Tag: Eli Pancol

Eli Pancol helps Duke football vanquish Virginia Tech for a senior night victory

Eli Pancol caught three first-half touchdowns against Virginia Tech on Saturday night to help deliver Duke’s eighth victory of the season.

The Duke Blue Devils won in Durham yet again on Saturday night, taking advantage of two early touchdowns from fifth-year wideout Eli Pancol for a 31-28 victory over Virginia Tech.

Pancol, a fifth-year senior playing his final game at Wallace Wade Stadium, made sure every Duke football fan left with a positive memory of his time in Durham. On the Blue Devils’ first offensive snap, he beat the entire Hokies secondary on a post route up the seam. Quarterback Maalik Murphy floated the ball perfectly to catch him in stride, and 86 yards later, Duke led by seven points.

The offense faced its first third down of the evening one possession later. Needing seven yards to move the sticks, Murphy looked well past that for Pancol again. The redshirt sophomore put the ball toward the sideline, letting his target spin around for a back-shoulder grab, but Hokies defensive back Dante Lovett stumbled to the ground as Pancol turned.

The opening left no one between Pancol and the end zone, and he raced the remaining distance to the goal line for a 77-yard score.

Pancol ended the first quarter with 175 yards on three receptions, and he caught a third touchdown with six minutes left in the second quarter. He ended the game with a career-high 188 yards on five catches.

That second-quarter touchdown gave Murphy his 25th scoring pass of the year, breaking a single-season school record that stood since 1988. However, despite Pancol’s monstrous production, it was an up-and-down opening half for the former Texas Longhorn.

After finishing four of his last six games without an interception, Murphy tossed three before the break to let the Hokies back into the ballgame. He gave the ball away to defensive back Dorian Strong on consecutive possessions in the middle of the half, creating two drives that resulted in 10 Virginia Tech points.

Murphy completed six of his first nine passes for 180 yards, but he only connected on four of his last 14 attempts in the half. Outside of a 58-yard catch-and-run connection with senior wideout Jordan Moore, he threw for two yards in the second quarter, and the Blue Devils led just 21-17 when they went to the locker room.

As he’s done over and over again in 2024, however, Duke’s quarterback summoned good football during a critical second-half possession.

With the Blue Devils receiving the ball first, Murphy found redshirt sophomore Que’Sean Brown for completions of 34 and 18 yards as he marched his teammates down the field. He finished that drive four-for-four with 73 yards, and running back Star Thomas finally got a turn in the end zone with a 2-yard score to make it a two-score game just three minutes into the half.

Murphy ended his final home game of the season with a career-high 332 yards, his second 300-yard performance in three games, and he’s thrown 11 touchdowns over the last four.

A game with six combined turnovers will never be described as “calm,” but the scoreboard settled down from there at least. The two teams combined for a single touchdown over the final 26 minutes, and despite a late Thomas fumble that gave the Hokies a last-gasp possession after the two-minute warning, the Blue Devils held on for a 31-28 triumph.

Duke clinched its third straight eight-win season with the result. The Blue Devils travel to Winston-Salem next week for a road game against Wake Forest

Duke football needed the Eli Pancol breakout game in a big way

Eli Pancol finished with 11 receptions for 138 yards and a touchdown against SMU for a Duke team that desperately needs a top option.

Duke receiver Eli Pancol needed less than two seconds to get open in overtime against the SMU Mustangs.

The Blue Devils started their first overtime possession in need of a touchdown, and quarterback Maalik Murphy never looked like he debated where to go with the football. For the 14th time on Saturday, he hit the back of his drop and tossed the ball in Pancol’s general direction.

The fifth-year wideout blew right past SMU defensive back Jaelyn Davis-Robinson on a go route, and thanks to the air Murphy put under the throw, he jumped over the Mustangs corner to come down with the needed score.

While Murphy and Pancol couldn’t connect on the potential game-winning 2-point conversion, the receiver’s monster game against SMU highlighted something Duke football fans knew the team needed: a go-to outside target.

