Duke earns a second look in Bama learning experience

By Ben Swain, WRALSportsFan contributor

You just can't let a team like Alabama hang around, or else you might end up losing a football game.

Okay, maybe that wasn't among the many lessons that Duke learned in Atlanta on Saturday afternoon, but what else can you do with that game other than laugh about it? The Blue Devils were never going to challenge Bama, at least not with this roster. Looking ahead to this game back when it was announced, David Cutcliffe was supposed to have sure-fire NFL talent like Daniel Jones, Mark Gilbert and Joe Giles-Harris at his disposal to try to keep it respectable again Nick Saban's juggernaut. The NFL draft, free-agency market and freak injuries had other ideas, however, and this game was forever doomed to be a mismatch for the ages.

I'm sure at some point Cutcliffe has drawled to his team, "You don't lose football games, you either win or you learn." Duke certainly learned by a bunch of points against Bama, but it wasn't hard to find a few things we learned about this football team that were major question marks for fans heading into the season.

For starters, in case you needed a reminder, this staff can coach a little bit.

I'm sure ex-rival Paul Johnson had a snide look on his face (then again, when doesn't he) when Duke threw out a triple-option attack to start off the game. This, from a coach who once called 24 quarterback draws in a single game, was just another example of why David Cutcliffe has been shockingly successful at Duke. He's not afraid to try something different. It might not always be right, not that it would have mattered much against Alabama, but it's never going to be a willingness to throw his team to the wolves when they're out-manned just because that's what proud, stubborn football men would do. There will be times when different doesn't work, and he'll catch criticism for it whenever that happens. But all in all, it's pretty against the grain to be different in this profession.

The defense might end up being pretty good.

For a half of football, Duke's defensive backs kept Bama's receivers in front of them with the only big play being a well designed route that let the tight end sneak through the secondary. Even in the second half Duke did a decent job of forcing Jerry Jeudy to settle underneath and make plays with his legs. The only downside was that Jerry Jeudy did an equally decent job of being Jerry Jeudy. Still, allowing Alabama only 3.5 yards per carry is a win for this defense, especially considering that no one else on Duke's schedule can come close to matching the talent Saban's able to roll out.

Brittain Brown, Deon Jackson and Mataeo Durant combined for 102 yards on 21 carries for an average of 4.8 yards per rush.

Passing game problems aside, a good defense and an effective running game could end up being enough to win some games that Duke probably shouldn't win. Add in the elusive reliable kicking game (AJ Reed was perfect with his only kick of the game and Austin Parker averaged 41 yards a punt) and the foundation for a bowl-eligible football team is there when that wasn't even a consideration when looking at this team on paper during the preseason.

Probably the biggest lesson we learned about this Duke football team … they deserve to be cared about.

That might sound harsh to say, but this is college football in North Carolina we're talking about. And with a tough schedule, big names either moving on or sidelined with injuries, and a season opener with its outcome very much decided before kickoff, there just wasn't a lot there to move the needle. In the third quarter when defensive lineman Edgar Cerenord was ejected for stomping on an Alabama offensive lineman, Brian Greise judgmentally quipped "Come on, that's not Duke football." Is that … bad? Sure, you never want your best run-stopper ejected from the game and you definitely don't want to give a team like Alabama free yards and a first down, but at the same time, a little edge isn't necessarily a bad thing for a program like Duke.

At the very least, it's compelling to know that Duke isn't content with passively taking lumps this year while waiting for next year's much more promising roster to take over. "Compelling" was not a word I planned to be using this year to talk about Duke football. And yet here we are. Alabama isn't the measuring stick for any football teams around here. Compelling is.

I'll take compelling.