What Duke coach Mike Elko said about Notre Dame football after Irish win

Duke head coach Mike Elko spoke candidly to the media Saturday night after Notre Dame’s 21-14 victory over his Blue Devils. The former Fighting Irish defensive coordinator made it clear that while Duke was defeated with a gut punch, his team still has so much to play for in the ACC this season.

“None of that is lost,” Elko said. “We didn’t lose anything tonight. We lost a game vs. Notre Dame.”

Here is everything else Elko said about Notre Dame vs. Duke.

Opening statement

“First of all, thank you to the Duke community. I thought we really showed out today for College GameDay at the beginning of the day, all the way through, that was an amazing atmosphere. Thank you to our students. I thought we packed the place. That was as great an atmosphere as you could have ever hoped for. It certainly was the home-field advantage that we hoped Wallace Wade could become. So, thank you to everyone who came to be part of it.

“Hats off Notre Dame, they won the game and they made more plays than we did. They converted the critical plays and made some big plays on special teams. And so, credit to them and credit to the job they did.

“From our standpoint, we just didn’t play a good game and that is just the reality of it. We didn’t start well and giving up the fake punt was obviously a huge momentum swing. We have been really good on special teams all year and we weren’t today. We weren’t able to get a lot of drives together.

“In the first half, we missed a couple of field goals and played about as bad as we could
possibly play. But the resiliency and the character of this team is unquestioned, and I think you saw that again.

“In the second half, I thought we battled our tails off. We fought and fought and got ourselves back in a position where we had a chance to win the game. We were up 14-13 and pinned the punt down there, which I thought was the right move, and tried to force them to go the long way. We got them into a 4th and 16 and unfortunately just didn’t get that executed. At that point, we probably sold out a little bit on the next run and [Audric] Estimé was able to break free for the touchdown. Unfortunately, that is how it ended.

“It hurts for these kids, they put a lot into this. Hopefully, they’ll take from this what they’re capable of and the confidence to go on the rest of the way and continue to battle this thing. We’ve got a really good football team; we just have some things that we have to clean up.”

On Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman converting on fourth and 16

“When you drop eight like that, you build out a five-underneath wall at the sticks and you have a hard time believing that a kid can scramble for 16 yards. I just have to go back and look to see what went wrong. It was hard to see live. You drop eight in that long yardage situation because you think the scramble is out of play and you just try to flood the coverage. In hindsight, maybe we should have just kept pressuring.”

On keeping the Duke players’ heads up after a tough loss

“We’re not looking for positive reinforcement. We’re looking to win football games. That’s what we’re here for. This team believes in who they are. they believe in what they’re capable of. There wasn’t one kid in that locker room that thought we were going to go on this stage and not be able to compete with Notre Dame. Nobody thought this was a massive landslide in our ability to go out there and play this game. We’re playing to win football games, and we didn’t tonight because we didn’t make enough plays. Hats off to Notre Dame. They did.”

On the mood inside the Duke locker room

“Heartbroken. Heartbroken. You’re a fourth and 16 away from No. 11 Notre Dame and going into the bye week 5-0. So, heartbroken.”

On punting the ball back to Notre Dame late instead of attempting a long field goal

“It was a 50-yarder. I really didn’t feel like that was something that was worth it. That pooch punt is something we’ve worked on since we got here with Riley [Leonard]. I felt confident if we pinned them back they’re we’d be able to make the stop. We’d been playing really well on defense. Their kid had such a strong leg. That kid could probably make it from 55-60. So if we gave them the ball around the 33 yard line, that didn’t look like a recipe for success for us.”