Nate Sheppard Runs Duke past Tulane 17-3
Thirty-five carries, 227 yards, two touchdowns. Nate Sheppard did the whole job for Duke, and Tulane never found an answer to him in a 17-3 opener.
Duke wasted no time. Sheppard ran in from nine yards out in the first quarter, and Cosme Salas kicked a 22-yard field goal as the half expired to make it 10-0. Then nothing happened for a while. Tulane's only points came in the fourth quarter, a 37-yard Jackson Courville field goal at 13:37 that made it 10-3. Duke answered with Sheppard again, a 14-yard run with 6:44 to play, and that was the ballgame. Tulane never scored a touchdown and never led, and Duke was never tied or behind.
The team numbers explain why. Duke ran 48 times for 251 yards and threw for just 131 (Walker Eget went 13 of 26). Tulane actually moved the ball through the air, 204 passing yards on 11 of 21 from Kadin Semonza plus 6 of 9 for 64 from Zeon Chriss, but it managed only 54 yards on 26 rushes and came away with a field goal. Each side lost a fumble, and Duke's defense picked up three sacks while Tulane's picked up none.
Duke starts 1-0 and Tulane starts 0-1. A 17-3 loss is not a catastrophe in Week 1, but 258 total yards for three points is the kind of ratio that gets a coordinator a long Sunday.
The fantasy angle is not subtle. Sheppard put up 39.6 Promethium points, and the next best scorer in the game had 11.7. Nobody else in the building was even in the same zip code.