Clemson Special Edition

Graphic by Dom Fenoglio

TIGER KINGS

PARTY LIKE IT’S 1989

By Holly Keegan, Andrew Bae & Adway Wadekar University News Editor | Associate News Editor | News Editor

Less than a minute was left. A historic victory against then-No.

9 Clemson was just clinched for Duke. Thousands of fans were waiting on the sidelines at Wallace Wade Stadium for the first time since 2013, ready to burst onto Brooks Field.

“It was honestly one of the best moments at Duke so far,” said sophomore Thomas Dean. “It [was] just a sea of people. But everyone was just so excited and celebrating it together. It felt like everyone on the field was friends.”

I have goosebumps just remembering it.

“I just started running, and I just didn’t want to fall,” said sophomore Ben Childress. “Nobody really knew what was happening, because nobody could believe that we had just beat Clemson.”

happened in 2013.

crowded down as far as they could.

As fireworks exploded above the cheers of the crowd, students leapt over the ledge and hoisted themselves onto each other’s shoulders. Parents carried their children down into the action, and football players found themselves surrounded by a sea of cameras, smiles and applause.

Photographs will always show that there was a crowd of thousands that rushed the field Monday. But thoughts, emotions, the feel of those photographs — those are harder to capture.

Childress, whose high school best friend, sophomore kicker Todd Pelino, scored two field goals and two extra points during Monday’s game, recalled Pelino telling him that it was “the first game he’s ever been nervous for.”

“We took a whole bunch of photos, everyone was cheering, every few seconds you would see a player walk by and congratulate them,” said junior Caitlin Dougherty.

It was honestly one of the best moments at Duke so far.

“I have goosebumps just remembering it,” said sophomore Gabriel Reis. “We were chanting and expecting for the moment we would be allowed to rush, and the moment we did was pure adrenaline.”

“Because as much as it was our moment, I can’t even imagine what it was like as their moment.”

This moment had been a long time coming. In 2013, Duke was an entirely different program. Former head coach David Cutcliffe had turned the Blue Devils around after a long down period. In many ways, this moment echoed what

But none of the students at Wallace Wade would’ve remembered that — they were nine, 10, 11 years old at the time. For them, those final seconds solidified what students had hoped for since they arrived on campus: a renewed football program that could compete with teams of national prominence under head coach

Mike Elko.

“The security staff came up to us and said ‘Make sure you don’t storm the field when there’s still time on the clock. Make sure you wait till the game’s completely over,’’’ Dean said.

I have never stormed a college field before, and so to get to actually follow through with it, it felt like a full-circle moment.

As Monday’s game entered its final minutes, crowds of students swarmed towards the field, ready to soak in the chance to charge into the heart of the stadium.

“In the middle of the fourth quarter, I looked over and I kind of got the feeling that people were going to rush the field,” said sophomore Hannah DiMaggio. “My first thought [was] ‘Wow, I never thought this would happen at Duke.’”

“It was just a matter of waiting those last five minutes of the game,” said senior Suraj Dhulipalla. “The anticipation was electric.”

The crowd became more and more congested as the clock wound down. “My immediate thought was ‘Oh, my God, I might get stampeded,’” DiMaggio said. “We all just started sprinting and running. We jumped onto the field. I fell in the bush. It was so, so exciting.”

Dougherty compared Monday’s celebration to what students had hoped for during last season’s home game against North Carolina, when students anxiously hoped to storm the field only for the Blue Devils to fall agonizingly short in a nailbiting 38-35 battle against the Tar Heels.

It was just a matter of waiting those last five minutes of the game. The anticipation was electric.

But those last five minutes? No one was willing to wait. Students got out of their seats and

“I have never stormed a college field before, and so to get to actually follow through with it, it felt like a full-circle moment,” Dougherty said.

Full circle, indeed.

GABRIEL REIS DUKE SOPHOMORE

THOMAS DEAN DUKE SOPHOMORE

CAITLIN DOUGHERTY DUKE JUNIOR

SURAJ DHULIPALLA DUKE SENIOR

Morgan Chu | Sports Photography Editor

DUKE DRAWS TIGERS’ BLOOD

Duke’s win, by the numbers

Duke is 8-0 when it scores first under head coach Mike Elko, a trend which continued Monday.

