In most parts of the country, there is no looking forward to the dreary grays of winter. Then there is Duke, where the 12-degree nights and the occasional snow flurries are always a welcome change to the temperate days of late summer and early fall. It is one of the rare places in the country that lives for the month of November, the one month that simultaneously brings an often-merciful end to football season and marks the dawn of another possible run at the Final Four. There are, of course, the few loyalists, the football diehards who either remember the glory days of football seasons long since past, or who dream of a new glory yet to come. They are rare around here, especially this time of year, when they are vastly outnumbered by the crowds of tents parked in front of the Wilson Recreation Center. But they do exist, and they do not spend their summer and fall waiting for November.
Instead, they only wait for a man, a savior capable of restoring the pride and tradition that once resonated through packed bleachers on the Wallace Wade gridiron.
Up above the desolate grass of a field now worn down by three months of winless football, the remnants of holiday stubble speckle the normally clean-shaven chin of the man entrusted to do the seemingly impossible. The man reflects matter-of-factly on his first two years-a combined 3-19 affair-at the helm of Duke football. After sharing the ups and downs of his young career, he remembers fondly the December day more than two years ago when he made a promise about the direction of Duke's football program. "I made the statement when I was first introduced that I want to make our student body as proud of their football team as they are of the basketball team," says head football coach Carl Franks, who was hired to replace Fred Goldsmith after the one-time national coach of the year led Duke to only nine wins in four seasons. "That's certainly still the same goal we have."
Although he has zero wins to show for his last 12 months of work, Franks by no means moves toward his goal empty-handed. He has a program with a long-standing history of national success, he has the unwavering support of his athletics director, he has an institution that offers its athletes an opportunity for a first-class degree and he has "tangible evidence"-in the form of $18-20 million to upgrade the team's facilities from laughable to lavish-that Duke has made a concerted commitment to its football program. He has everything, some would say.
Everything except a chance.
His assets are many and his leadership thus far remains unquestioned, but Franks must raise a program that currently resides at the bottom of the barrel; no other team in Division I football finished the 2000 season without a single victory.
Back in the early years, however, Duke football was synonymous with winning; the team played in two Rose Bowls in a four-season span. The Blue Devils lost 7-3 in 1938 and 20-16 in 1941 under coaching great Wallace Wade, but in both years they came within a lucky break or two of winning national championships. Since Wade's retirement in 1950, only two coaches-Wade's successor Bill Murray and current
"I wouldn't wish a season of not winning a game on anybody; that's extremely tough on the players, it's tough on the school, it's tough on the coaches," Franks says. "It's not where any of us wanted to be, but it's where knowledgeable people anticipated it could be at this point. So recruiting is certainly going to be a big key for us."
Like any program trying to rebuild, the Blue Devils find themselves with the challenge of locating quicker, more talented players. Unlike some other programs, Duke must do so with a very limited pool of high school candidates.
Franks' long-term priority is to assemble a program that competes annually for the conference championship, but in order to do so he will have to snatch recruits currently headed to Atlantic Coast Conference powerhouses like Florida State, Clemson and Georgia Tech. None of those schools adhere to the academic demands that Duke places on its applicants; consequently, there are far more players for those programs to choose from.
Among the nine ACC schools, only Duke ranked in U.S. News and World Report's annual top-10 list. Although the U.S. News evaluations are not directly indicative of a university's admissions standards, they do accurately predict expected failure on the gridiron. Of the top 25 teams in the final Associated Press poll, only 15th-ranked Notre Dame was also included in the top 25 by U.S. News. Other schools like Northwestern and Stanford have had occasional success on the football field, but Franks argues that even these three prestigious universities lack the rigors of Duke's admissions process. "That's a misconception people have. People think Wake Forest is, people think Notre Dame is, people think Stanford is, people think Vanderbilt is-they're not the same," Franks says. "For the most part our admissions standards have been, consistently over the last few years, much higher than those of other programs. They get guys at their programs consistently that we have been unable to get at Duke.... I'm not complaining, I don't want to misconstrue it that way, but when you ask the question... about who I can compare it to, I can't, because there's not one."
At Northwestern, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Carol Lunkenheimer says there is no way to compare the admissions standards of the various universities because each applicant is treated as an individual and not subjected to preconceived numerical guidelines. Admissions directors at several other top universities, including Duke, confirmed that decisions are not necessarily the product of a numbers game, but that the general requirement for admission is a strong chance of graduating on time. In a report published in December by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Duke finished first among all Division I schools in graduation rate for the 11th time since 1981, a startling statistic that buttresses Franks' claim that Duke stands alone
Still, Joan Lippman, senior associate director of undergraduate admissions at Stanford, disagrees strongly with Franks' assessment. Stanford has won the Sears Cup-awarded to the university with the most successful overall athletic program-for six consecutive years, but even it has struggled to build a dominant football program. Lippman contends that the program's success has been stymied by Stanford's tendency to turn down more players for academic reasons than any school, even Duke. "It's very hard to say, but I almost feel we're in a class by ourselves...," she says. "Every year we turn down great talents. We don't take joy in that, we really don't.... We give [the coaches] guidelines and we don't like to disappoint them, but we will say no and deny top recruits in the country that go on to play on Sundays in the pros."
Christoph Guttentag, Duke's director of undergraduate admissions, maintains a position between Franks and Lippman, asserting that he believes Duke is "roughly comparable" to the top schools mentioned by the Blue Devils' coach. Regardless, all of these schools face similar dilemmas, and all of them have to ignore scores of athletes that often wind up playing for their more talented rivals.
Duke captain Spencer Romine, who graduated last month after five seasons as a Blue Devil quarterback, recalls a conversation he had with an assistant coach early in his career. According to Romine, the year he was recruited, he was told only 20 players in all of southern Florida were eligible to attend Duke.
Romine says one reason players with borderline academics might go elsewhere is their fear of failing out and wasting a year of eligibility. As a result, programs like Duke and Stanford often wind up with lineups full of men like Romine, an upstanding citizen and student who will attend medical school next year, but who never possessed the physical tools to be a Division I star.
Although Franks still eyes eventual bids to the Bowl Championship Series, his colleagues at Stanford remain skeptical about whether such lofty goals are possible with academic restrictions. Stanford finished 8-4 a year ago after losing to Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl, but the Cardinal capitalized on a weak year in the Pacific-10 Conference. Franks' goal of winning the ACC essentially is tantamount to national championship aspirations at Stanford, and Cardinal officials are not ready to get their hopes up. "To be honest, I'd be surprised... if we are ever national champions," Lippman says. "I wouldn't be surprised if we go back to the Rose Bowl every once in a while, but to compete with the Oklahoma, Florida State, Miami powerhouses, I'm not sure that is realistic."
Whenever academics are linked to the lack of success of the football team, the critics inevitably shift the focus to the men's basketball program. Needless to say, the basketball team has enjoyed plenty of success in this decade, amidst the very same admissions standards and academic expectations faced by the football team.
CONTINUED...
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.