The Daily Nole

Seminoles Get Ugly Win at Duke, 17-10

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It wasn’t pretty, but Florida State avoided its worst 5-game start since before the Bobby Bowden era with a 17-10 win over Duke at Wallace Wade Stadium on Saturday.

The decisive score came on a 42-yard third-down run by freshman Cam Akers with 8:25 to go. The score was the first of Akers’ career. Other firsts on Saturday included linebacker Emmett Rice’s first career interception and freshman receiver D.J. Matthews’ first career catch.

Akers broke the 100-yard mark for the second straight week, finishing with 115 yards on the ground on 15 carries. Junior Jacques Patrick also had a nice day with 98 yards rushing on 18 carries.

The Seminoles (2-3, 2-2 ACC) dominated statistically, finishing with 425 total yards to 315 for Duke (4-3, 1-3 ACC). Still, the Blue Devils managed to hang around.

FSU scored on its opening drive as quarterback James Blackman found Auden Tate for a 20-yard touchdown to cap a 12-play 83-yard drive. It was Tate’s fifth touchdown of the year. Blackman finished 18-for-21 passing for 197 yards, but two of his three misfires were interceptions.

FSU took a 7-3 lead into the locker room and extended that lead to 10-3 with a short Ricky Aguayo field goal with 4:54 left in the third quarter. It took Duke less than three minutes to answer as Brittain Brown scored from nine yards out on a drive that was extended by a 57-yard completion from Daniel Jones to T.J. Rahming on 3rd-and-17.

Rahming finished with a game-high 111 yards receiving on eight catches. Jones finished with 204 yards passing and had a throw into the end zone as time expired, but it was knocked down.

FSU will look to win consecutive games for the first time this season when it returns home to take on Louisville next Saturday. Duke will remain home to face Pittsburgh.

Mike Ferguson is the editor of The Daily Nole. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeWFerguson

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