Duke Finds New Way to Win : ACC: Farmer blocks punt, recovers it in end zone for 19-13 victory as Blue Devils improve to 6-0.

One of the motivational slogans at Duke asks: “If I don’t do it, who will?” Well, try Ray Farmer.

For the eighth time in his career, Farmer blocked a kick on Saturday. This time, he recovered the block in the end zone with 3:37 left, giving the 25th-ranked Blue Devils (6-0, 3-0) a 19-13 Atlantic Coast Conference triumph over Clemson.

The victory assured Duke, 6-0, 3-0 in the ACC, of its first winning season in five years.

“I knew I had it when I cleared the (blocking back),” Farmer said of the block. “The punter had just gotten the ball and I was already back there. All I had to do was keep my eyes on it like coach said and run through it, put my hands down and take the ball off his foot. That’s all I concentrated on.”

Farmer, who earlier blocked a field-goal attempt, charged in and blocked Nelson Welch’s punt into the air. Ray Wright’s rush actually occupied two blockers, and Farmer got around the remaining blocking back.

The ball caromed into the end zone, where Farmer recovered it for the clinching score. Tom Cochran missed the point-after kick, leaving Duke’s defense to hold off the Tigers one more time.

Farmer has three blocked kicks this season. This time, there was a game on the line and all he wanted to do was find the ball once he’d deflected it.

“I knew the ball was coming back from the angle I blocked it. I really couldn’t find it at first,” Farmer said. “I saw it in the end zone and it was just a foot race to the ball and I got on it.”

Clemson (2-4, 1-3) started freshman Nealon Greene at quarterback in hopes of awakening a once-potent offense, which had scored only seven touchdowns in five games. Greene often escaped the Duke defenders by running the option offense, and it helped produce Raymond Priester’s 23-yard touchdown run late in the second quarter that tied the score 7-7.

However, while the Tigers might have found a quarterback for the rest of the season, they didn’t have a hero this weekend. Greene managed three passes to Antwuan Wyatt that helped move Clemson from its 20 to the Duke 44 after Farmer’s play. The Blue Devils called a timeout to stem the momentum, and that seemed to work.

Greene gained one yard on a keeper, then missed two passes for Wyatt. On fourth-and-nine at the Duke 31, Zaid Abdul-Aleem and David Hawkins combined to sack Greene for a 10-yard loss. The Blue Devil defense hasn’t allowed a touchdown in the first or the fourth quarter this year.

Duke matched its 6-0 start of 1952 and ensured a winning season for the first time since 1989.

“The question was not whether we’d be 6-0, but whether we would have a winning season,” Farmer said. “That was our first goal we set. We accomplished it today. Clemson was in the way and we had to go out there and beat them. I think we did a good job overall in getting the victory.”

Clemson has lost only two of the last 14 meetings with the Blue Devils.

“I thought our team improved as the game went along,” Clemson Coach Tommy West said. “There’s not a whole lot more you can say other than we played hard, which is great. But we’ve got to come up with a win and we can’t make mistakes like that and win the game.”

Welch kicked a pair of field goals in the third period, making him the ACC’s career leader with 61.