Duke football uses complimentary football to take down Wake Forest

Duke football knew the opportunities would come, and the Blue Devils took full advantage.

Wake Forest entered its Week 14 contest with Duke football as the lowest-ranked Power 4 team in fumbles with 19. By the end of the night, the Demon Deacons had five fumbles, three of which Duke recovered. Chandler Rivers, Ma'khi Jones and Cosme Salas each forced a fumble, while Luke Mergott came up with two and David Anderson the other.

It was a weakness Duke was looking to exploit all week.

"Going all week, we were extra ball shots, people were running it and (we) just punched the ball," Mergott said following Duke's 49-32 win over Wake Forest on Nov. 29. "We always play with our hair on fire, so everyone just bumps the ball away. So, we knew it was going to come out, and it did tonight."

Demond Claiborne lost two fumbles against the Blue Devils while Robby Ashford lost the other. Claiborne had also fumbled a kickoff against Duke last season, something Diaz said the team had noted.

"There's just certain guys that you tag as, potential ball security threats or however you want to say it, ball disruption threats, I suppose," Diaz said. "But the guys still got to go our there and do it."

Duke forced four turnovers and scored 14 points off of them and had a key fourth-down stop in the second quarter, something its offense turned into a touchdown seven plays later behind a 1-yard Anderson Castle rush. Its offense's average starting field position was its own 44, and four of its seven touchdown drives covered 35 yards or less.

"Short field just makes it so much easier for us to score," quarterback Darian Mensah said. "When our defense is playing like that, I think we're really hard to beat as a team. I think the defense played exceptional tonight, shout out to them boys on that side of the ball."

Special teams also played its part. Sahmir Hagans returned a kickoff for 80 yards to start the fourth quarter after Wake Forest scored a touchdown to end the third. Nate Sheppard punched it in for his second score of the night two plays later. The Blue Devils also pulled off a fake punt, which Diaz said postgame was not a called play, rather a coverage read by Kade Reynoldson, taking it 26-yards for another Duke first down.

"They'd been bringing pressure the whole night and they played for the return and just didn't have anybody to set an edge on that, and Kade, I think he couldn't believe his luck, and then he went halfway, and he said, well, heck, if I'm going to do this, then I might as well go," Diaz said.

Wake Forest didn’t help itself with penalties, either. The Demon Deacons had two 15 yard penalties on Duke's opening possession, followed by back-to-back penalties of 15 and 13 yards on Duke's next possession. Wake Forest finished the night with eight penalties for -97 yards.

"I thought we played very good complementary ball, and we capitalized when we were given opportunities," Diaz said.

Mensah set the Duke single-season touchdown passing record (27) in the win, while Sheppard set the freshman regular season yards and touchdown record.

It puts Duke at 8-0 against in-state opponents in its two years under Diaz. It also may have clinched the Blue Devils a spot in the ACC championship title game on Dec. 6, depending on the results of other games around the league.

"Really proud of our guys, great way to finish the season," Diaz said. "6-2 in the ACC is something they should really, really be proud of."

Anna Snyder covers Duke for The Fayetteville Observer as part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at [email protected] or follow her @annaesnydr on X, formerly known as Twitter.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Duke football complementary play powers win over Wake Forest