Brandon Connette celebrates his first-quarter touchdown in Saturday's 46-26 win over FIU. Credit: CHIRS SEWARD-cseward@newsobserver.com
I wrote a story for today's paper about the parallels Duke saw between last year's Stanford game and last week's Florida International game. Basically, the games started out the same—tight, competitve affairs early—but then Duke made a big play, and that's when the outcomes went in opposite directions. Give it a read using the link above, or click here, if you prefer.
Brandon Connette cited the stat about how quickly the Stanford game (the Cardinal scored 20 points in a span of 22 snaps). He has a compelling source of insight for this year's matchup, too, in his little brother, Simon, who is a safety at San Jose State, the team Stanford played last week. It took a fourth-quarter to pull out a 20-17 win against a team it beat 57-3 in 2011.
"They should have had them," Connette said, shaking his head, of San Jose State.
Connette did talk to his younger brother before the game.
"I just asked him what the game plan was, and he told me," Connette said. "I watched them play, and they executed very well."
The Connette family, from Corona, Calif., will have a busy day Saturday—Simon and San Jose State host University of Califonia Davis at 8:00 pm EST, and then the group (mom, dad, older sister, three younger brothers, not counting Simon, and friends) will travel about 45 minutes to Palo Alto to watch Brandon and the Blue Devils at 10:30 EST.
