The only thing that looked healthy for the football team Saturday was the brand new pair of goal posts.
Despite coming off a game where happiness erupted at all levels of the program, the Blue Devils went into a spiral of patterns that reminded the Duke faithful of the 23-game losing streak that was thought to be a thing of the past.
Searching for answers to its bi-polar season, the team need not look further than its triumph over East Carolina last week.
The fate of the Blue Devils in each game was decided by fourth-down and one-yard runs in the first half. Against East Carolina, quarterback Chris Dapolito ran for 29 yards on the pressure packed down, which eventually set up Dapolito's four-yard touchdown run, the only offensive touchdown Duke has had this season.
This Saturday, things turned out differently.
With less than eight minutes left in the first half, Duke, down 12-0, had not yet gained a first down. On their own 38, the Blue Devils were one yard away with one down left. Normally an obvious punting situation-especially given the time and score-the Blue Devils gambled.
As Duke lined up for the play, everyone in the stadium knew Alex Wade would run the ball. The bruising fullback was coming off a career high 109-yard performance, in which he sliced through East Carolina's run defense.
Everyone knew he could run the ball. Everyone knew he should run the ball.
Chris Dapolito ran the ball.
The quarterback was stopped by the congestive Louisville defense, which set up a 38-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Dave Ragone to wide receiver Dontay Spillman the very next play to put Louisville up 19-0. With their offense helplessly stagnant, even the biggest optimist would agree that this was too much of a deficit for the Blue Devils to overcome.
"We thought we could catch them off guard," head coach Carl Franks said. "We practiced that play all week. We just didn't get up there and push. At that time we needed to do something to keep our defense off the field. They just kept going back out there and back out there because we hadn't made a first down. We had a pretty good chance of doing it the way they had been setting up defensively."
It was the offense's inability to stay on the field that led to the defense's troubles and fourth down gambles. Louisville won the time-of-possession battle 34:14 to 25:46, and Duke did not gain a first down until 1:36 left in the first half.
"[The defense] gave up a few touchdowns that we probably wouldn't have given up had we not had to go for it on fourth downs," Franks said.
Much of the time-of-possession struggles can be blamed on the offensive line. The line that powered the way for Alex Wade's 43 yards on nine straight runs and set up the game winning field goal against ECU, blocked for only 22 rushing yards and gave up six sacks, including a safety.
"We got pushed around pretty good on offense," Franks said. "I certainly didn't expect that to happen to us. I knew they were a big strong team, but I thought we would be physical enough to keep them off the quarterback."
To Ted Roof's credit, the defense also had to deal with a lot, including the injury of freshman Brendan Dewan. Dewan had eight tackles and returned an interception for a touchdown in his first collegiate game last week.
All in all, the defense played a solid game, sacking Heisman candidate Dave Ragone four times and intercepting him twice.
"They threw a few balls over our heads," Franks said. "That's always been an area of concern for us; getting some depth in the secondary."
After blow-outs such as this a season ago, it was hard to look at the schedule and see winnable games, but despite the set back, Franks' squad is optimistic. With Navy and Northwestern still on the table, Duke has significant motivation to make this more than a one-win season.
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