The Blue Devils held the Tigers scoreless in the second half.

Duke stalled Clemson three straight times at the goal line — featuring a blocked field goal and two fumbles.

Clemson led 422-374 in total yards.

28 8 0 3 7

Clemson led 29-17 in first downs.

Duke led 94-52 in total tackles.

By Andrew Long Sports Editor

Apex predators are called such for a reason — challenges to their dominance are rare, and most end poorly.

On Monday night, the Blue Devils broke the animal kingdom’s governing truth.

Under the Labor Day lights at Wallace Wade Stadium, Duke pulled off the remarkable against No. 9 Clemson, riding a gritty defensive performance and a vibrant home crowd to a statement 28-7 win against a team billed by many as a playoff contender.

“It’s a testimony to what you can accomplish if you put yourselves together and you’re willing to give a lot to an organization,” said head coach Mike Elko. “These kids work so hard, they put so much into this thing. And they just continue to fight and come together to be successful.”

But it wasn’t straightforward, nor was it clean. Aside from some exceptional running by Clemson running back Will Shipley — who logged 114 yards for one touchdown — no offensive player on either team played particularly well, with dropped passes, closed running lanes and missed field goals seemingly more common than smooth drives down the field.

It was Duke (1-0) that took advantage.

The Blue Devils rushed out of the gothic gates at the end of their on-field tunnel hoping to get chugging and turn their ample first-half opportunities into tangible second-half scores.

And the wheels got churning.

Graduate defensive end Anthony Nelson rocked Clemson running back Phil Mafah right at the Duke doorstep and opened the door for senior safety Jaylen Stinson to pick up the fumble to rush all the way to the Tigers’ 34-yard line and kick-start another Blue Devil drive. Junior running back Jaquez

Moore marauded his way to the house, and redshirt-senior wideout Jalon Calhoun’s reception at the goal line sealed a two-point conversion to avenge past faults and bump his team up 21-7.

In the opening minutes of the second half, several sets of Tiger hands reached at quarterback Riley Leonard and looked to drag the junior down behind his line on third down, but he escaped their grasps to sprint down the sideline and into the end zone for Duke’s first six-pointer of the night.

Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik and Mafah linked up for a 49-yard surge almost immediately, though, and the Tigers (0-1) found themselves on the doorstep of Duke’s end zone once more. But a false start call and a deep sack by Anthony Nelson Jr. forced them to settle for three. Or, at least, an attempt for three.

Clemson kicker Robert Gunn III’s attempt shot too low for the second time Monday evening, and the Blue Devils got the ball back with a chance to make it a two-score game.

While Duke didn’t do that right away, a mistake on the Tigers’ behalf gave it some breathing room to try again. Klubnik was thrust under pressure by the Blue Devil defensive line, taking a big hit which forced the rock out of his hands. Duke recovered the loose ball but couldn’t do much more, sending the ball back Clemson’s way after another three-and-out.

“If you just look at it, right, in the first half, we got down there twice, we didn’t score touchdowns, we lost the turnover battle two to nothing, then you go into halftime and we’re losing,” Elko said. “Then the second half comes around, we win the turnover battle. We don’t allow them to score touchdowns in the red zone. We score touchdowns in the red zone, and we win the second half, what, 22 to nothing?”

This rapid back-and-forth was perhaps a just reward for a tar-laden first half in which neither team could really get going. Duke was arguably the better of the two in the opening stages, at least until some unfortunate bobbles swung the pendulum away from it before it could solidify a lead.

The first, and most consequential, was when Calhoun fumbled an awkwardly bouncing punt at his own 18-yard line to set the Tigers up for an easy shot at the end zone. The Blue Devils held firm for downs one and two, but a shovel pass from Klubnik found Shipley for an open lane and the game’s first touchdown.

When we got out on that field, we quickly realized that we can hang with these guys.

RILEY

The second bobble: Leonard set his offense up just shy of field goal range with 17 seconds left in the first half, but slippery hands felled Moore, too, who surrendered the ball and let Clemson enter the locker room with a onepoint lead.

So how did the Blue Devils keep it tight early on, despite their oily gloves? Locktight defense.

