As Quarterback Riley Leonard Threw 20 Yard Pass To Wide Receiver Sahmir Hagans For Touchdown Saturday Duke Head Coach Mike Elko Topped Former Team In Dave Clawson, Wake Forest 34-31 Saturday
Mike Elko was Dave Clawson’s defensive coordinator for three seasons 2014-2016 as well as safeties coach.
Mike Elko’s 2016 unit ranked in the top-20 nationally in fumbles recovered (3rd), turnovers forced (10th), sacks (12th), defensive TDs (17th), red zone defense (17th) and scoring defense (20th). That year, the Demon Deacons were one of the four schools in the FBS to rank in the top-20 in turnovers forced, sacks and scoring defense. The three other programs qualified for the College Football Playoff that season (Alabama, Clemson and Washington).
In 2015, the Wake Forest defense ranked 38th in the nation, allowing just 363.8 yards per game. The Demon Deacons also ranked among the national leaders in red zone defense and pass defense efficiency. A year earlier, Wake Forest finished 12th nationally in passing yards allowed and was a top-40 team in total defense. The unit finished with five defensive players earning All-ACC honors.
During his stint in Winston-Salem, he mentored All-ACC and ACC Defensive Rookie of the Year runner-up Jessie Bates III, who finished with 93 tackles and five interceptions in his career, including two that were returned for a touchdown in 2016.
”According to Mike Elko’s biography on goduke.com”
As quarterback Riley Leonard threw 20 yard pass to Wide Receiver Sahmir Hagans for touchdown Saturday Duke Head Coach Mike Elko topped former team in Wake Forest coach by Dave Clawson
Following Duke’s 34-31 win over Wake Forest Head Coach Mike Elko had this to say in his opening statement Opening Statement “First off, hats off to Wake Forest. What a great football game and tremendous fight and grit on both sides of the ball. Obviously, that one means a lot to me for all the time that I spent with a lot of guys over there, so hats off to them. They’re a great program. They’re a great team. Dave [Clawson] does an amazing job with what they’re doing over there. Our kids just keep fighting. I don’t know how many times we can say it. How many times they can prove it, but they will not blink, and they will not stop coming. Man, tonight just kind of epitomized our whole season in that regard. We had our ups and downs at times during the year. There were times where it looked good. Times where it didn’t look good, but we just don’t stop, and we keep coming and defensively we were able to make just enough plays to give us a chance and our quarterback is special. He’s had a special year. He is a special competitor and every time we get into these big moments, he delivers. Just hats off to him. For him to have the game that he did tonight and execute the way that he did in the throw game and to our wide receivers. Jalon Calhoun had a huge night. Sahmir Hagans has a huge night and makes two critical catches to win us the football game. A touchdown and obviously the one that runs the clock out. Jordan Moore continues to make plays. We've gotten banged up over there on offense. We’re thin. We don’t have everybody that we had to start the year, but it doesn’t matter, they just keep playing. Defensively, we’ve made that stop all year. We’ve made that stop in the fourth quarter when we’ve needed to all year and we did it again today. No shocker that it was Shaka Heyward and Dewayne Carter making the big play for us on defense. I’m just so happy for our guys. So proud for our seniors, the guys who just played their last game in Wallace Wade. I told them all week, for everything that they’ve put into this season and all the work that they’ve put in, they deserve to go out with this win. They deserve to go out as an 8-4 football team. They deserve to go out as a 5-3 team in the ACC. That’s how this story should’ve ended and just so proud of them for ending it that way today.”
On if he imagined success this quickly as first year Head Coach on how critical final touchdown was! “Listen, when you take over and you look at the results and you look at where the program is and the record and all of that stuff, you certainly don’t imagine that it’s going to flip to 8-4, but when you take over the job, you don’t know the character of the locker room. I think very quickly, we learned that there is a lot of character in this locker room. There is a lot of fight in this locker room. There’s a lot of kids down there that have a lot of pride in Duke football and making Duke football special again. As we started to learn that we knew that we were going to have a chance. We knew we were going to compete. We knew we were going to play hard. We knew we were going to throw it all out there every single week. I think we’ve just grown in confidence. I’ve talked about how maybe it was a bit of a blessing the way the season step laddered all the way through. We’ve gotten in the game a couple times with some of the better teams in this conference and haven’t been able to find a way to get over the top, obviously today finding a way to get it over the top is pretty special.”
As quarterback Riley Leonard threw 20 yard pass wide receiver Sahmir Hagans for touchdown Duke Head Coach Mike Elko topped former team in Dave Clawson, Wake Forest Saturday.
Where?
Durham!
Duke finishes inaugural regular season under Head Coach Mike Elko with record of 8-4 and now awaits their bowl destination who they will opposing in their bowl.