ATLANTA — With 4 seconds left and a chance to send the game to overtime, Duke football kicker Gavin Strange lined up for a 33-yard field goal against Georgia Tech.
The snap was off-target and the kick no good. Georgia Tech (2-3, 1-1 ACC) kneeled it out on its next drive to escape with 28-25 victory, its sixth straight over the Blue Devils (4-1, 1-1).
Duke had outscored Georgia Tech 15-14 in the second half, taking its first lead with two minutes left. The Yellow Jackets answered with a score of their own to set up Strange’s field-goal try.
Despite the missed opportunity, Duke coach Manny Diaz praised Strange, who was thrust into the starting role on short notice.
“I’ve got so much respect for Gavin Strange, thrust into duty this week,” Diaz said. “I thought he was extraordinary, I thought he had tremendous courage.”
Strange was thrown into the starting job after Cosme Salas went down with what Diaz described as a “freak injury” in Thursday’s practice.
“We really didn’t know until Thursday to Friday,” Diaz said. “Gavin’s a baller. I mean, if you look at what Gavin did in high school, multi-sport athlete, I mean, he’s just that type of guy. And so the team has a lot of confidence in him. We did a field-goal period on Friday, which is really the first time we really knew that he’d be the guy, and he went out there and knocked them all in.”
Strange made his other attempt from 35 yards out and made both of his extra point attempts.
“I think the team’s got a lot of respect for Gavin,” Diaz said. “I think today we’ll show even why, and they’ll respect him even more.”
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The Blue Devils will look to regroup next week against UNC at Wallace Wade Stadium. As to whether they will have Salas back, that question remains unclear.
“We hope to have him,” Diaz said. “Suffered kind of a freak injury in practice and we didn’t have a true evaluation going into the weekend so we decided to go with Gavin today. And we’ll probably know more about when we get back early next week.”
Anna Snyder covers Duke for The Fayetteville Observer as part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at [email protected] or follow her @annaesnydr on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: What Manny Diaz said about Gavin Strange after late FG miss in Duke loss