It was only fitting that the last Bulls game in the Durham Athletic Park would be a rain-out. At one point in the 1988 movie "Bull Durham"-which made the DAP an American sports icon-Kevin Costner's character, Crash Davis, and his fellow minor leaguers really need a day off. So in the Boston Braves tradition of "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain," Davis and company sneak into the stadium on a road trip and turn on the sprinkler system, ruining the field and achieving their desired end.
But even in a 15-delay due to lightning, an afternoon of torrential downpours and a playing surface with the consistency of quicksand Saturday night could not give the football team what it really needed against the No. 1 Florida State Seminoles-the night off.
"[The conditions] were terrible," linebacker Scott Berdan said. "They were worse that the Rice game last year. I've never seen anything like it. We'd get down in our three-point stance and your hand would sink three or four inches into the mud."
Needless to say, Duke found a way to capitalize on the poor conditions. Fans entering the gates were greeted to the warm and friendly voices of the Wallace Wade Stadium vendors.
"Programs! Parkas!"
With the possible exception of the vendors, who were clearly operating in a sellers market, it was hard to tell if anyone benefited from the mud and slop. But the final score seemed to indicate that the Seminoles were not really phased by the "1993 Toilet Bowl."
"Just to get off the ball, it was like a suction cup," Berdan said. "Feet were sticking. I think the advantage definitely went to them as far as offensively. My feet were sliding everywhere, I couldn't get back."
But football is a game of statistical symmetry. For each yard rushed by the offense in the stats box, there has to be a defense. If the mud hurt both defenses, it must have helped both offenses. Well, it didn't.
"I was talking to Joe [Pickens] and we were getting wet balls every time coming back from center and that's tough to do," second half quarterback Spence Fischer said. "It looked like Charles Ward didn't have any trouble, though. They've got the kind of athletes where they can overcome that kind of external circumstances, and it hurt us."
The Florida State players didn't have anything good to say about the conditions under which they had to defend their No. 1 ranking. Generally, it was the defenses who felt that they had the most adversity to overcome as a result of the slow and sloppy state of the surface.
"With the weather situation, everything was really slowed down," FSU defensive end Tyrant Marion said. "With our defense, it's really an attack with quickness. By being in the mud, it really slowed our pass rush down. It really slowed our attack down. But because we are the athletes that we are, we were able to come out on top."
The one man who was hurt the most by the rainy conditions was Seminole kicker Scott Bentley. Under more pressure to perform than any other player in college footbal, Bentley has been asked to save FSU in close games and reverse the trend of missing key field goals that has prevented coach Bobby Bowden from winning his first national championship.
Bentley complained that the ball was sinking in the mud, causing him to miss kicks that he would easily make under other circumstances. He missed three extra points. And with 11:35 left in the second quarter, Bentley missed his first field goal attempt of the game-a 32-yard attempt, wide right.
Basically, neither team really derived any advantage from the playing conditions. But both teams, and most of the players, have some take on how it adversely affected their part in the game.
Historically, poor conditions have favored the Blue Devils. On Sept. 30, 1989, Duke won a famous game against ninth ranked Clemson under similar ground conditions. Head coach Steve Spurrier had told reporters early in the week that his then 1-3 Blue Devils had a "one in a million chance" of beating Clemson.
The game turned on a key fumble by the Tigers after Duke threw an interception, turning a Duke miscue into a 51-yard gain. The fumble-undoubtedly caused by the wet conditions-set up Duke's first touchdown and began the comeback from a 14-0 second half deficit.
Saturday night, though, Duke was unable to capitalize on nature's goodness. The few breaks that did come their way came too late.
But even when Duke did get a break, they found a way to squander it.
With 9:20 left in the third period, Florida State's Corey Sawyer muffed a John Krueger punt and Duke recovered it well inside FSU territory. Spence Fischer then proceeded to throw one of his two interceptions on the night on the very next play.
Maybe the Clemson game really was "one in a million."
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