FSU football: Breaking down Duke’s defense in every metric

Parting Thoughts

The FSU run game will be key against the Duke defense. Duke’s front seven defensive line doesn’t create a ton of tackles for a loss. Their four leading tacklers are two linebackers and two safeties. Can Duke afford to bring a safety down in the box to try and limit FSU’s run game?

Can they get FSU behind the chains and force obvious passing situations? The short answer seems to be not consistent as long as FSU executes and avoids dropping passes or procedure penalties.

We saw Clemson have a lot of success running the ball and getting the ball to their running backs in open space against Duke’s linebackers. I’d expect to see some of that before eventually starting to go vertical as Duke brings guys closer to the line of scrimmage. The guys in the desert expect FSU to score much more than Duke has allowed on average this season.

I expect it also because I don’t think Duke can consistently win at the line of scrimmage on either side of the ball.

We’ll get into Duke’s offense, but if FSU can consistently play complementary football? We could have a rout Saturday night, especially if Riley Leonard can’t play.