The Duke Blue Devils won yet another football game on Saturday, this time a 21-20 comeback victory over the North Carolina Tar Heels, and running back [autotag]Star Thomas[/autotag] once again stole the show.
Thomas ran for at least 100 yards in each of the previous two games, but he put together his best performance yet against UNC. The senior running back picked up 166 yards on the ground and added 45 receiving yards, reaching the end zone twice.
Most of Thomas’s work came after the second half began. After he managed just 44 yards on 12 attempts over the first 30 minutes, the New Mexico State transfer started to wear down the North Carolina defense.
He broke free for runs of 10 and 19 yards on Duke’s first second-half possession to guide the offense across midfield. A few plays later, he caught a check-down pass and raced 29 yards to the end zone, somehow staying in bounds for the Blue Devils’ first points of the game.
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Thomas scored again from two yards out in the opening minute of the fourth quarter, but his biggest sequence came on Duke’s following go-ahead touchdown march. The Blue Devils faced a first-and-20 after a holding penalty, but Thomas picked it all back up in two plays with a 16-yard catch and a 19-yard run.
Two plays later, the Blue Devils took the lead for good.
“What an inspiration that guy is for our team,” head coach Manny Diaz said after the game. “It just felt like he got stronger and stronger as the game went on.”
The first-year Blue Devil now has 480 rushing yards for the season, 399 of which have come in the past three games. His 211 yards from scrimmage equaled 53.6% of Duke’s offensive production on Saturday, and he’s averaging 5.78 yards per attempt over the last 12 quarters.
The offense has just looked more explosive since Thomas settled into the system. With each successive game, the offensive line is creating larger holes, and Thomas seems to find the right avenues faster and faster. He brings excellent contact balance, able to stay upright through the first tackler, and he rarely gets pushed backward once he collides with a defender.
The story of the first two Duke football games this year centered around how pass-heavy the offense looked, but over the past two games, Thomas has nearly as many rushing attempts (47) as quarterback [autotag]Maalik Murphy[/autotag] has pass attempts (54). With the results looking like they have, it’s hard to argue with the logic behind that decision.
The Blue Devils clinched their first 5-0 start since 1994 and reclaimed the Victory Bell for the first time in six years on Saturday, but Thomas emerging as a potential focal point for the rest of the year outweighs it all.