His team rested from a bye week and preparing for a three-game Atlantic Coast Conference stretch run, football coach Fred Goldsmith took a deep breath and assessed the motivation of the 2-6 Blue Devils.
"I guess this isn't the No. 1 game of interest in the area, but frankly, it's the only one I care about," Goldsmith said, with a reference to Saturday's well-hyped matchup between No. 3 Florida State and No. 5 North Carolina. "We have plenty of incentive to go out and win for us because we've worked hard and we want to win."
Beginning with a visit to Clemson (5-3, 3-3 in the ACC) Saturday, Duke closes against three straight opponents who still have bowl hopes. But the Blue Devils don't seem to relish the spoiler role.
"We didn't work 12 months of the year with the [idea] in the back of our mind, 'Let's get Clemson out of a bowl game,'" Goldsmith said. "We worked hard and lifted weights, and we ran in the summer, and we did this and we did that for Duke to be as good as we can be."
The week off gave the Blue Devils a chance to heal a few injured starters. Flanker Scottie Montgomery, who left the Wake Forest game with a sprained ankle, is probable for Saturday's contest. So are tight end Jeff Hodrick and strong safety Darius Clark, who are also nursing ankle injuries.
Clemson is coming off a convincing 33-16 win over Wake Forest, in which senior quarterback Nealon Greene set six school passing records, including most career touchdown passes. The win kept the Tigers' postseason hopes alive, but at 3-3 in the ACC, Clemson is not the perennial conference power of old.
"They've kind of lost a little bit of that mystique," Hodrick said. "Clemson has struggled the last couple of years. Of course they have great athletes, and they have a good football team. But we know that we can compete and win, and that's so important going into a ball game. They don't have that intimidation edge."
When talking about his own team, Hodrick expressed the disappointment of a 2-6 season. The players expected a better record, he said, but even without a shot at a bowl game, Hodrick and his fellow seniors are looking for a strong finish.
"Some of us are not sure if we're going to play again," Hodrick said. "It's an opportunity to play three more football games-play a game that you love. You have to look at it like that.... It's not all a matter of going to a bowl game. It's a matter of competing; if you're a competitor, you want to win every game."
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