With Leonard struggling for accuracy — he was 12-for-24 by the halftime break — and Duke’s run game sputtering at points, the likes of graduate safety Jeremiah Lewis and redshirt senior defensive tackle DeWayne Carter proved crucial in keeping the team competitive. This was especially true against Shipley, who threw the kitchen sink, fridge, stove and microwave at it throughout the game.

“We believe in our conditioning, we believe in our physicality, we believe that we know how to execute in those areas of the field,” Elko said. “We certainly would prefer not to be down there as much as we were, but those plays ultimately won us the football game.”

The Blue Devils got going early against the Tigers, forcing a punt inside the opening

three minutes and then taking it deep into the opposing half before redshirt sophomore wideout Sahmir Hagans was judged to have fumbled the ball. The officials reversed that decision, setting up a Duke first down at Clemson’s 24-yard line, which culminated in Todd Pelino’s opening field goal after a few misses by Leonard in the air.

The Tigers responded almost immediately, riding a series of rushes by Shipley to two successive first downs and the legs and arm of Klubnik far into Duke territory. A pair of stops behind the line of scrimmage — and a diving tackle by sophomore corner Chandler Rivers just past it — sent out the Clemson field goal unit. Gunn lined up his kick, but high hands by the Blue Devil defensive line got to it fast, sending the ball bouncing harmlessly short of the posts.

Duke and Clemson traded three-andouts after the missed field goal, but Leonard’s arm once again produced fireworks. A creative run from a dodging Calhoun moved the chains, which was immediately built on by a 28-yard pass to Moore, positioning the Blue Devils for another Pelino field goal.

As the Tigers looked to rally at the game’s close, an errant pass from Klubnik was popped up and hauled in by senior linebacker Dorian Mausi. Duke ball at the Clemson 47-yard line, five minutes on the clock and hundreds of Clemson fans making their way toward the exits. Jordan Waters trucked 36 yards to the house, and Wallace Wade exploded into Blue Devil delirium.

“When we got out on that field, we quickly realized that we can hang with these guys,” Leonard said. “You get out there, you start to compete ... if we execute and we play hard, we’re gonna win this football game.”

Students stormed the field after the Blue Devils earned a win against Clemson Monday night.

LEONARD DUKE QUARTERBACK

‘God is good, and so was our defense’

Key moments

Making history

It had been 34 years since Duke’s last top-10 win, also against Clemson, in 1989.

5:01

Q4

14:26

12:40

12:21

By Rachael Kaplan Sports Managing Editor

God is good, and so was our defense.” Clemson, the program known for its offensive powerhouses, for producing Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence, DeAndre Hopkins and Travis Etienne, scored seven points against Duke Monday night. Those seven were scored after a Jalon Calhoun muffed punt that placed the Tigers on the Blue Devils’ 18-yard line in the second quarter. Those were the only seven that Clemson scored in 60 minutes, despite holding 33:33 of possession.

Through offensive miscues and shaky hands, Duke got its act together in the second half, scoring 22 unanswered points to top the ninth-ranked Tigers. A mere 175 yards through the air and a 51.5% completion percentage from junior quarterback Riley Leonard was enough — more than enough — to give the Blue Devils the win.

But why?

As Leonard put it, “God is good, and so was our defense.”

Head coach Mike Elko and defensive coordinator Tyler Santucci put on a masterclass in red-zone stops and bend-don’t-break defense. Two sacks, six tackles-for-loss, two forced fumbles and a whopping 94 tackles later, Clemson’s 422 yards of offense were reduced to a measly little seven on the scoreboard.

While the stars did their job, it was a team effort on all fronts.

“I hope people noticed how much we rotated,” Elko said. 21 players contributed to

Q4

Dorian Mausi intercepts Cade Klubnik’s pass, sealing a Duke victory.

Jaylen Stinson recovers a fumble from the 1-yard line for 55 yards.

Q3

Andrew Long | Sports Editor

that tackle tally with Chandler Rivers, Tre Freeman and Jeremiah Lewis each leading the way with 11. Next up was safety Jaylen Stinson with nine; the senior also scooped up a Phil Mafah fumble and returned it for 55 yards, setting up Jaquez Moore’s rushing touchdown.

“Stinson’s a dog,” redshirt-senior defensive tackle DeWayne Carter said of his teammate. “Kid is every bit of 5-foot-6, 180, when he might be the hardest hit on the field.”

