Frankly, that was embarrassing

Well, on the bright side, the second half was ALL Duke. The Blue Devils valiantly came out of the halftime locker room and showed those big, bad Wake Forest third stringers who's boss Saturday afternoon, chalking up yet another moral victory for a team so awash in morality it should have a halo around its helmets. (Wait, what's that you say? Duke mustered 13 second-half points against a Wake squad that had about as much interest in the final 30 minutes of play as the alumni tailgating in the Blue zone? Details.)

So what if the Blue Devils gave up 42 first-half points? Who cares if Duke's offense put more points on Wake's side of the scoreboard than its own? What does it matter if Duke made a team that'll be lucky to make the NobodyCares.com bowl look like it belongs in the NFL?

If a football game were decided by two separate halves, Duke would've tied! Duke got thrashed, embarrassed, destroyed, and dominated Saturday, and while I hate to throw more negativity on a team sorely in need of a glimmer of optimism, there's really nothing else that can be said and this space would look pretty weird if it were empty. Carl Franks described the first half as probably the worst half of football he's ever been associated with, and I can't argue with him.

"I certainly can't remember anything else like that," Franks said. "It's hard to believe the way the game unfolded."

On Duke's ensuing possession, quarterback Mike Schneider threw a ball over his receiver and into the arms of Wake Forest's Kellen Brantley, who ran it back for yet another score. After another Blue Devil three-and-out, Wake needed just three plays to post its fifth touchdown. Duke got the ball backand was forced to punt, and then Wake yet again got into the endzone in only three plays. 42-0. Get the point?

As bad as Saturday's loss was, it may actually prove to be a godsend in the long run, because it finally convinced the powers that be that something had to change, that somebody's head had to roll. I've never been on the field practicing for Carl Franks, or in the locker room on the receiving end ofthe ex-coach's rah-rah speeches, so for all I know, Franks may be Vince Lombardi reincarnated. I don't care. He needed to go, and the axe should have fallen long ago.

Even if Carl Franks is the greatest coach the world has ever seen, consider the depressing state to which he'd allowed the Duke football program to sink, which was painfully obvious to anybody who experienced Saturday's game: It was homecoming weekend, with throngs of alumni in town; abeautiful, warm, sunny, lazy fall afternoon, the kind that's made for college football; and yet, Wallace Wade stadium, as always, was embarrassingly empty, which actually meant that many Duke students and alumni were spared from watching some atrocious football.

Any coach responsible for a program so utterly devoid of enthusiasm has to go. What Duke needs is a coach who simply won't accept failure, a coach who exudes enthusiasm, a disciplinarian who won't permit any hint of negativity or anything less than maximum effort.

Forgive me if I daydream about a football version of Bobby Knight. Look at Maryland's Ralph Friedgen; he inherited a program steeped in mediocrity, and managed to convince himself, the players and the fans that they could be good, and they were. Friedgen willed his team to the top of the ACC. There's no reason the next Duke coach can't do the same. I don't want to hear about academic standards. Duke is a name-brand school that has a lot to sell to recruits; a coach who injects some enthusiasm into this program can get things turned around. Duke may never be Florida State, but there's no reason it can't be Stanford and that's a helluva lot better than what it is now. Franks tried to come up with some answers after Saturdays debacle, but came up short.

"I don't know where we went wrong," Franks said. "I don't know if it was coaching, or whether it was playing, it was probably a combination of the two."

A college football coach is paid to know what went wrong, he's paid to make sure the coaching is good and he's paid to make sure the playing is good. Franks came up short on all three counts, and now he's on the job market. If Duke's next head coach can come up with answers, games like Saturday'swill never again be seen.