Charlotte 49ers spent Monday ‘choking down’ mistakes that led to Duke’s blowout
The Charlotte 49ers won’t shake the “Homecoming Game” label versus Power 5 schools until proven otherwise.
Saturday night that sure didn’t happen in a 53-19 road loss to Duke. After two days to review the damage, coach Will Healy said part of the challenge in these games is players believing they belong.
“I want this to be the big time. I want our players to feel like they’re playing in important football games. I don’t want to be the underdog. I want to expect to win,” Healy said in a conference call Monday with media.
“If we can’t handle that pressure, then we don’t have the right group in there.”
The 49ers (2-3) were playing a Duke team tied for last in the ACC standings, having only beaten Syracuse in conference games. It seemed a great shot at the 49ers’ first victory over a Power 5 team.
Yet, the Blue Devils jumped out to a 24-0 lead. Charlotte disintegrated on turnovers and gave up two blocked punts, giving Duke short fields throughout the game.
The 49ers now must regroup, preparing for a Conference USA road game at 2-5 Middle Tennessee (Saturday at 3:30 p.m.). The players reviewed film of their mistakes Monday morning, then prepared for an evening practice. They’re off Tuesday for election day.
Choke it down
How do they process what happened Saturday?
“You choke it down,” defensive end Tyriq Harris. “It’s going to hurt a little bit, but we know we have a game ahead of us.”
It’s been a weird, disjointed season for the 49ers due to the pandemic. A game against North Carolina was canceled, and two more against Georgia State and Florida International were postponed.
Healy has plenty of freshmen on his depth chart this season, after the 49ers went to their first bowl game last season. He’s wary of inexperience becoming an excuse. He said the focus in practice this week won’t be so much on Middle Tennessee as on cleaning up the pervasive sloppiness that made Saturday night miserable.
“Frustrating,” Healy said of Monday’s review with his players. “Not from a perspective of ‘You should have won the game’ -- any time you get beaten by 33 points, it’s hard to go back and say coulda-shoulda-woulda...
“Obviously some major disappointments with two blocked punts and two turnovers. Anytime you do things like that in a game of the magnitude of that” you give yourself little chance.
“A lot for us to work on.”
Couldn’t stop run
Beyond Charlotte mistakes making for short fields, the 49ers couldn’t do anything to stop Duke on the ground: The Blue Devils finished with 274 rushing yards -- an 8.1-yard average per attempt. Duke had the ball for less than 18 minutes, but that was only because the Blue Devils were scoring so quickly each possession.
Harris said it’s important to correct mistakes, but also not to lose confidence in the principles this team is learning along the way.
“It’s all about being consistent in what we want to do,” said Harris, in his third season as a team captain. “We’re not going to do anything differently than we’ve been doing the past eight, nine weeks we’ve been practicing.
“Understand it’s not about the other team. It’s all about us. It’s what we need to correct from ourselves.”