5-foot-8, 177-pound stature exemplifies what Elko’s program is all about: fight.

big things that people asked me when I got here was, ‘will this team compete? Will this team fight? Will this team play hard for four quarters?’ Absolutely yes,” Elko said. “They will not lay down.”

Duke’s red-zone defense showed just that. Even when backed deep into their own zone like they were on their last three defensive series of the third quarter into the fourth, the Blue Devils fought for every yard, every play, every second. With Clemson on the 6-yard-line with four downs to convert, Duke held its line.

Tiger kicker Robert Dunn III’s 23-yard attempt? Blocked. Less than four minutes later, Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik, on first down at the 7-yard line, fumbled the handoff. The Blue Devils recovered. After another Duke offensive three-and-out, on its own 1-yard line, Anthony Nelson Jr. punched the ball out of Mafah’s hands, and Stinson scooped it up. When the offense faltered, the defense picked up the pieces.

“What gives me the most confidence is how my defense is playing and how everybody else around me is playing,” Leonard said.

Q2

Riley Leonard runs for a 44yard touchdown to open the second half.

Jalon Calhoun mishandles a punt, leading to Clemson’s only score.

The Blue Devils entered the AP top 25 at No. 21, their first ranking since 2018.

Duke’s 21-point win was its largest margin of victory over a ranked team since 1942.

The Blue Devils snapped the Tigers’ 12-game ACC win streak.

Morgan Chu

DEWAYNE CARTER

DUKE DEFENSIVE TACKLE

We’re not happy because we proved people wrong. We’re happy because we proved ourselves right.

How does Duke’s win change its season?

Duke made a statement under the lights at Wallace Wade Stadium Monday night, downing the then-ninth-ranked Tigers in dominant fashion. With one marquee win in the bag, is this a sign of things to come for the Blue Devils? The Chronicle’s beat writers offer their input.

What was Monday night’s biggest takeaway?

Winning ugly: The biggest thing that stood out to me Monday night was Duke’s ability to win sloppily. When playing primetime games against top teams, the plan often comes unraveled, forcing coaches and players alike to adapt on the fly and find a way to claw out a win. Against Clemson, the Blue Devils did just that, overcoming a muffed punt, a fumble in field-goal range and several costly penalties to topple the Tigers. A glance at the box score would suggest Clemson controlled the game, but the Duke defense simply refused to allow the Tigers to reach paydirt. If that toughness becomes a theme for head coach Mike Elko’s squad, Duke should compete in every game from here on out.

-Caleb Dudley

‘Elko Era’: In a way that not even last year’s 9-4 season could, Monday night’s victory established a new era of Duke football. The Blue Devils will no longer enter games as an unknown and largely unproven squad, and with their success comes a target on their back. Duke is now entering the role of a contender, and one needs to look no further than Clemson to see how quickly a team can slip from that peak. However, Elko has led the Blue Devils to this point, and there is no reason to suggest that his and the team’s success will not continue.

-Dom Fenoglio

Who was Duke’s player of the game?

Jaylen Stinson: His 5-foot-8 stature may not show it, but senior safety Jaylen Stinson was arguably the biggest man on the field for the Blue Devils. The Opelika, Ala., native logged nine tackles in the defensive battle, and most importantly, produced its greatest coursealtering play. With the Tigers just a yard shy of the end zone, quarterback Cade Klubnik handed off to running back Phil Mafah, who had the ball knocked loose by graduate defensive end Anthony Nelson Jr. and Stinson was there to pick up the scraps. He raced 55 yards before he was shoved out of bounds, setting up Duke’s second touchdown of the game, all but putting the late-night showpiece to sleep. It’s fitting that redshirt senior defensive tackle DeWayne Carter called him a “dog” in the postgame presser.

-Andrew Long

Riley Leonard: The sophomore quarterback led the Duke offense to 374 total yards, and while he struggled partially with accuracy — completing just 17 of his 33 passes — he picked up 98 yards on the ground. No play was bigger than his 44-yard scramble to the house in the Blue Devils’ first drive of the second half. Leonard seemed to be taken down by a number of Tigers in the backfield, but somehow evaded the defenders and gave Duke a lead it never gave back. His accuracy through the air will only improve, as Clemson provided one of the toughest defensive tests of the year and his receivers’ hands will improve. As the year goes on, Leonard will look to establish himself as a premier NFL talent.

