By 6 a.m. Sunday, football head coach Barry Wilson had already forgotten about his team's first win of the season, a42-21 victory over Army.
The thought of a trip to Charlottesville, Va., where the Blue Devils have not won since 1981, greeted him with his morning coffee.
"It was a good satisfying win, one that was needed, but now we've got to go onto greater tasks ahead of us, greater challenges," said Wilson at his weekly press conference Monday.
The greatest challenge just ahead of Duke is its confrontation with Virginia Saturday afternoon.
Wilson hopes that against the Cavaliers, his team will be able to sustain the level of performance it maintained against the Cadets.
The win over Army held special significance for Wilson because his team overcame its late-game problems.
"It was a satisfying win in the sense that at the period of time that we had had problems in the past, was when we really rose up the most, particularly defensively in the fourth quarter," he said.
Saturday's win was also aided by the return of defensive tackle Scott Youmans, who returned to the Duke lineup after a knee injury.
"He did some good things out there," Wilson said. "When Scott was in the ballgame, particularly late, it helped us. I don't know if it's an intangible or a tangible, maybe a little of both, but it's nice to have him back out there. He gives everybody a good feeling just because we're all pulling for him so hard."
But Wilson cautioned that the Blue Devils cannot place too much emphasis on the Army game. Though Army is a capable team, Wilson said, it doesn't compare to some of the competition Duke will face in the upcoming weeks.
He wants his team to build on the win over Army without making too much of it.
"It would be a mistake for us to get overconfident," Wilson said. "We want our kids to be confident. We want them to feel good, but at the same time I think we ought to keep it in perspective."
Wilson's point is that Virginia is a top-25 team and has already defeated tough ACC rival Georgia Tech. That's a far cry from Army, who finished last season with a losing record.
"I think [Virginia] is a complete football team," Wilson said. "It's going to take a perfect game and one that will be more than what we've had at any time in recent years."
In recent years, the Blue Devils have lost the last four meetings between the two teams by a combined score of 197-59.
Combine Virginia's high talent level this season with Duke's recent lack of success against Virginia and Wilson knows that his football team has a very difficult task ahead of it.
"I don't think we've played a good football game against them in many years," Wilson said. "I guess it was '88 since we've beaten them, [and] it may have been three moons ago since we've beaten them in Charlottesville, so I hope our football team is geared up for that challenge."
Wilson said that in preparing for UVa his team will have to concentrate more on bettering its level of play than on stopping Virginia.
"I think we can profit something by looking at ourselves," Wilson said. "I want our kids to look at our games with Virginia until they throw up, and see that we can do a heck of a lot better with Duke and not worry so much about the X's and O's of Virginia."
And if the Blue Devils can take care of Virginia, no one knows what the rest of the season could hold.
"If we beat Virginia, it'll be wonderful," Wilson said. "It will have a factor of confidence that could make a difference and help us," Wilson said.
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