Entering the 2024 season, everyone in Durham knew the passing offense would run through senior Jordan Moore. The former quarterback led the team with 62 catches, 835 yards, and eight touchdowns in 2023, and he earned some ACC Preseason Player of the Year votes. Everyone presumed he’d become the school’s first 1,000-yard receiver in a decade.

After Moore started the season with back-to-back 100-yard performances, everything seemed to be proceeding as scheduled. Pancol caught four touchdowns in the first three games, but Moore was among the ACC leaders in every category.

In Week 3, however, Moore briefly left the game after a hard landing on a jump ball against Connecticut. While Moore returned to the field that night and has still caught a pass in every game this season, the star wideout has clearly been on some snap limitations. He’s caught 11 passes over the past five games after 23 receptions through Week 3, and he only played 12 snaps against the Florida State Seminoles in Week 8.

The passing offense, through a combination of increased competition and Moore’s absence, took a noticeable dip as it tried to replace his role. Other names stepped forward, from redshirt freshman Que’Sean Brown’s 11 catches against Connecticut to tight end Nicky Dalmolin’s first 100-yard game against Middle Tennessee, but Murphy’s aerial stats felt Moore’s absence.

Weeks 1-4 Weeks 5-8
Pass Yards/Attempt 7.11 5.44
Comp. Pct 64.6% 50.6%
Pass Yards/Game 256.0 161.3
Touchdowns/Game 2.75 1.00

On Saturday, however, the Murphy from September flickered back into the picture. The former Texas Longhorn threw three touchdowns for the first time since Week 4 en route to a career-high 295 yards, nearly half of which came from Pancol.

The 6-foot-3 Pancol looked dominant in multiple different ways against SMU. Eight of his 11 catches went for a first down, including a few passes he caught short of the sticks before breaking tackles to move the chains. He won downfield as well, bringing in a 22-yard over-the-shoulder shot on the game-tying touchdown drive before his overtime score.

He finished the game with 138 yards, and for the first time since Week 3, the Blue Devils felt like they had a reliable three-level threat on the perimeter.

Between a late-season injury in 2022 and a season-ending injury while preparing for the 2023 campaign, Pancol had missed 17 of Duke’s previous 18 games before the opener against Elon. He hadn’t played football since December 28, 2022, and he hadn’t caught a touchdown since November 13, 2021.

Offensive coordinator Jonathan Brewer doesn’t think it’s an accident that the veteran Blue Devil looked better after he spent more time on the field.

“Eli’s such a strong football player,” Brewer said during his Monday press conference. “He has such confidence in what he’s doing right now. It’s probably him coming back from all the injuries and then now he’s starting to get his legs into playing.”

Through eight games this season, Pancol leads the team with 36 receptions, and his six touchdowns are second among ACC wideouts. Both of those numbers are already career highs, as are his 446 receiving yards. If he plays a potential bowl game, his pace sets him up for 58 receptions and more than 700 yards.

When Pancol spoke after the game himself, however, he focused more on the team’s overall offensive success. The Blue Devils finished with 393 yards of offense, their third-most in a game this season, and bounced back in a strong way after a difficult 180-yard showing against Florida State.

“That’s the team that I knew we had,” Pancol said after Saturday’s game against SMU. “In practice, that’s how we play, so I’m glad we got to put that out there for everybody to see.”

With the undefeated Miami Hurricanes next on the schedule, Pancol and his fellow receivers will need to step up again. The Miami secondary has allowed 6.0 yards per pass attempt, second only to the Blue Devils among ACC teams, and even with a positive Moore update on Monday, Duke will need reliable people to target.

No matter how many snaps Moore plays, however, Murphy will have at least one safe option on Saturday.

“There’s a little bit of security that Eli’s going to get open,” Brewer said.

Three Duke players named to Pro Football Focus ACC Team of the Week for Week 9

Despite a close overtime loss to SMU in Week 9, three Duke Blue Devils were named to Pro Football Focus ACC Team of the Week.

Despite falling to the SMU Mustangs by one point in overtime this weekend, a handful of Duke football stars still shined bright. Included among them were the three players named to the Pro Football Focus ACC Team of the Week on Sunday.

