Navy makes NCAA's longest-running joke look like Tiger Woods of college football

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The football team went from the Joker to Tiger Woods in less than three hours in Annapolis, Md. Saturday.

As the first quarter ended with Navy leading Duke 7-3, the audience focused its attention on a video playing from the score board. The beginnings of the movie looked almost pornographic; the budget was unspeakably low, and the first action was of men with Carolina blue facial hair tying up a woman in her Navy dress whites. Although it was the wrong color blue, the video was an obvious metaphor of Blue Devils attacking Navy.

The movie quickly moved to a shot of two men dressed as Batman and Robin in a car blasting Eminem's "Without Me." In Eminem's music video, the rapper and his producer Dr. Dre dress as Batman and Robin, with the "R" on Robin's uniform substituted with an "E" for Eminem. Navy sampled this idea, and for their rendition of Robin, they naturally used the letter "N." To make a long story short, the video ended with Navy's Batman and Robin coming to the girl's rescue, punching the Blue Devils in the same manner of the 1960s Batman and Robin TV show, with flashes of "Bam" and "Pow!"

"Go Navy, Zap Duke!," flooded the screen at the video's conclusion.

In the press box and in the stands, chuckling was prevalent. Duke football was looked at as a joke.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the joke that was Duke football is over.

The joke was long, and sometimes hilarious, but against Navy Saturday, Duke��it is hard to write these words��looked masterful.

"Most of the [Navy] guys out there on the field I think were trying," said Navy head coach Paul Johnson. "I could want and go and beat Tiger Woods, but I can't beat him. I could want to and go practice all I want, but [winning's] not going to happen."

"We know we have a lot more football to play and a lot to prove," said Duke quarterback Adam Smith, who threw for two touchdowns.

Micah Harris, who's second-down tackle of Eric Roberts for a loss of four on the Duke six helped force a field goal early in the second quarter, more clearly articulated the team's feelings.

"It feels great, but we're a little disappointed," he said. "We should have three wins now."

A team that would have been happy with one win last season is not happy with two this year.

To further distract from the sweetness of the victory, Navy fit Duke like a glove.

Duke's defensive weakness all season has been its secondary. Navy runs the option, an offense that puts little stress on the defensive back field. The defensive line struggled in the early moments of the game with Navy's style, but after an early second quarter field goal, the Duke defense held Navy scoreless until a garbage touchdown was scored in the fourth quarter by Aaron Polanco.

"One of the most difficult things you have to do against an option is realize the speed at which it happens in a game," head coach Carl Franks said. "It doesn't have the same speed in practice as in a game. So we had to get ourselves adjusted to the speed."

Further catering to the Blue Devils, the Navy defense was small up-front, allowing Duke's strength, the running game, to run rampant. The Blue Devils ran for 288 yards, led by Wade, who has run for over 100 yards in four of the five games this season. The touchdowns were his first of the season Saturday.

The largest rushing gain of the day came from Landrum. On a play that has failed so many times in the past that fans grumble any time it is attempted, Landrum ran for 69 yards and a touchdown on the wide-out sweep.

Although there are excuses for every success against Navy, the fact that the team did not pour Gatorade over Coach Franks in celebration means that it has turned a corner.

No one would be surprised if Duke did not win another football game this season, but the more important thing is that no one would be surprised if the Blue Devils won two or three more games this season.

A game that in preseason would have been looked at as a sure loss for the Blue Devils this Saturday against Virginia, suddenly becomes an interesting game with many sub-plots. This will be the first homecoming since 1998 that Duke will have digits in the win column, and Virginia provided Duke with one of its last ACC wins, as the Blue Devils beat the Cavs in Charlottesville, Va., in 1999.

"Going into the ACC, we have to keep our heads high," said wide receiver Khary Sharpe, who had a career-high seven receptions and 90 yards in front of 12 family members he invited to the game. "We aren't going to settle with two wins. We have to use [Navy] as a confidence booster; something we can feed off to go into the Virginia game."