-Fenoglio

What do the Blue Devils need to tighten up?

ess giveaways: The biggest thing, by far, is the hands. Duke’s offensive skill players dropped two passes and lost two fumbles, one of which resulted in Clemson’s only points

of the game. While the offense did surge in the second half, it was kept out of the end zone in the first and was set back by four false starts. There is an abundance of talent on this offensive roster; it just has to clean up the easy mistakes.

-Rachael Kaplan

Run defense: Clemson scored seven points, but the scoreboard doesn’t tell the whole story. The Tigers consistently moved the ball down the field against the Blue Devils in the second half. While the red-zone stinginess was extremely impressive, the rushing defense was not up to its standard from last year. Clemson ran for 213 yards, a steep increase from the 120.9 per game that Duke gave up a season ago. While Will Shipley and Mafah are two of the best rushers in the league, if Duke wants to compete with the likes of Notre Dame and Florida State, the front seven need to improve.

-Ranjan Jindal

Is this a shakeup in the ACC?

Yes, and Duke will challenge: Undoubtedly. No matter if the team ends up having a down year, Duke knocking off Clemson — the decade-long gold standard in this conference — carries immense weight. Now, the Blue Devils have an ACC win under the belt that could go a long way in determining the final standings. Duke is firmly in position to make a bid at being one of the top teams in the league, in some minds just behind Florida State and North Carolina. With the Tigers struggling to start the year, the Blue Devils have a unique chance to pounce, and those dates with the Seminoles and the Tar Heels are circled on everyone’s calendars. -Dudley

Yes, the top of the league is much more competitive: One thing is for sure, Clemson’s name is not an automatic write-in to the ACC Championship game. That has been the trend for the past couple of years, but Florida State and North Carolina’s

development into legitimate teams is unquestionably a difference from the recent past. The top of the league is stronger than it has been for a while, and Duke handed the Tigers their worst league loss since 2014. I don’t want to overreact after one game and there certainly is a long season ahead, but it does appear that the league is deeper and more up in the air than in recent memory. -Jindal

What does Duke’s win say about the team’s future?

Righting past wrongs: Even if Clemson found itself inside the 5-yard line three times after its opening touchdown and failed to score on all three occasions, even if it had two field goals blocked and surrendered the ball three times, Duke still had to capitalize on the mistakes. If history is any indicator, it wouldn’t. But change is in the air, and the resolute defensive play calling, Leonard’s arm and leg talent and the re-energized student section on display against the Tigers indicate that this win wasn’t a one-off. To be clear — the Blue Devils have several things they need to clean up if they hope to triumph against more quality opponents. Even so, there was plenty from Monday’s win to build upon, and all signs point to Duke doing exactly that. -Long

Hedge your bets: The milliondollar question: Is Duke just that good, or is Clemson just that bad? I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, and the AP poll agrees. The top-10 win of Monday night carries less umph with the 25 that now resides next to the Tigers’ name. And while the Blue Devils did jump into the poll themselves, slotting in at No. 21, the grandeur of Labor Day will wear off. Luckily for Elko and company, they have dates with No. 10 Notre Dame and No. 4 Florida State approaching — and quickly. Duke will have to repeat some of its holiday weekend magic to climb the polls and jump into the conference title contention. -Kaplan

Morgan Chu

The victory, through students’ eyes

By Olivia Schramkowski & Abby Spiller Contributing Writers

Following an unexpected upset against then-No. 9 Clemson, perhaps Duke is a football school. At the very least, some students think it’s headed in that direction.

Students crammed into Wallace Wade Stadium Monday to witness the Blue Devils’ season opener, which many expected to be yet another blowout loss against the Tigers. Instead, they witnessed Duke defeating a top-10 team for the first time since 1989. That win, over 30 years ago, was also against Clemson.

“You could really feel like this was our game,” said sophomore Camden Reeves. “It was almost incomprehensible and hard to describe because of how unexpected it was. I don’t think a lot of people went into that game last night expecting for us to be victorious, let alone competitive against a big program like that.”

