So, now that I've slept and calmed down a bit...
It was really ugly, but I'm really happy we were able to get out of there with a win.
Defense played well at times and not so well at times. I'd say Duke's kicker bailed us out, but only one of those two misses was that bad. It's not uncommon to miss a 42 yard field goal, but missing that one from 30 yards was bad. So the defense gave up 27, but felt more like 30. That's probably not good enough to beat most teams on our schedule given the offensive issues we've got right now.
Offense was a mess for most of the game. I've seen many say Jeff looked lights out to start, but I'm not sure that's an accurate assessment. The TD to Gibbs was a flat out blown coverage...credit to Jeff for seeing it and making the throw, but I think it's fair to say that just about any QB in college football hits Gibbs for that TD. The scramble and pass to Carter on the second drive was nice to setup the TD - and I LOVED SEEING US LINE UP UNDER CENTER TO PUNCH IT IN. Jeff looked pretty bad most of the rest of the game. He throws off his back foot too much and he's got to stop turning the damn ball over. To his credit, he made some big throws at critical times. The TD pass to McGowan was an awesome throw, and his passes to Sanders on the final drive were big (though he still threw off his back foot on the TD pass...amazing how far it went).
I can't believe we couldn't score with 1st down at the 13. The inability to run is probably due to the O line issues, but that third down call was pathetic. What was Gibbs going to do if he caught the ball at the 5 standing still? I've watched it about 10 times and it looks like that was his first read. Bad play call in my opinion - and this is the sort of thing that frustrates me about our OC. It's not the general plays we run, but strange calls in certain situations.
Glad we got to win. Duke bailed us out a bit, but the same could be said about us even letting them get back in the game. In the end we won. Lots to clean up - hopefully the O line can get healthy before we head to Charlottesville.