As of Sunday morning, no college football team has more sacks than the Duke Blue Devils.
With only two games left on the Week 1 slate, no FBS team matched Duke’s eight sacks from Friday night’s victory over Elon. Junior edge rusher Vincent Anthony Jr. was one of just 23 players with multiple sacks on opening weekend, and nine different Blue Devils recorded at least 0.5 sacks.
The Blue Devils defense also racked up 16 tackles for loss, tied for the most among Power Four programs. Only East Carolina finished with more for the weekend, and only 22 programs reached double-digits in their opening game.
Head coach Manny Diaz preached the importance of negative plays all offseason, and the former Penn State defensive coordinator should know. The Nittany Lions led the country with 49.0 sacks as a team last season, three more than any other Power Five program.
Duke’s star-studded defense hopes to keep the momentum rolling against Northwestern next Friday.