How the unexpected became expected

Despite Duke’s 28 consecutive losses against the AP top 10, there was a different energy in the stadium Monday night. Cheerleader Olivia Scott, a sophomore, said it was the first time she and the rest of the her team felt nervous before a football game. Meanwhile, in the student section, sophomore Anna Rosenbloum, who attended every football game last season, also noticed a vibrant atmosphere unlike any she had experienced before.

“You just would turn around, highfiving and hugging everyone, even people

you had never met before,” she said. “It felt very much like a community.”

Junior quarterback Riley Leonard ran into the end zone for the Blue Devils’ first touchdown. Clemson’s kicker, Robert Dunn III, missed his second field goal attempt of the night. The Tigers fumbled the ball on the 1-yard line, which was taken 55 yards the other way. The student section, witnessing history in the making, began to bubble over.

However, with Duke football not having achieved such a feat in 34 years, no one knew what to do, Reeves said. Except the security guards.

“One of the security officials came up to us in the front row and told us, ‘Hey, if we win, we’re expecting y’all to rush the field,’ and told us the procedures for how to do so.”

Even junior transfer student Cade Ferguson, who previously attended the University of Florida, said he was unsure about how to rush the field. Most seasons, Florida does not have the same incentives to storm the turf as Duke did against Clemson, Ferguson noted.

Reeves sat behind former Duke men’s basketball standout and current Dallas Mavericks player Dereck Lively II throughout the game. As the end neared and Duke was sure to pull out the victory, Reeves said that Lively told him and other surrounding students, “y’all better be rushing the field when this happens.”

Security began ushering students onto the sidelines. Some climbed over

barriers, some stood side-by-side with Clemson coaches and players. And then it was time for Leonard to take his final knee.

Pandemonium struck. History had been written. And students were on the field for the first time in 10 years.

A new era?

In 2021, following a devastating threeseason losing streak under former head coach David Cutcliffe, Duke announced Mike Elko as the team’s new head coach, an inflection point in the program’s history.

Loey Allen, a junior, recalls this sharp change in energy between Cutcliffe’s tenure and Elko’s.

“Freshman year, nobody showed up to the games and it was really easy to get the front row and have it all to yourself,” she said. “But it was just tough to always be there and watch us lose, so last season being able to say ‘Wow, the new coaches are paying off and we have a new winning program,’ was really incredible.”

Elko, in an effort to rejuvenate the Blue Devils, created incentives for students to attend games such as giving away cash prizes and personalized jerseys. Despite these efforts, Allen noted how traditions and cheers, like those seen at Cameron Indoor, would better elevate the experience. Reeves also thinks that improved tailgating can attract even more people to the game.

beginning of the ‘Elko Era.’

“As the youngest class, we started with thinking this might be a new era,” Mehra said. “Hopefully this is something we can get used to as the new standard of Duke football.”

Basking in the leftover limelight from the game, students are left wondering, has Duke become a football school? Who knows? However, many agree this win has the potential to change the way students and the sports world view Duke football.

Despite the newfound optimism, Rosenbloum doubts football will ever eclipse basketball as Duke’s main sport. But men’s basketball sophomore Mark Mitchell might’ve said it best on Twitter — with the win over the Tigers, Duke could be on its way to becoming an “everything school.”

“Cameron [Indoor Stadium] is so small and intimate. I don’t think that Wallace Wade could ever necessarily get to that point,” Rosenbloum said. “It probably will never be completely full of Duke fans, so it would be hard to create a culture in that sense of excitement around the game. But I think you can get to a point where people are excited to go to the [football] games and students actually show up.”

As the youngest class, we started with thinking this might be a new era.

Neel Mehra, a freshman, provides a freshly optimistic perspective of Duke football, having entered in at the

Duke will undoubtedly retain its basketball fervor, but Monday’s game points to a future where football isn’t too far behind. Rosenbloum described a feeling of extreme adrenaline and excitement as she rushed the field — one she “hasn’t felt at many Duke sporting events ever, even basketball.”

Morgan Chu | Sports Photography Editor

LOEY ALLEN DUKE JUNIOR

Freshman year, nobody showed up to games and it was really easy to get the front row.

ANNA ROSENBLOUM DUKE SOPHOMORE

You just would turn around, highfiving and hugging everyone, even people you had never met before.

NEEL MEHRA DUKE FRESHMAN