Forcing six turnovers — and losing: How Duke squandered a chance to knock off No. 22 SMU

Just off the concourse at one end of Wallace Wade Stadium, Manny Diaz lamented as Saturday night turned into Sunday morning.

Duke’s coach had seen his defense force six SMU turnovers. The Blue Devils, who didn’t commit any turnovers, rallied from two touchdowns down in the second half to reach overtime, making a win over the No. 22 Mustangs probable.

But Duke couldn’t finish SMU off, failing to get points after three fourth-quarter SMU turnovers gave the Blue Devils the ball in SMU territory with the game tied.

Down a point in overtime, Duke failed on a two-point try and lost 28-27.

“For the guys in that locker room,” Diaz said, “it’s a lot of emotions. It’s sad. It’s anger, confusion, whatever you feel, they feel.”

On the other side of the stadium, 120 yards or so behind the scoreboard in the visitors’ locker room, SMU coach Rhett Lashlee spoke with relief after his team survived all that mayhem.

“We’re just really humbled to get a win and probably put on a clinic on how to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat,” Lashlee said. “There’s four or five times probably in the last 10 minutes of that game that I just said, ‘You know, it’s not our night.’”

But it was because for all those SMU turnovers, Duke couldn’t convert any of them directly into points.

Part of the fault for that falls on kicker Todd Pelino, who not only missed his first extra point of the season, but failed on two field-goal tries in the final 5:38 of regulation with the scored tied at 21-all.

With three seconds left, after Duke linebacker Ozzie Nicholas had returned SMU quarterback Kevin Jennings’ fumble to the Mustangs 14 with 1:17 to play, Pelino lined up for a 30-yard field goal that would have delivered a Duke victory.

But SMU’s Jahfari Harvey jumped completely over a Duke blocker to enter the backfield and block the kick, sending the game to overtime.

Once there, SMU’s Brashard Smith scored on a 24-yard touchdown run and the Mustangs were up 28-27.

On Duke’s possession, Maalik Murphy tossed a 25-yard touchdown pass to Eli Pancol on the Blue Devils’ first play.

Diaz decided the game would end on the next play. Was it in his mind that Pelino had missed his last three kicks? Yes it was.

But, moreso he said, it had to do with the NCAA’s rule changes that require two-point conversion attempts after second-overtime touchdowns. Had Duke kicked the extra point to tie the game at 28, it likely faced a two-point try in the second overtime.

“You need a touchdown, a two-point conversion, the way the rules are now, anyway,” Diaz said, before using baseball metaphors to describe college overtimes. “So if you got a chance to win the game in the bottom of the first inning, to me, you do it because the best case scenario for offense in the top of the second inning was the score a touchdown and then go for two. So you have to make a two-point conversion win the game anyhow.”

Duke’s attempt to do that in the first overtime failed when Murphy rolled right and tried to get the ball to Pancol in the end zone. But SMU’s defense left him no room to get the ball to him and it hit the turf incomplete to end the game.

“I commend coach Diaz so much for his play-calling,” Pancol said. “I thought it was a great play call. I thought we were gonna score and win the game. But SMU is a great team. They watch film, too. They’ve got a good defense, so they covered it up and they made a great play.”

Duke’s defense, while giving up a season-worst 469 yards to SMU, did more than enough to win the game. The Blue Devils intercepted Jennings three times. They recovered three Mustangs fumbles. That unit also stopped SMU from scoring when it had first-and-goal at the Duke 1 in the third quarter.

After the Mustangs took a 21-7 third-quarter lead, the Blue Devils defense limited them to 34 total yards on their next four drives. Three of them ended in turnovers as they never possessed the ball in Duke territory again in regulation.

“We have the best defense in the country,” Pancol said. “That’s just a fact.”

But even though Duke took over the ball at the SMU 37, 39 and 14, on its final three possessions of regulation, the Blue Devils scored zero points. Pelino missed a 42-yard field goal with 5:38 to play.

The next time Duke got the ball, at the SMU 39, the offense gained just one yard on three plays before punting.

When Nicholas returned the Jennings fumble to the SMU 14, it sure looked like Duke would hand the Mustangs their first ACC defeat.

Lashlee knows how likely that was.

“We should’ve lost that game five different times late,” he said. “We should have. And if we played it 100 times, we’re probably losing 99 of them the way the game unfolded. This just happened to be the one time. Our guys just kept playing, kept fighting.”

That the Mustangs did. So now SMU (7-1, 4-0 ACC), in its first year in the league, remains one of four teams unbeaten in the ACC. That will change on Saturday night when SMU plays No. 19 Pitt (7-0, 4-0 ACC) in Dallas.

Meanwhile, Duke (6-2, 2-2 ACC) heads to play at No. 6 Miami (8-0, 4-0 ACC) in a game with lessor importance after the Blue Devils lost to SMU.

Everyone is trying to catch No. 9 Clemson (6-1, 5-0 ACC) in the league standings. SMU, Pitt and Miami still have a chance.

Duke’s chances to do so are far less likely. That’s a tough thing for the Blue Devils because beating SMU would have changed that.

But they have to live with it and head on the road to face another ranked team, a Miami program that fired Diaz back in 2021 even though he’d posted a 21-15 record in three seasons there.

So the emotions will be high when Duke heads south next weekend. The Blue Devils will do so having dealt with a gut-punch of a loss to SMU, needing to shake that off quickly to finish a promising season strong.

“We have some competitors,” Pancol said. “We have some hard workers, some people who are going to go out there and put their life on the line for this game and for our team. I’m proud of every single person on the offense, defense. I’m proud of Todd Pelino. I’m proud of everybody. We didn’t win. I hate losing but that’s where I’m at right now. Really proud of those guys.”