First-year Duke offensive coordinator Jonathan Patke did warn everyone, to be fair.
The Blue Devils said all offseason that they wanted to move quickly and throw the ball aggressively, and that game plan always included plenty of deep passes.
According to Pro Football Focus tracking, quarterback [autotag]Maalik Murphy[/autotag] has thrown 24 passes more than 20 yards downfield through the first three games of the season. Not only is that the most in the ACC, but Wake Forest’s Hank Bachmeier is the only other quarterback with 20 such attempts.
However, despite the frequency of those shots, the Blue Devils remain on different pages. Murphy only connected six of those 24 passes for a 25% completion percentage. Of the 14 quarterbacks in the conference with 10 deep attempts, only Stanford’s Ashton Daniels (20%) has been worse.
The end result is a deep passing game averaging 8.0 yards per attempt, the third-worst mark in the ACC.
The blame doesn’t entirely lie on Murphy for that inefficiency. Most of his throws end up only missing their mark by a yard or two, which could just as easily be a tracking issue with the wide receivers. He’s bounced countless balls off of the outstretched fingers of his teammates, showing that the difference between those previous stats and some truly gaudy numbers is minuscule.
However, ACC play grows closer by the week, and the Duke offense still hasn’t made tangible progress toward precision. Murphy found Jordan Moore for a 45-yard gain on the opening possession against Connecticut, and Eli Pancol broke free for a 36-yard touchdown in the second quarter against the Huskies. But UConn erased that 17-point lead last Saturday partially because the accuracy issues reared their head again in the third quarter, slowing the Duke offense to a halt.
Moore and Murphy have looked a little disconnected at times, but part of the problem could be the lack of other deep threats on the roster. Outside of Pancol’s 36-yard score against the Huskies, Murphy has completed one of six deep attempts. Moore, conversely, has been targeted 13 times.
Duke travels to Middle Tennessee for its final non-conference tune-up of the year, and the Blue Raiders have given up more than 380 yards per game through the air. That’s such a ridiculous total that only one other FBS team sits within 50 years of MTSU right now.
If the Blue Devils look choppy again down the field, it’s time for some new approaches in practice before a home game against the North Carolina Tar Heels.