Lewis’ arm makes Blue Devils go

Thaddeus Lewis will walk into Scott Stadium on Saturday with a heavy heart.

With his team sitting at 4-3 overall and 2-1 in the ACC, it seems rather odd. But Duke’s senior quarterback played high school with Connecticut defensive back Jasper Howard.

In an event that shook the college football world, Howard was stabbed to death 10 days ago. As Lewis took the field last weekend against Maryland, a memorial of sorts was made with the eye-black patches that adorn his face.

“I grew up with Jazz. I was in the ninth grade when he was in eighth, and we lived in the same apartment complex,” Lewis told reporters. “To find out something happened like that was pretty sad. I put his name in my eye black last week as a little tribute.”

Outside of losing his friend prematurely, Lewis has had little to complain about this season. He is one of the top passers in the ACC — he ranks fifth in passing efficiency and second in total offense, and only Florida State’s Christian Ponder has thrown for more yards — and the Blue Devils rank sixth in the country in passing yardage.

The signal caller can take another step in achieving a monumental feat for a program known the past two decades for dwelling in the cellar — Duke has not won three ACC games in a season since 1999.

“I had never been 2-1 in the conference since I have played at Duke, but we took another step as a football team,” Lewis said after beating Maryland last week 13-10. “There are a lot of opportunities in front of you, and it is a matter of what you do with those opportunities.”

For the season, Duke is averaging 322 yards per game through the air.

The question lingers, however, if the aerial assault will work against Virginia — the Cavaliers lead the conference in pass defense.

“The matchup of our receivers against their secondary is going to be critical,” Duke coach David Cutcliffe said. “They pushed us around a year ago in that regard. They bullied us pretty good. We will be challenged, without a doubt.”

The comments seemed off-target given the final outcome last year: Duke 31, Virginia 3. But Lewis managed just 160 yards passing and Duke scored a majority of its points through excellent field position from four interceptions thrown by Cavalier quarterback Marc Verica.

From the surface, Lewis appears to be a completely different quarterback, spreading the ball to numerous targets despite losing Erron Riley to professional football.

“I think probably a little bit of a question as to whether [Lewis] actually lost his best wide receiver or not,” Virginia coach Al Groh said, praising the current crop of pass-catching options at Duke. “But he’s showing, one, the value of being a four-year starter. Those of you who were here to see him in his true freshman year — or, I guess it was down there when we played him as a true freshman — will remember it was pretty challenging for him. He had a difficult time that day, as might be expected with a first year quarterback against an ACC defense.

“He’s now a fourth-year quarterback with probably, in all likelihood, more starts than any quarterback in the Atlantic Coast Conference at this current time. So, that certainly shows, not only the fourth year as an ACC starter, but the second year under Cutcliffe who has great experience and know how and development of quarterbacks. He clearly has profited by that.”

Should Virginia, boasting lockdown cornerbacks Chris Cook and Ras-I Dowling, hamper the Blue Devils’ passing attack early, don’t expect the team to shift gears as Virginia did by waving the white flag when its running game disappeared early against Georgia Tech.

“When they have difficulty passing in the game, passing the ball, they don’t suddenly say, ‘OK, now we’re going to run it 60 times in this game,’” Groh said. “They say, ‘We have to find some patterns that will get open better from the ones that we’ve been running.’”