Duke head coach Mike Elko on matchup with Wake Forest
Wake Forest will finish their regular season campaign against Duke on Saturday, traveling to Durham to take on the Blue Devils in a Big Four matchup. With both teams sitting at 7-4 and Wake Forest coming off a two-score home victory against Syracuse, Duke head coach Mike Elko knows his team will be in for a battle.
“Obviously an extremely talented team,” Elko said of Wake Forest. “Offensively, certainly one of, if not the best, quarterbacks in this conference. Sam [Hartman] just plays at an extremely high level. They’re talented on the outside, a lot of big, tall, receivers who have been productive. Defensively, they have made a lot of strides and a lot of improvement. This is going to be a big challenge for us.”
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Aside from the talent at the skill positions, Wake Forest’s offense presents another unique challenge — the slow mesh. Despite Elko spending three years as the defensive coordinator at Wake Forest from 2014-2016, the system has still proven difficult to prepare for.
“It honestly didn’t start until I left,” Elko said. “I wasn’t really there when it was running the way it is now. We’ve spent a lot of time as a staff on it, schematically, and it is certainly different. It requires a lot of attention. It requires detail in terms of how we are going to have to execute to stop it. I don’t know that I have the inside knowledge I wish I had from my time there.”
Duke starting QB Riley Leonard has played well in his first full season as a starter, throwing for 2,403 yards and 16 TDs, adding 621 yards and 11 TDs on the ground. This week, he’ll be in for a duel with Hartman, who threw for 331 and four TDs last week against Syracuse. However, Elko is confident he’ll be up to the challenge.
“Riley will go out on the field with a big chip on his shoulder and it will be a lot of fun,” Elko said. “He handles these things well. He’s extremely competitive. Sam has been in this league for a long time and played a lot more football and made a lot more plays. I think Riley is going to compete, he’s shown that every week.”
Heading into the final game of the regular season, Duke has a chance to notch their eighth win. Saturday’s matchup with Wake Forest could be important for bowl seeding and would be the icing on the cake for a Duke team that’s been better than a lot of people expected.
“We talk about 8-4 being a big deal, we talk about five wins in the ACC being a big deal,” Elko said. “We talk about winning games against in-state opponents. Those are things that are really important to our program. I think our kids will have their antennas up and be ready to play Saturday.”
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Elko has exceeded expectations in his first year as head coach, leading the team to bowl eligibility. With just two games remaining in his first season, Elko has enjoyed the ride so far but knows there’s still work to be done.
“It has been a lot of fun and I have certainly enjoyed getting an opportunity to go through this and lead a program,” Elko said. “I am appreciative of a lot of people at this university. It has been a lot of fun building this program and building this culture. We continue to elevate Duke football to where we believe it can go and it is just getting started.”
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Ben is a managing editor and lead contributing writer for Deacons Daily. Ben has a year of experience as the Sports Editor for the Old Gold & Black, and a year of experience as the publication’s print managing editor. He has a journalistic profile of over 40 published news and sports pieces for the Dayton Daily News.