Linebacker Tre Freeman III led the way on the National Team of the Week after he forced a fumble and picked off a pass. He finished with six total tackles, and his fourth-quarter interception set the Blue Devils up for a go-ahead field goal attempt. Wide receiver Eli Pancol and cornerback Chandler Rivers joined him on the conference squad.

Pancol caught 11 passes for 138 yards and one touchdown, including a 25-yard scoring grab in overtime when he won a contested catch over a Mustangs defensive back. He also snagged the game-tying 2-point conversion in the fourth quarter.

On Rivers’ side of things, the star cornerback had two solo tackles and two assisted tackles. Most notably, though, he made a diving interception in the final five minutes to give the offense a chance at victory in regulation. It marked two weeks in a row that Rivers snagged an interception after he returned one for a touchdown against the Florida State Seminoles in Week 8.

Duke offensive coordinator says 2-point attempt vs SMU came within one foot of working

Duke offensive coordinator Jonathan Brewer confirmed what fans saw with their own eyes on Saturday: the 2-point play was almost perfect.

In case any Duke football fans needed a reminder of how close the Blue Devils came to upsetting the SMU Mustangs on Saturday night, offensive coordinator Jonathan Brewer made the margin very clear during his Monday press conference.

Brewer said he and the offense worked on the play design for the climactic 2-point attempt as early as the third day of offseason practice. Eli Pancol, who caught a 25-yard touchdown pass on the previous play to set up the conversion, and tight end Jake Taylor ran a mesh concept, running crossing routes at each other from opposite sides of the field in hopes of getting at least one defender lost in the traffic.

“It’s pretty much what you would want to call versus a man coverage,” Brewer said. “We just didn’t execute. We didn’t have guys rub the mesh the right way and set up the mesh the right way.”

Murphy, who needed to scramble to his right after the SMU defensive line broke into the pocket, tried to find Pancol, but with Mustangs cornerback Jaelyn Davis-Robinson running with the wideout in stride, the ball sailed just past Pancol’s reach for an incompletion.

“It’s those details, those small details, that come back to haunt you because it’s the difference between probably about a foot. If he (Pancol) has a foot of separation between the defender and himself, he probably catches the ball and we win the game.”

Brewer, in his first year at the helm of the Duke offense, made it very clear which party deserves any blame for the mistake.

“It’s one of those things that showed up earlier in the game and we didn’t get it corrected,” he continued. “And that’s on us as coaches.”

The best Duke football photos from Saturday’s overtime loss to SMU

Check out the best photos from Duke’s Saturday night game against the SMU Mustangs.

The Duke Blue Devils came within one play of something exceptional on Saturday night.

After six wins in his first seven games as the Duke head coach, [autotag]Manny Diaz[/autotag] welcomed the No. 22 SMU Mustangs, his former assistant Rhett Lashlee, to Durham for a Week 9 battle set to reshape the conference championship race.

Despite falling behind by 14 points late in the third quarter, the Blue Devils tied the game and took possession across midfield with a chance to take the lead three different times in the final nine minutes. Quarterback [autotag]Maalik Murphy[/autotag] threw for a career-high 295 yards, including 11 completions for 138 yards to senior receiver Eli Pancol.

Instead, two empty field goal attempts (one missed and the other blocked) resulted in a trip to overtime, and a failed 2-point conversion kept Diaz from a seventh win in his debut season.

Here are the best photos from the Week 9 battle at Wallace Wade Stadium.

Duke wide receiver Eli Pancol sets personal single-season touchdown record in three games

Duke wide receiver Eli Pancol caught his fourth touchdown pass of the year on Saturday, a single-season personal record in just three games.

It’s hard to find a better feel-good comeback story in college football than Duke wide receiver [autotag]Eli Pancol[/autotag].

After back-to-back injury-ridden seasons, Pancol took the field for the first time since December 2022 when the Blue Devils played Elon in Week 1. He even caught a touchdown pass in his first game back, a heartwarming moment for an athlete who waited more than a year for his chance to play.

Then he caught two more touchdowns against Northwestern, including the eventual game-winner in overtime. And on Saturday against Connecticut, Pancol found a seam in the Huskies’ defense for a 36-yard scoring play, his fourth touchdown catch of the year.

