Luke Kennard calls audible as Duke quarterback

Luke Kennard was the state’s D-II offensive player of the year following his junior season at Franklin High School in 2013. He didn’t play football as a senior. FILE

Credit: Robert Leifheit

Credit: Robert Leifheit

Luke Kennard was the state’s D-II offensive player of the year following his junior season at Franklin High School in 2013. He didn’t play football as a senior. FILE

Step aside, Bo; here comes Luke.

Franklin’s favorite son Luke Kennard made his Duke University football debut on Thursday. Like Bo Jackson did for football and baseball, Kennard flashed a glimpse of what might have been for the Blue Devils.

Teaming with former Duke football players Blair Holiday and Johndre Bennett, Kennard was featured in a slick two-minute video that was filmed in Duke's indoor football practice facility and posted to the Duke men's basketball website. A quarterback through his junior year at Franklin High School, Kennard was the state's 2013 Division II offensive player of the year and he showed why. He didn't play football as a senior at Franklin.

“Today I am going to throw the pigskin around a little bit and shake the rust off,” he said at the beginning of the clip. “I am going to show you guys a little different side of me other than being on the basketball court.”

He threw darts at Holiday and Bennett from a variety of distances and also caught a “TD” pass. At the end, he rainbows a perfect strike from about 30 yards into an open trash bin that was set in the corner of an end zone and walks away in triumph.

A sophomore on the basketball team, Kennard averaged 11.4 points for Duke last season, third highest on the team. Duke opens the season on Nov. 11 against visiting Marist at Durham, N.C.

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