DURHAM, N.C. — As Mataeo Durant starred as a running back and safety at Class 1A McCormick High School, many around South Carolina wondered if he would transfer somewhere larger to boost his resume for college recruiters.
Durant, though, was already in a larger place.
“My small town that I come from? Eighty people,” Durant said.
Tiny Plum Branch, S.C., with its 87 residents, is located six miles south of McCormick, the biggest town in McCormick County with a whopping 2,992 residents.
Durant’s rural home is a couple miles from the Savannah River, which forms the South Carolina-Georgia border in that part of the state. But finding a bridge to cross it means driving 12 miles to the north and west on U.S. 378, or 15 miles south on U.S. 221 toward Augusta.
Still, those college recruiters found him back in 2016 and 2017.
They discovered a player who’d dreamed of playing college football since he’d made the 80-mile trip to Clemson with an uncle to watch the Tigers play as a young boy.
“Once I got into middle school I knew I wanted to play college football,” Durant said. “My parents devoted so much time to me in regards to preparing for college football. Since my sixth grade summer, I haven’t had, like, a real vacation day. You know how they say you have to sacrifice to get the things you want? I sacrificed to be where I am today.”
Finding a football home
Where he is now is Duke, entering his senior season as a standout player for the Blue Devils.
Duke coach David Cutcliffe said the 6-foot-1, 195-pound Durant is “one of the best backs returning in this league, if not anywhere.”
In a down season in which Duke went 2-9, winning just one ACC game, Durant rushed for more than 100 yards in four games. He gained 817 yards and rushed for eight touchdowns.
He did that as a reserve, sharing the team’s rushing attempts with Deon Jackson. With Jackson graduated and now playing with the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts, Durant is set to be the featured back for Duke this season.
“Mataeo is the best player on our football team, so we have to get him the football,” said Re’quan Boyette, Duke’s co-offensive coordinator who was the team’s running backs coach from 2013-2020. “He’s going to be involved in a lot of what we do.”
It’s a situation for which Durant felt he was ready earlier in his career. Now, he admits that wasn’t right, and he’s grateful Duke’s coaches showed patience.
“I want to thank the coaches for not throwing me into a situation that I probably thought I was ready for but they knew I wasn’t ready for,” Durant said. “Because that happened, it’s allowed me to mature into a better player. It allowed me to let my body mature and get my body to perform.”
Making the dream happen
Durant played at around 180-190 pounds at McCormick High in South Carolina’s smallest public school classification, where small roster sizes meant a standout athlete like him plays offense and defense.
“I played defense,” Durant said, “but a lot of times my team needed me to play offense and be that go-to back. That allowed me to get a lot of college offers as a running back instead of a DB.”
From that initial experience watching college football at Clemson, Durant’s parents supported his dream. His mother, Nakisha, often drove him to camps when he was in middle school.
After initially training with an uncle on Saturdays, he worked with a trainer named Ryan Bowers, who was based 35 miles away in Augusta, as a high schooler.
Durant said Bowers “really helped me get to the next level with really good speed.”
That speed allowed him to score 78 touchdowns during his four-year high school career and make the state’s Shrine Bowl team.
After narrowing his college choices to Duke, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Mississippi State and Wofford, Durant picked the Blue Devils because he could play Power 5 football and get a top-quality education.
As someone who appreciates a challenge, he also liked the messaging the coaching staff delivered.
“They never promised me anything,” Durant said. “They said, if you come here you are going to have to work, and that’s something that I wanted to hear. My whole life I’ve been in a position where I had to work to get what I wanted, especially coming from the Class A level. They think the competition isn’t what it is at the bigger levels of high school football. Class A players are just as good as any player.”
Making a difference
Durant impressed immediately, so much that the coaches didn’t redshirt him as a freshman in 2018. With Daniel Jones at quarterback, Duke went 8-5 and won the Independence Bowl while Durant played special teams and carried the ball 17 times at running back.
Playing in all 12 games as a sophomore, he carried the ball 97 times and caught 16 passes. His per-carry average on rushes improved from 2.53 to 4.75.
It jumped even more — to 6.8 yards per carry — as a junior.
“Mataeo Durant is a complete running back,” said Jeff Faris, Duke’s co-offensive coordinator who will be calling plays during games. “He’s special because he has the toughness to run the ball inside and lower his shoulder pads and run people over and get those 30 yards. But then if he breaks the line of scrimmage, and there’s a safety in the open field, that guy never brings him down because he has the speed to score.”
High expectations
After a breakout junior season, Durant has high expectations for his senior season — not only for himself, but the Blue Devils as a whole.
Duke’s 2-9 record marked the fewest wins in a season since 2007, the year before Cutcliffe became the Blue Devils’ coach.
Durant said the pandemic, which robbed the team of a full spring practice and its usual offseason work, left the team less prepared for the season.
To anyone who says Duke has returned to the losing ways that dogged the program for decades prior to Cutcliffe, Durant scoffs. The 2020 season was “an anomaly,” he said.
“We’re not thinking just about bowl games,” he said. “We’re a good enough program where we can win championships and I mean like ACC championships. We have the talent that we need to be able to do that. Our whole team is talented from top to bottom. We just have to go out and perform at our highest level. I truly know that, believe that and I believe in everything we do at Duke.”
A psychology major, the son of a teacher and an electrical engineer, Durant has deeper thoughts about why he’s ready to build on his strong 2020 performance and propel himself to an NFL career.
“There’s a difference between waiting and being patient,” Durant said. “People who are waiting are just there, they are waiting to go next. But being patient you are preparing for the opportunity and when it comes, you are ready to take advantage of it because you’ve prepared and matured and that motivating factor is behind you.”
Though his path from Plum Branch to the ACC included trips down windy, two-lane country roads, Durant’s time to break free has arrived.