Pancol has been with the Blue Devils since 2019, and before this final season, he’d never caught more than three touchdowns in a single year. In fact, across his collegiate career, he’d only caught five touchdown passes before 2024.

The veteran wide receiver is the only Blue Devil with more than two touchdown catches this season, and his 161 yards are the second-most on the roster through three games.

https://twitter.com/DukeFOOTBALL/status/1835091467737743828

Duke wide receiver Que’Sean Brown didn’t surprise the Blue Devils with his breakout game

Redshirt freshman Que’Sean Brown broke out with 11 catches for 87 yards against Connecticut, and the Blue Devils were completely unsurprised.

Most Duke football fans at Wallace Wade Stadium probably didn’t expect redshirt freshman Que’Sean Brown to lead the Blue Devils in every receiving category against Connecticut on Saturday, but his teammates and coaches were not among those surprised.

Brown caught 11 passes for 87 yards against the Huskies, and he reeled in his first touchdown of the season on a 20-yard go-ahead score in the fourth quarter. He made an impressive play on the ball there, too, spinning around to play the back-shoulder pass perfectly.

“It was one-on-one coverage,” Brown said after the game. “They (Duke’s coaches) said, ‘If they ever play you in man coverage, it’s disrespect, take advantage of that.'”

The Winston-Salem native, who stands 5-foot-8, also converted a key third down on Duke’s final drive. He found an opening for a 13-yard gain on third-and-7, moving the chains on a drive that saw the Blue Devils waste the final six minutes of clock.

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Diaz made a point to emphasize that Brown’s coaches and teammates have seen this player all offseason.

“If you ask anybody on our roster, they would tell you they saw that all August in training camp,” Diaz said. “He just started making play after play as he got comfortable in the offense…Just talking to the kids on defense, if you ask them, they felt like he was one of the hardest guys to cover on our team.”

Many of Brown’s receptions came near the line of scrimmage, taking advantage of his speed and agility to make tacklers miss for more yards. He credited his father for the mentality he brings as a ball carrier.

“My dad said, ‘Every time you get the ball, you should want to score a touchdown,'” Brown said after the game. “So with that mindset, it’s like, I’m not going to let this first guy tackle me…I just have that mindset, every time I get the ball that I’m trying to score a touchdown.”

The moments Duke turned to Brown further emphasized the team’s faith in him. Eight of his receptions came after halftime, and seven of them came on second or third down.

[autotag]Jordan Moore[/autotag] remains a candidate for the school’s single-season school receiving record, and sixth-year wideout [autotag]Eli Pancol[/autotag] caught his team-leading fourth touchdown pass against the Huskies, but Brown has clearly emerged as a steady contributor to the offense.

Duke football beats Northwestern in weird, mistaken-ridden Week 2 game

It took multiple overtimes, but the Blue Devils picked up their second win of the season over Northwestern on Friday.

In one of the weirdest college football games you will ever see, the Duke Blue Devils defeated Northwestern 26-20 in double overtime on Friday night.

After a high-flying debut from transfer quarterback Maalik Murphy last week, the cooler temperatures of Illinois seemed to chill the former Texas Longhorn early on. After the Blue Devils spent all game throwing downfield against Elon, the offense felt much more conservative against the Wildcats.

Murphy did have one standout first-half moment when he hit graduate wideout Eli Pancol on a slant route for the game’s first touchdown, but he completed seven of 13 passes for just 52 yards in the opening half.

After the Blue Devils averaged 2.2 yards per carry on the ground, those rushing struggles continued against the Wildcats. Duke’s offense gained just 42 yards on its 15 first-half rushing attempts, and senior running back Jaquez Moore left the game with an ankle injury before reappearing on the sideline with a walking boot. Without Murphy throwing the ball all over the field, the microscope focused even harder on those shortcomings.

Unfortunately, Northwestern running back Cam Porter did not share those issues. The senior rattled off a 44-yard run on the Wildcats’ second play of the game and rumbled his way into the end zone in the second quarter to put his team back ahead 10-7. He finished the game with 93 yards and a pair of scores on 16 carries.

