Duke dumped by Anderson again

DURHAM — Damien Anderson was just getting his feet wet when Duke beat Northwestern during his first year playing for the Wildcats.

Anderson hasn’t looked back since, but the Blue Devils must in order to remember the last time they defeated a nonconference opponent.

The Heisman hopeful rushed 23 times for 189 yards and four touchdowns as the 16th-ranked Wildcats handed Duke its 15th consecutive defeat with a 44-7 win at Wallace Wade Stadium.

Duke’s defeat tied a school record for consecutive losses set from 1995-97. Its last win came against Wake Forest on Nov. 13, 1999.

The Blue Devils (0-3) haven’t won a nonconference game since beating Northwestern 44-10 on Sept. 12, 1998.

“A win would do a great deal for everybody’s psyche right now,” Duke coach Carl Franks said. “We’ve got to continue to win small battles during the football game to have a chance to win the big battles. We’re not winning enough of those right now.”

Anderson had a large part in that now and in the past. He was a redshirt freshman back in 1998 and had his longest run of the season in the loss to Duke — a 36-yard touchdown.

He got his first score of 2001 on an 11-yard TD run with 7:07 left in the first quarter to put Northwestern (2-0) ahead 7-0.

Anderson ran in from 5 yards on the Wildcats’ next possession and got the hat trick with a 16-yard scoring run to give the Wildcats a 27-7 lead with 13:50 left in the third quarter.

Anderson finished off the four-TD night with a 1-yard plunge less than nine minutes later.

“We feel we should score every time we have the ball,”Anderson said. “We’re flowing right now, but we understand this was just one step.”

Said Duke linebacker Nate Krill, “They have a great scheme, and he’s a great running back. He’s real slippery, he makes a lot of in-and-out moves, three moves at a time.”

The Wildcats outgained the Blue Devils 303-137 on the ground in the contest. Northwestern QB Zak Kustok also had a fine game through the air, completing 21-of-31 passes for 318 yards and one touchdown.

Anderson caught three of Kustok’s offerings for 61 yards.

The Wildcats’ offense, which didn’t huddle and often lined up out of the shotgun with four wideouts, was simply too tough for the Duke defense.

“I expect Zak Kustok to make big plays and to play big, but all the guys are making big catches for him,” Northwestern coach Randy Walker said.

The Duke offense didn’t have the same success.

The Wildcats intercepted Duke quarterback D. Bryant three times and limited tailback Chris Douglas to 56 yards rushing. Bryant did engineer a six-play, 64-yard scoring drive in the first half, which ended on a 6-yard strike to Mike Hart to temporarily tie the game at 7-7.

But the Blue Devils didn’t get past the Northwestern 40 on any of their next six possessions. By that point, the Wildcats led 44-7.

Douglas, who had 30 carries for 112 yards against Rice in Duke’s last game, attempted only eight runs on Saturday. Franks said the Blue Devils had more plays planned for Douglas, but they switched out of them at the line of scrimmage.

“We checked out of them because they didn’t look too good,” Franks said.

Not much did Saturday.

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Contact Bret Strelow at 704-797-4258 or bstrelow@salisburypost.com .