Imagine this: The football team enters the fourth quarter tied with Army 21-21. The Blue Devils proceed to tighten up, make careless errors down the stretch and lose a heartbreaker to the Cadets.
Sounds pretty scary for Duke, doesn't it? Well, everyone who watched Saturday afternoon's 42-21 victory in Wallace Wade Stadium knows that exactly the opposite occurred -- Duke rose to the occasion and made the big plays down the stretch, Army made mistakes and the Blue Devils pulled out a much-needed victory.
Actually, `much-needed' is probably a serious understatement. On a scale of one to 10, this game was an 11 for Duke in importance.
Duke's next two games are on the road against quality opponents. The Blue Devils play Virginia in Charlottesville next Saturday and then travel to Knoxville to take on Tennessee.
"It's a big, big win," said quarterback Spence Fischer, who looked outstanding in throwing for 357 yards and three touchdowns. "I can't explain it enough. Going into Charlottesville and then Knoxville 0-3, that's tough. Morale would be low. This just does wonders for our confidence."
If the Blue Devils had lost to Army, they would have heard about the potential for an 0-11 season. Duke was clearly the better team, and another fourth-quarter disaster would have been devastating.
"We needed this win," wide receiver Stanley Dorsey said. "It would have been fatal if we had lost this one."
The Army game was closer than the score indicated. The Blue Devils were down 14-13 at the half, and they entered the fourth quarter deadlocked at 21 with the Cadets.
For the first time this season, though, the defense tightened. The Blue Devils only allowed Army 58 fourth-quarter yards and shut out a wishbone offense that had moved the ball well for three quarters.
Duke will have to build on the fourth quarter defensive performance in order to stay close to the teams it will now face. The offense has been extremely productive the last eight quarters -- 495 total yards against Rutgers and 499 yards against Army -- but the defense had been equally unimpressive up until Saturday's fourth quarter.
"[The defense] wanted to balance up the game where it was not just the offense outscoring somebody to win," head coach Barry Wilson. "They wanted to contribute to this win, and they did."
The question is whether the defense can slow down the more balanced attacks of Virginia and Tennessee. Army runs a one-dimensional offense, with a solid running game and an ineffective passing game. Duke finally figured out how to slow down the ground attack, and that basically made the difference.
"Hopefully we can build on that second half," said defensive tackle Scott Youmans, who saw action for the first time this season. "I don't think you're going to learn to win in one game, in one good quarter of football, but I think that it's a step in the right direction."
The Blue Devils could easily be 2-1 now, and they would look like a pretty good football team. Still, to rebound from last week's disappointment and put together an inspired second half shows that maybe this team has more character than people might suspect.
"The way we answered Army says a lot about us after such a heartbreaking loss against Rutgers," Fischer said. "Coach says we're trying to keep our emotions even keel and expect success."
The Blue Devils have quite an unenviable task awaiting them the next two Saturdays. Duke is not kidding itself into thinking a win over Army translates into sure success against the kind of competition it will face from now on.
"We know Army is not quite the caliber team as the Florida States or the Tennessees, but it's still a starting point and that's all we were looking for," Wilson said.
And without this starting point, the prospects for the rest of the season would have looked extremely bleak, indeed.
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