Among the many unusual happenings Saturday at a sold-out Wallace Wade Stadium, the strangest occurence may have been the football team's 28-25 upset of then-No. 13 Virginia.
As 33,941 fans looked on, Duke snapped its five-game losing streak to the Cavaliers--a streak in which UVa had won every game by three touchdowns or more. Saturday's win also assured the Blue Devils (8-1, 5-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) a berth in a postseason bowl game.
In an almost unheard of expression of excitement, Duke students stormed the field following the game and tore down the goalposts at the north end of the stadium. And earlier in the game, the stadium broke out in a full-fledged wave--all to celebrate the new-found success of the Duke football program.
"It was a team victory," Duke head coach Fred Goldsmith said. "I was so proud of our guys."
Duke battled back from a 17-7 first-half deficit and took the lead for good with 10:41 remaining in the third quarter, when junior quarterback Spence Fischer capped a massive nine-play, 90-yard drive with a nine-yard touchdown toss to freshman running back Matt DeOrio.
"The play to DeOrio was a big play," Goldsmith said. "Matt did a great job getting open and catching the football. That was obviously a very big play. You're not going to pound it on Virginia, so you want to get it on one play, like we did."
On the scoring play, DeOrio lined up in the backfield and cut right. He then darted into the endzone where Fischer found him and threw the scoring pass. It was DeOrio's first career reception.
"We felt we could really take advantage of [DeOrio]," Goldsmith said. "Fortunately, Matt did a great job of hiding and outran the linebacker."
Early in the first quarter, the game looked like it might become a rehash of other Duke-Virginia encounters of recent years. The Cavaliers (6-2, 4-2) stopped the Blue Devils on their opening drive. Then, on UVa's third play on offense, quarterback Mike Groh hit Tyrone Davis for a long pass, and Davis strutted down the sideline -- high-stepping the last five yards -- to give the Wahoos a 7-0 lead less than three minutes into the game.
When Duke's offense continued to sputter -- Fischer's first five passes were incomplete, and senior running back Robert Baldwin could find no holes in Virginia's highly-touted defensive line -- it looked like it might be a long afternoon against the Cavaliers.
"When something happens to you like what happened last week [when Duke lost 59-20 to Florida State], and you get down on the third play of the game like that, it takes a little bit to stay in there and keep fighting and keep your head up and still believe," Goldsmith said. "Especially, we were getting stuffed offensively early, and yet we were able to bounce back."
The bouncing back came on a 14-play drive, which began late in the first period when Fischer started to find his receivers. The Blue Devils were able to capitalize on his five completions -- including key third-down passes to senior flanker Jon Jenson and freshman wide receiver Corey Thomas -- to tie the score, 7-7.
But the Cavaliers came roaring back and added another touchdown on another Groh pass to Davis to go up 14-7. Davis' touchdown was the 28th of his UVa career, which broke Herman Moore's school record of 27.
Virginia appeared to be on its way to another touchdown when it had a first-and-goal situation from Duke's four-yard line. The Cavaliers tried to run the ball into the end zone, but junior linebacker Carlos Bagley and junior safety Ray Farmer stuffed Virginia tailback Charles Way. Groh fumbled the snap on the next play to set up a third-and-goal at the three. Cavaliers' head coach George Welsh called a timeout to regroup.
Then, something truly weird happened. During the timeout, the capacity crowd of 33,941 started to do the wave. It actually gained momentum when it went around to the endzone seats -- a portion of the stadium which is usually only sparsely populated, even in the most crowded of games, but which was jam-packed on Saturday.
Perhaps bewildered by what he had just seen in the stands, Groh threw an incomplete pass into the end zone, and the Cavaliers had to settle for a field goal.
The offense picked up on the momentum from this goal-line stand. Fischer fired a 44-yard pass to Thomas that set up Baldwin's two-yard touchdown run to narrow Virginia's lead to 17-14 at halftime.
After DeOrio's touchdown, the Duke defense continued to make big plays to maintain the lead. On UVa's next possession, the Cavaliers had moved the ball to Duke's 45-yard line. But three strong defensive plays later, Virginia was forced to punt. The Cavaliers' next possession resulted in a three-and-out situation, and suddenly it seemed like the teams had switched their traditional roles. Duke's defense had taken over the game.
Again, the crowd did the wave, and again, the Blue Devil offense took the message from its defensive counterparts.
Because of Fischer's success in the air, UVa's defense began to key more on Duke's passing game. This meant that Baldwin could now find some running room. The Blue Devils used Baldwin's running to score another third-quarter touchdown and increase their lead to 28-17.
"I just think we had great play calling," Fischer said. "We really caught them off balance. We weren't stubborn. We thought we could take advantage of some holes in their zone defense and we did that. I think we're balanced enough where if one part of our game gets shut down, we can rely on another. And that was the difference today."
But the Cavaliers were not about to give up.
In fact, Virginia got a huge break early in the fourth quarter when Fischer threw a backwards pass which was deflected in the air. The Wahoos recovered the live ball on Duke's five-yard line.
It was then Billy Granville's time to shine. The sophomore linebacker broke up Groh's pass on first down and sacked Groh for a loss of seven yards on the next play.
"[Granville] just rose to the occasion," Goldsmith said. "We played probably more good, solid defense than we had the whole game. Billy did a great job. All those guys did on the goal line."
Then, on third down, sophomore Brandon Pollock and senior Zaid Abdul-Aleem broke up Groh's pass to Demetrius Allen, and the Cavaliers assumed that they were settling for a field goal. But Rafael Garcia's attempt sailed wide right.
"When it's first-and-five and you end up missing a field goal, you should never take a sack or do things like that," Welsh said. "Throw the ball away, make it third-and-five instead of whatever. So we screwed it up."
Welsh figured that the best way to disrupt the Duke defense was to switch quarterbacks. So junior Symmion Willis -- who was the team's starter at the beginning of the season -- stepped in. On his second play, he tossed a pass to Allen, who beat senior cornerback Jamal Ellis. Allen then faked Ellis out of making a tackle and took the ball for a 69-yard touchdown. Willis dove into the end zone to complete the two-point conversion and narrow the score to 28-25 with seven minutes to play.
The Cavaliers had one last chance to win the game. But with UVa driving, freshman linebacker LeVance McQueen picked off Willis with 3:27 remaining in the game.
"The game was on the line," McQueen said. "It was a matter of winning or losing."
UVa got the ball back with 29 seconds left, but Willis threw three straight incompletions, and then was intercepted by safety Ray Farmer as time ran out on the Cavaliers.
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