Duke pulled off an exciting 19-16 victory over Virginia in Charlottesville on Friday night. A 28-yard touchdown pass from Nate Sheppard to Brody Keefe on a trick play with 1:14 left gave the Blue Devils the lead, and Patrick Smith-Young's interception with 43 seconds left clinched the game.

Here is what Duke head coach Manny Diaz had to say following the victory.

Another insane college ball game, another advertisement for the Atlantic Coast Conference and how tight and how exciting these games are, where the last two weeks, these last four minutes have gone against us. Tonight, our guys found a way to finish. And I think the first key to that is to not internalize the two defeats the last two weeks. When you get down to that situation, to have the poise and belief that you can win regardless of what happened in recent times. And then when Virginia goes down and kicks a field goal, it's been very easy to say, oh, here it is again. And for our offense to get the football and go 75 yards to get the game, in essence, a game winning touchdown, and then our defense to go out and seal it with an interception is just the definition of great team ball, great to finish, needed this, big for our confidence going forward, with the expectation that everyone we play coming up is probably going to be like this too. 

So it's just a way of life in this conference, and I'm just glad our guys found a way to finish tonight. So let's do questions. 

Well, we had talked even before the drive that we could win the game on that play. And we threw the swing to Shepherd to get down there and it was almost like, "Hey, do we call it now?" I was like, "No, no, let's just run it one more time just to sort of set it up." And we ran, it didn't go anywhere. And what's really funny is, from my standpoint, when I saw the coverage they were in, I didn't think it was there. I was watching Brody run the route, and they had a couple guys on top of it, but when you throw the ball at number 20, it's a pretty good idea on defense to hustle to get over there. And by the time I looked back, he was all alone. So it was just like I said, I'm really proud of the execution of the guys. 

A great call and a great time. And sometimes you need things like that in those type of situations because Virginia, their defense is outstanding. You have 20 points a game, we couldn't get to 20 tonight. They make it so hard on you for so many different reasons. Got a ton of respect for them having played them three times in our last 11 games or whatever. So you knew it was going to be a game like that. This is what it was going to be. We scored 20 in regulation against them in Charlotte last year, so they're a tough nut to crack. And so you had to pull out something like that to have a chance to get the game-winner. 

Your practice time really stays the same. Your game-planning time is what suffers a little. And like I said, I give Virginia a lot of credit. They made it really hard on us. We were uncharacteristic in the negative plays we gave up on offense, but we try to just really be simple and just stay true to with our day one, two and three install. But you always have the ability to put in a couple plays that are special for every game. I'm sure Virginia did the same thing. 

Yeah, so he hit his finger on the helmet on the long pass to Burton, and it wasn't an injury per se. There was nothing structurally wrong with the finger, but just his ability to grip the football and just didn't feel it was great. And obviously that's an important thing for a quarterback. And so I thought Dan did a heck of a job when he is in there, showed a lot of toughness, made some really good throws. And we were still coming out of locker room, we really weren't sure which guy we're going to go with. And Walker, he had put some tape on the part of the finger that was bothering me. He felt like that really gave him better feel of the football and was ripping it coming out of halftime. And so that kid's been through so much that the idea that he was not going to get back on the field and give it the old college try actually wasn't going to happen. 

And I think his first throw, if I've got it right, was a deep crossing about the burden and he just ripped it on there. Honestly, one of the better throws he's thrown on that route all season. So you saw that and you're like, okay, I think he's ready to go. And he had to play really tough because like I said, Virginia, the chaos they create with their pass rushes is really something.