It was just a little over three weeks ago that I called athletic director Joe Alleva, asking him about the football team's bowl chances and the dramatic improvement the Blue Devils had made.
I talked about the near certainty of a six or seven win season; Alleva reminded me that you have to be careful with expectations since Duke could still finish 4-7.
Turns out Alleva was right.
The Blue Devils put the finishing touches on an enormously disappointing finish to the 1998 season with Saturday's 28-6 loss to North Carolina. This was Duke's chance to erase the memories of Maryland and Vanderbilt and head into the spring excited and optimistic.
Instead, the mistakes that have inexplicably marked the last two games reared their ugly heads again.
For one, big plays continued to burn the Blue Devils on defense. Granted, this wasn't a problem that began the last three games, but it has only been magnified in the three losses. Duke played well defensively against the Tar Heels, holding UNC to just 290 yards of total offense.
However in a tight game, which this was for most of three quarters, one big play can make a world of difference.
In a start reminiscent to the Vanderbilt game, Duke found itself in an early 7-0 hole Saturday when Oscar Davenport connected with Na Brown on a 41-yard touchdown. This could have been just a 16-yard completion, but free safety Kenan Holley couldn't tackle Brown at the 25.
"[The big plays] were kind of a letdown," cornerback Lamar Grant said. "We were in the ballgame pretty much the whole game. Just to have a few breaks not go our way, it's tough. The chips didn't fall our way today."
It turns out seven points was too much for Duke's offense to overcome. The past two weeks, with the exception of a quick start against Maryland, the Blue Devils were simply anemic on offense.
Considering the fact Scottie Montgomery and Richmond Flowers have been healthy in both games, it's a tough pill to swallow. North Carolina ranked next to last in the ACC in pass defense coming in and held a Duke attack that was conservative at best to just 116 passing yards.
Montgomery didn't catch a pass until just 12 minutes were left in the game. He had two receptions for the game, as did Flowers. The running game was effective at times, mainly in the second quarter when B.J. Hill led Duke on a 17-play drive that resulted in a field goal. But when Hill eventually went down with a separated shoulder, he took the ground game with him.
Bobby Campbell, meanwhile, was never given too much of a chance to win this game. Maybe it was the seven interceptions last week. Maybe it was just a lack of confidence in both Campbell and Spencer Romine. Somehow, the Blue Devils' gameplan didn't include throwing to two of the top receivers in the conference.
"It's going to stick with me for a while," Campbell said of his performances the last two weeks. "It's disappointing, it's embarrassing-a lot of it is embarrassing. I went from playing really well during the middle of the season to something happening, I don't know if it's me or the offense, where we just didn't get it done these past two weeks.
"It's tough-I'm probably going to carry it into next year and hopefully I'll carry it in the right way and have something to prove."
As Campbell said, this is truly a team that still has a lot to prove. At 4-4, there was much more evidence that Duke was over the hump. Now, even with all of the talent returning, the Blue Devils still must prove to themselves that they can be a winning team.
They came close this year, but a three-game losing streak to end the season somehow drowned the earlier optimism and made this year perhaps even tougher to take than an 0-11 '96 and a 2-9 '97.
"It's tougher in that we knew we were a lot better," Campbell said. "Two years ago, at some positions we just didn't have it. I don't think we played up to our potential. It's obvious we had the potential to go 6-5, 7-4. You've got to have the understanding that we could've done a lot better and should've done a lot better."
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