Breaking Down the Strengths of the Duke Blue Devils' Offense

With that in mind, let's take a look at the strengths of the offense and how they measure up against the rest of the nation through this portion of the season, with notable matchups around the corner in the coming weeks.

Efficiency

Offensively, Duke is one of the highest-scoring teams in the nation, averaging 36.5 points per game. That starts with their offensive efficiency, which puts them in advantageous situations consistently in each game.

For instance, quarterback Darian Mensah is completing 69.8% of his passes including games with 73.3% (at California), 78.6% (at Syracuse), and 79.4% (vs. Elon).

When a quarterback is completing passes at that rate, the offense is going to find itself ahead of the chains more often than not, opening up more of the playbook in specific situations.

Additionally, the run game has played a part in creating large passing lanes for Mensah. Running backs Nate Sheppard and Anderson Castle have been the focal points in the rushing attack.

Shepard has taken 56 carries for 447 yards and four touchdowns, averaging eight yards per carry through six games. Meanwhile, Castle has 42 carries for 263 yards and six touchdowns, averaging 6.3 yards per carry.

When the pass and run games mesh together, the potential for offensive production is astronomically high, which makes execution and game planning that much easier.

Ball Security

As head coach Manny Diaz talked about after Duke's win over California, the turnover battle is the difference between winning and losing college football games.

Through six weeks, the Blue Devils have committed seven turnovers, which is middle of the pack in the ACC. However, five of those turnovers are fumbles, which can be a fluky and misleading statistic. The important stat to pay attention to is interceptions thrown by the quarterback.

Mensah has only thrown two interceptions in that same span compared to 15 touchdowns. The quarterback has the ball in his hands every single down, and if the team's quarterbacks are frugal in giving the opposing defense opportunities to flip the field, then that team has an increased possibility of piling up wins.