JACKSONVILLE - When coach Carl Franks stepped into the Duke locker room during halftime at Alltel Stadium, he didn't have to scream, he didn't have to yell and he didn't have to slam his clipboard to get his point across.
All he had to do was point in the direction of the scoreboard.
44-0.
Eight possessions, eight scores, zero defensive stops.
It wasn't just that the Blue Devils were losing the game-everyone had expected that-it's that they were deer in the headlights of a No. 1-ranked Mac truck.
So there was no talk about a magic comeback or a way to stop Chris Wienke; it was about respect, pure and simple-from the 37,000 people on hand at the Gator Bowl, the 73 players on the other side and the head coach standing before them.
"It was gut check time," said Kevin Thompson, the fifth-year quarterback.
It wasn't the story of an overmatched team that fought the good fight and came up short, a modern-day Rudy Ruettiger in Duke blue. And it wasn't the story of the plucky underdogs turning the tide on the conference behemoth-Florida State scored a touchdown in three plays after re-entering the first string in the fourth quarter.
It was the story of a team that after three games of growing pains was finally comfortable with itself.
And it was the story of a team making adjustments and turning an embarrassment into its best offensive showing.
"We got confidence in the second half, confidence in our offense," Thompson said.
Like a microcosm of the much-hyped season that had stumbled from loss to loss, the second half was about setting new goals-Duke knew it had about the same shot of winning as it did being invited back to the Gator Bowl-and, at last, the Blue Devils started moving in the right direction.
So for one half, there was none of the hype that surrounded the team, no premature bowl talk and no pressure. There was just football, and the Blue Devils' finally growing up.
With second-string quarterback Marcus Outzen at the helm to start the second half, Duke shut down the Seminoles' battering ram of an offense. The Blue Devils gave up just a single first down on Florida State's first drive, and even that came courtesy of a freelance running display by Outzen after twice being flushed out of the pocket.
The two teams traded punts as the Blue Devils notched their first and second defensive stops of the game. Then a Ronnie Hamilton pick set up the Blue Devils' first score of the game, a 46-yard field goal by Sims Lenhardt.
And then it all changed.
"Everything was clicking," said Thompson, who would soon be responsible for both of Duke's touchdowns. "We didn't make the mistakes we had made in the first half and earlier in the year."
Franks' run-to-pass playcalling ratio moved more toward the middle, and, in turn, the offensive line kept Florida State's defense off the Blue Devil quarterback, a position that in the first three games required a swap of jersey number for bullseye.
Previously little-used fullback Devin Pierce became a player in the offensive scheme, helping on blocking assignments while catching a pair of balls out of the backfield. Receiving routes were crisper, and the deluge of underthrown balls and misread defenses slowed to a stop.
Defensively, Darius Clark led a secondary that had played under a downpour of yellow flags in the first half (five pass interference penalties). The same defense began reading the Florida State quarterback-du-jour with ease. Three Seminole quarterbacks resulted in three second-half picks.
In short, it was Duke doing what Duke was billed to do three weeks ago.
And suddenly, for whatever bar room anecdote it might prove useful for years down the road, the hapless Blue Devils had shut out the nation's top-ranked team for one quarter, 13-0.
Another Lenhardt field goal and a well-timed touchdown pass from Thompson to Richmond Flowers would give the Blue Devils a statistically useless but all important 23-7 second-half victory.
"It was definitely a step forward," Thompson said "We knew what we could do, and we knew what they we do. We just had to get it done."
Granted, the Seminole first-string offense scored upon its re-appearance in the fourth quarter, as Ron Dugans burned Eric Jones in man-coverage for an 84 yard touchdown strike. But maybe you can forgive the Blue Devils if 23-7 is what they remember more than 51-23.
And for Kevin Thompson, who thought his Duke career had ended a year ago and who had suffered through the five-year roller coaster ride of a career backup, the Blue Devils had finally gotten a little respect.
The only question that remains to be answered is just what the going rate is for respect in the ACC.
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