The Blue Devils hoped to come out swinging when they received the second-half kickoff, but fans were instead treated to one of the most bizarre sequences of the year. After a quick Duke three-and-out, Northwestern blocked the ensuing punt to give their offense ideal field position and a chance to make it a two-score game.

Instead, the Wildcats offense also went three-and-out before kicker Jack Olsen clanked one off the upright from 29 yards away to keep the game 10-7. Duke seemed to have new life, but Murphy threw an interception two plays later to give the ball right back to Northwestern.

Ball game, right? Well, not if the Wildcats fumbled the ball back to the Blue Devils three plays after that.

The excitement toned down quite a bit from there with both teams trading field goals before Duke kicker Todd Pelino lined up for a game-tying effort from 33 yards with two minutes left to play. On any other night, the reliable Blue Devil would be a sure bet to knock one that short one through the uprights, but he pushed it wide to the right to keep Duke down.

The Blue Devils managed to get the ball back for one final gasp, and they tied the game against all odds. Murphy drove the team down the field, missing a potential game-winning touchdown to Jordan Moore but still driving the Blue Devils down to the doorstep of the end zone.

Pelino trotted out for a 22-yard attempt, and this time, he split the uprights.

After the two offenses traded touchdowns in the first overtime period, Murphy found Pancol yet again for this third passing touchdown of the game in the second overtime period. The Blue Devils failed their 2-point conversion, but a fourth-down stop on the other end meant they didn’t need the points anyway.

Murphy put the team on his back in the second half, leaving the early conservative playbook behind. He finished the game with 242 yards through the air, completing 24 of 39 passes. He connected on 12 of his final 15 attempts, including all three in overtime, for the improbable comeback.

Duke improves to 2-0 for the season and now gets an extra day of rest before taking on Connecticut in Week 3, the Blue Devils’ first Saturday game of the year.

Duke quarterback Maalik Murphy finds Eli Pancol for go-ahead touchdown vs. Northwestern

Duke quarterback Maalik Murphy threw his third touchdown of the season on Friday, a go-ahead score in the first quarter against Northwestern.

It’s safe to say transfer quarterback [autotag]Maalik Murphy[/autotag] will be very productive in his first season with the Duke Blue Devils.

The former Texas Longhorn found Eli Pancol for a go-ahead touchdown in the first quarter against Northwestern on Friday night. Murphy hit Pancol in stride on a slant route, and the veteran wideout dragged his defender into the end zone on his back.

The score, Murphy’s third of the season, came four plays after safety Terry Moore snagged the team’s first interception of the season. It was also Pancol’s second touchdown reception in two games. After injuries forced him to miss the entire 2023 season, he found the end zone for the first time in nearly three years against Elon in Week 1.

Murphy threw for 291 yards in that game, a career-high in his first appearance with the Blue Devils. He and offensive coordinator Jonathan Brewer talked about wanting to make Duke an explosive offense in 2024, and the early returns look like they delivered.

https://twitter.com/DukeFOOTBALL/status/1832229916915491157

Duke wide receiver Eli Pancol catches first touchdown pass since 2021

After multiple season-ending injuries over the last two seasons, Duke wideout Eli Pancol caught his first touchdown in three years on Friday.

For the first time in nearly three years, Duke wide receiver Eli Pancol caught a touchdown pass on Friday night.

During the Blue Devils’ season-opening victory over Elon, quarterback [autotag]Maalik Murphy[/autotag] rifled a short pass to Pancol in the late fourth quarter for the team’s third touchdown of the day.

Pancol, a sixth-year senior, first took the field in a Duke uniform back in 2019. However, an injury forced him to miss the last four games of the 2022 regular season. He then missed the entire 2023 campaign after a lower-body injury in the preseason, meaning the Elon game was his first regular-season action in 22 months.

The touchdown drought extended back even farther. Despite a career-high 347 yards in 2022, Pancol never added six points to the board. His last touchdown catch came against Virginia Tech on November 13, 2021, a whopping 1,021 days.

Pancol also had a 55-yard catch over the middle of the field in the second quarter, racing all the way into the red zone and breaking multiple tackles to set up a touchdown. He finished Friday’s game with seven receptions for 81 yards.

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