As Head Coach Mike Elko Is Coaching Inaugural Bowl Game As Duke Head Coach Duke Is Facing, Opposing UCF (University Of Central Florida) Today In Military Bowl In Annapolis Maryland
As Head Coach Mike Elko is coaching inaugural bowl game as Duke Head Coach Duke is facing, opposing UCF (University Of Central Florida) today in Military Bowl in Annapolis Maryland following finishing regular season with a record of 8-4 including winning their regular season game on Senior Day verses Wake Forest November 26, 2022 34-31 as Sahmir Hagans caught 20 yard pass from quarterback Riley Leonard, Todd Pelino kicked extra point giving Duke a 34-31 win over Wake Forest where Mike Elko was defensive coordinator as well as safeties coach under current Wake Forest Head Coach Dave Clawson.
Before that though in the first quarter Todd Pelino kicked 42 yard field goal giving Duke a 3-0 lead before Wake Forest responded with touchdown as Justice Ellis ran for 6 yards, Matthew Dennis kicked extra point giving Wake Forest a brief 7-3 lead before Duke responded with touchdown as Sahmir Hagans caught 30 yard pass from Riley Leonard, Todd Pelino kicked the extra point giving Duke a 10-7 lead over Wake Forest before Duke extended their lead as Jalon Calhoun caught 46 yard pass from Riley Leonard, Todd Pelino kicked extra point extending Duke’s lead 17-7 before Wake Forest answered with touchdown kicked extra point of their own as Donavon Greene caught 8 yard from Sam Hartman, Matthew Dennis kicked extra point trimming Wake Forest deficit to 14-17 before Wake Forest up Duke, Wake Forest game at 17-17 on Matthew Dennis 32 yard field goal before Duke took lead with 14 second left before halftime on Todd Pelino 32 yard field goal at 20-17. In 3rd quarter Duke, Wake Forest each scored touchdown as Jordan Moore caught 30 yard pass from Riley Leonard , Todd Pelino kicked extra point giving Duke 27-17 lead before Wake Forest responded with touchdown of their own as Taylor Morin caught 17 yard pass from Sam Hartman Matthew Dennis kicked extra point giving Wake Forest 27-24 lead over Duke before Wake Forest extended lead over Duke to start 4th quarter as A.T. Perry caught 6 yard pass from Sam Hartman, Matthew Dennis kicked extra point to give a Wake Forest 31-27 lead over Duke.
Following Duke’s 34-31 win over Wake Forest Head Coach Mike Elko had this to say for his 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 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.”
On how critical final touchdown was!
“I thought that touchdown at the end was critical. I thought for us to score that touchdown when we were losing and be able to take the lead, I thought that was really really important for how the game played out … You deserved that one… For us to bounce back on offense the way we did. For us to score the touchdown … have it get taken off … have to punt it back to them and then go down and for Sahmir
“According to goduke.com”
UCF is a member of American Athletic Conference comes into the Military Bowl with a record of 9-4 because unlike Duke they lost their previous game the American Athletic Championship game to Tulane 45-21. In the 1st quarter Shae Wyatt caught 10 yard pass from Michael Pratt Valentino Ambrosio kicked extra point giving Tulane 7-0 lead over UCF (University Of Central Florida) before Tulane extended their lead as Valentino Ambrosio kicked 27 yard field goal to extend Tulane’s lead 10-0 . In the 2nd quarter UCF (University Of Central Florida) got on scoreboard for inaugural time as Xavier Townsend ran for 5 yard touchdown , Colton Boomer kicked extra point trimming Tulane’s lead to 10-7 before Tulane would extend their lead to 17-7 as Lawrence Keys III would catch 43 yard pass from Michael Pratt Valetino , Ambrosio kicked extra point to extend Tulane’s lead 17-7 . In the 3rd quarter Tyjae Spears would run 60 yards for touchdown, Valentino Ambrosio kicked extra point extending Tulane’s lead to 24-7 over UCF (University Of Central Florida) In the 3rd quarter Tyjae Spears ran for 60 yards touchdown , Valentino Ambrosio kicked extra point extending Tulane’s lead 24-7 before UCF(University Of Central Florida ) would respond with touchdown of their own as Kobe Hudson caught 17 yard pass from John Ryas Plumlee, Colton Boomer kicked extra point trimming Tulane’s lead to 24-14. In the 4th quarter Deuce Watts caught 73 yard pass from Michael Pratt, Valentino kicked extra extending Tulane’s lead 31-14 before UCF(University Of Central Florida) would score pair of touchdowns to trim the deficit to 31-21 , 31-28 as Kobe Hudson would catch 49 yard pass from R.J. Harvey , Colton Boomer kicked extra point before Isiah Bower would run for 10 yard touchdown , Colton Boomer would kick extra point before Tulane would score twice go on to win American Athletic Championship as Shae Wyatt caught 60 yard pass from Michael Pratt, Valentino Ambrosio kicked extra point giving Tulane ten point at 38-28 before scoring final touchdown as Michael Pratt ran 18 yards, Valentino Ambrosio kicked extra point.
“According to espnapp”
Following UCF (University Of Central Florida ) h45-28 loss UCF (University Of Central Head Coach Gus Malzahn had this to say!
First of all, give Tulane all the credit. They're a really good team and we knew that coming in,"We didn't play our best, but they had something to do with that. I'm proud of our team and the way we fought back. We got off a tough start, but we fought back and made a three-point game at 31-28 and it was right there before us. Give them credit, they went down and scored to take the momentum back."
“According to article on uvfknights.com”
Kickoff is set for 2:00pm from Navy -Marine Corps Memorial Stadium!
The game is going to be televised on ESPN with Kevin Brown, Hutson Mason , Marilyn Payne commentating!