The culmination of a team position breakdown seems to be best saved for the area that most people focus their attention on with any football team: Quarterback.
Duke will have a new signal caller under center, or rather lined up several yard behind center for the first time in three years. Sean Renfree, who broke records as a three year starter for the Blue Devils graduated in May after leading Duke to its best season and first bowl appearance in 18 years last year.
However, Renfree takes his 9,465 yards, 51 touchdowns and 128.2 passer rating to the NFL and the Atlanta Falcons as a potential second string backup to Matt Ryan. That leaves the Blue Devils with uncertainty in the one position that you don’t want to have in head coach David Cutcliffe’s quarterback-centric offense.
The most likely stater and the only quarterback on the roster with any game experience is rising junior Anthony Boone. Boone who has started only one game in relief of Renfree last year ( a win over Virginia) has thrown for 829 career passing yards and 6 touchdowns.
Despite a lack of starts, Boone has seen game action playing in all but one of his 22 games in a Duke uniform. Cutcliffe has made it a mantra of his to make sure his backup quarterback gets real game experience through the use of many packages and he has done that in the case of Boone.
As a freshman he was used in short yardage and goal-line packages and was used in very much the same way last year, though he did get more time on extended drives. The highlight of his career was coming in for an injured Renfree during the Wake Forest game last season and helping Duke come from behind to beat the Demon Deacons for the first time in a dozen years.
He also started the game after that, at home against Virginia, and despite trailing at the half, he sparked the Duke offense to a decisive 42-17 victory.
With Boone at the helm expect the Duke offense to look much different than it did with Renfree. Renfree was more of a pocket, pro-style passing quarterback while Boone is clearly more designed for the intensely popular spread offense.
Boone isn’t a running quarterback in the stereotypical sense but he can run and expect him to use the read option quite a bit especially with the solid stable of running backs that the Blue Devils return. He has shown some ability to pass but most fans are nervous about his accuracy (53.4 percent) compared to Renfree’s (64.7 percent).
There is also the concern that his options to throw to aren’t as good, as the Blue Devils lose Conner Vernon and Desmond Scott, two of the most prolific receivers from last year’s team, and in Vernon’s case, Duke history. He will need guys like Max McCaffrey, Anthony Nash, Brandon Baxton, Issac Blakeney and tightend Braxton Deaver to be big time options in addition to Jamison Crowder who has already established himself as one of the better receivers in the ACC.
If he can get some help and limit the number of mistakes that are apt to be made by a new starter, then Duke’s offense has talent to be successful and Boone has the talent to put points on the board and move the chains. An area to potentially be nervous about is Boone throwing on the run, which he likely will be apt to do in a spread offense that will rely on bootlegs, especially with him being a little bit shorter at only 6-feet.
Those throws on the run are more likely to lead to bad throws and potential interceptions so he needs to be able to protect the ball. He also has to be smart when running and protect the ball there as well as himself. If Boone gets injured then there are major concerns to be had.
Thomas Sirk who was likely to be the backup to Boone, tore his Achilles tendon during Spring practice. While there is some hope that he maybe able to beat the odds (7 months to more than a year recovery time), it is highly unlikely that Sirk will see any game action this season in my opinion.
That leaves Brandon Connette, who has developed into more of an H-back, all-purpose football player rather than the quarterback he was recruited, as the only quarterback with game experience. Connette didn’t participate in the spring but is likely to be the primary backup to Boone at quarterback. And while he does have some game experience he has primarily been a running quarterback and the center of gimmick plays.
If he is forced to become Duke’s primary quarterback then the Blue Devils will have to hope he can be a more accurate passer (43.2 percent) than he has shown to date and that the offense can be more diverse than it has been with him running the offense.
Beyond Connette Duke’s options are even less experienced. Parker Boehme, a true freshman quarterback who enrolled early but missed all of the spring practices, is the only other quarterback that may be capable of leading the offense. Despite not practicing at all, Boehme played in the spring game out of shear necessity and after shaking off the rust, he looked okay.
But there is a big difference in playing in spring game against a defense comprised of second and third team guys and going against real competition.
It is a bit unrealistic to expect Boehme to be able to win a lot of games as a true freshman. That isn’t to say he couldn’t win games, but it is just unrealistic to expect him to come and and have a ton of success.
This season Duke is seeing a paradigm shift in the offense and quarterback position. Cutcliffe has gotten away from recruiting traditional pro-style quarterbacks like Renfree and has gotten more spread option-type quarterbacks like Boone, Sirk and Boehme. Guys who are good athletes and can run as well, if not better, than they throw.
Kurt Roper as a result is going to have to tweak the offense to match the talent he has at his disposal. You can never really predict what to expect from a Duke offense. When you think you know what they are good at and are going to do, they could very well end up doing the opposite of that.
Duke has solid running backs, at least one very good receiver and a quarterback that has had some success. There is an experienced offensive line and if the receiving corp can come through and Boone can stay healthy this team has the potential to be good offensively, though much different than than they have been in years past. But predicting with 100 percent certainty was is going to happen this year is not easy, it never is with Duke.
Projected Starter: Anthony Boone
Key Reserves: Brandon Connette, Parker Boehme, Thomas Sirk (likely out for season)
More Position Breakdowns:
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