we would win the game and we played like that. We just made mistakes that just cost you a football game against anybody, let alone one of the top-ranked teams in the country.”
On the defensive breakdowns…
“It’s hard to say and it’s especially hard to make an assessment on what everybody did. But that certainly did look like, again, we were out of character. You have to give them credit in terms of their players and what they were doing, but it will be a tough film study tomorrow with the mistakes that we made, which allowed them to capitalize on them.”
On the message to the team postgame…
“I think it’s the same thing I just told you. We showed that we can play toe-to-toe with anybody in the country. That’s back-to-back games against ranked teams that are undefeated in our conference and we’re toe-to-toe with them. But the difference between last week and this week are just the mistakes that we made. It took a game that was going to be back-and-forth and come down to the last possession and made it comfortable for them in the final half of the fourth quarter. They're aware of that. They're smart kids, but I think they'll take pride from the way they competed today."
On the play of Maalik Murphy…
"Like I said, it's hard to assess what he's trying to do without talking to him. It's what happens when you fall behind, and you have to drop back to try and to come from behind; you're going to put the ball in harm's way. And ultimately, that was the difference, though one of them was tipped. We've done a really good job of protecting the football all year, and that got us today."
On the offensive performance in the second half…
"They ran all of the same stuff. We didn't respond well after I think it was the one touchdown drive that made it eight. I don't think we responded very well after that. We had a third and medium, I believe, that we couldn't execute in that situation, and we gave the ball back to them, to allow them to make it a two-score game. Then we also had a chance on the sudden change after Rivers’ interception and weren't able to capitalize on that. It was just a game where they were running what they run, and we felt like we had a plan to attack them down the field. It's a great lesson for our guys, which is that you have to execute at a high level for 60 minutes against really good football teams, especially in their stadium."
