Duke football entered Saturday’s game against Middle Tennessee hoping to take advantage of the Blue Raiders’ bottom-ranked pass defense, and it didn’t take quarterback [autotag]Maalik Murphy[/autotag] long to do exactly that.
On the second play of Duke’s first drive, tight end Nicky Dalmolin found a seam to sneak behind the MTSU secondary. Murphy threw the ball over everybody’s head to the graduate student, who raced 71 yards to the end zone for Duke’s longest touchdown of the season.
Dalmolin actually caught both of Murphy’s pass attempts on the 75-yard touchdown drive, and the catch was his first trip to the end zone since 2022. He’d only racked up 42 yards between the first three games of the season.
The opening score was also Murphy’s ninth touchdown pass of the year, continuing the first-year starter’s march into the school record books. No Duke quarterback has ever thrown more than 24 touchdowns in a season, a mark Murphy looks destined to break as of Saturday.
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