One of the cardinal rules of coaching football is to avoid looking past one opponent to think about another. But one can hardly blame Duke football head coach Fred Goldsmith for doing so--it is all he has heard about since arriving on Duke's campus. Students, alumni, players and fans alike have all made it clear that a winning season would be nice, but beating North Carolina is what matters. Because of this attitude, Goldsmith has rewritten some of the rules about coaching and arranged his schedule properly.
"We have been hard at work on North Carolina," Goldsmith said. "All our minds are on North Carolina, and mine has been for a while. When we had the open date, we spent some of the time during the open date looking at some things for Carolina."
What Goldsmith saw when he looked at the Tar Heels (4-5, 2-4 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) worries him. Besides having the ACC's top-ranked defense, Carolina is considered a national power defensively, ranking third out of the 108 Division I teams.
Duke on the other hand, is having one of its best offensive years in history thanks to senior quarterback Spence Fischer. Fischer leads the ACC in 200-yard passing games this year with eight. Win or lose, Fischer has always been able to keep Duke in nearly every ball game this year, and perennially has one of his best passing games against UNC. In last year's 41-40 loss in Wallace Wade Stadium, Fischer put on a show for the home crowd throwing for career-highs of 395 yards and four touchdowns.
"Spence Fischer is one of the best quarterbacks, I think, in the country," North Carolina head coach Mack Brown said in Wednesday's ACC teleconference. "And because he's been so productive for the last two games against us, he poses us a great threat for this weekend. I think he may give us the biggest threat we've had against the pass all year.
"He's been a great player against us. We'll have to play our best to have a chance to hold him down on Saturday."
The match-ups are just as enticing when you pit Duke's defense against Carolina's offense. Tar Heel wide receivers Octavus Barnes and Marcus Wall along with tailback Leon Johnson are all among the leaders in receiving for the ACC. But Johnson has not practiced this week because of a sprained ankle and is questionable for Saturday's game. Luckily for the Blue Devils, the option play which has been used so well against them this year, may not be a focal point of North Carolina's offense.
"We've run the option the past couple of weeks some with Mike Thomas," Brown said, "but with only one quarterback with any game experience, it could also probably limit the amount that you allow Mike Thomas to run the ball. On Saturday we might have to open it up some."
Johnson's injury highlights one of Carolina's biggest problems this year--losing things. The injury and turnover bugs invaded UNC early this year and they haven't left yet. So far this year, the Tar Heels have caused only 13 turnovers while handing the ball over to their opponents 31 times this year.
"I don't think [Carolina's problem] is any mystery," Goldsmith said. "It's turnover margin. No one really respected our talent very much last year, but we were second in the country in turnover margin and that had an awful lot to do with the successful season we had."
The final piece of the game puzzle will be the fact that this is Duke's final game of the year, and the final game ever for two of Duke's most prolific record-breakers.
Senior Ray Farmer has been one of the few bright spots throughout many of the dull moments of Duke football in the '90s. Farmer is best known for his ability to bound over defensive lines in a single bound to block kicks, but he also developed into an outstanding free safety, earning first team All-ACC honors last year. On the other side of the ball, Fischer will most likely end this game as the second-ranked player in total offense in the history of the ACC.
"It's going to be very emotional for me," Fischer said. "I think the finality and the reality of it being my last game is going to be staring me in the face. I've had a lot of great memories and I've played in a lot of ball games here. It's going to be a very emotional day and I would just like to end it on a winning note.
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