CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - In the corner of a small press room somewhere in the belly of the locker room labyrinth of Scott Stadium, Chris Combs put his head back against the wall and breathed a sigh of relief. With the relief of a man granted a stay of execution, Combs sat there, thinking about what had happened, and if you looked at the right moment, actually smiling.
It was over.
The losing, the disrespect, the almost-ritualized weekly lowering of goals-blow after blow to the team's confidence-it was all over.
24-17, on a wing, a prayer and a lucky fumble, it was over.
"This one was for our confidence," he said. "We needed to play a team like this and get a win just for our confidence to know that we can do it. We've come so close since I've been here in several games and we haven't made the plays at the end that we needed to."
For a player and for his team, it was simply fitting.
The game meant more than just a game to Combs, the Roanoke, Va. native. It meant more than just the win. Two years ago, as the Blue Devils were on the way to a 3-8 record, a funny thing happened to the hapless squad. Duke was tied with the Cavaliers. Yet for a team mired in what would be a conference-record 21-game losing streak, tied felt for all the world like winning and winning was something that didn't happen often that season. But on one perfect afternoon in Charlottesville, in the confines of Scott Stadium, it was happening.
Late in the game with the score knotted at 10, Virginia drove to within the Duke 30. But on third-and-long, the then-sophomore Combs sacked Virginia quarterback Aaron Brooks, driving the Cavs out of field goal range.
What happened in the ensuing moment would become a half-second symbol of Duke football in the last quarter century. Combs got up, and with all the malice of a spelling bee champion shouting out the letters of the final word, turned to the Duke sideline and saluted his teammates.
But that wasn't the way the officials saw it, and before you could say questionable call, the yellow flags flew- "personal foul, unsportsmanlike conduct, 15 yards, first down."
At the weekly press conference two days later, Fred Goldsmith called it getting a ticket for driving one mile over the speed limit, but sports history simply recorded it as the deciding play in a 13-10 Virginia victory.
So two years later, there was no salute, not even much on-the-field noise from Combs, who was double-teamed the whole day and managed only one tackle. But there was a homecoming, and there was a redemption.
"After the game I went into the locker room and thanked everybody," Combs said. "I can go home now."
And Combs can forever remember one day, when in the middle of a season-long disappointment, it all just worked, without much grace but, in the end, with absolute perfection.
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