Suffice it to say it was not a good weekend for Duke football.
The Blue Devils were a living affirmation of Newton’s Third Law against Connecticut: For every great Duke play, there was an equal and opposite reaction.
Case in point: Duke gets its first big break of the season when John Talley picks off a Dan Orlovsky pass and takes it 62 yards to the end zone. It was a great play by Talley, but it was overshadowed when Phil Alexander broke his leg, an injury that ended his season.
In the fourth quarter, after giving up a touchdown that pulled the Huskies to within one point, Casey Camero blocked an extra point to retain the Duke lead. The Blue Devils had an opportunity to capitalize on the same type of play, a botched extra point, that had spelled their doom in Annapolis the week before. Instead of responding with swift vengeance, however, Duke answered with a meek three-and-out series and subsequently allowed Orlovsky & Co. to march down the field and kick the eventual game-winning field goal.
Then came Duke’s most frustrating folly: Quarterback Mike Schneider gallantly led the Blue Devils down the field in search of the game-winning score, converting an improbable 4th-and-17 pass to put Duke just 36 yards away from its first win of the season. Almost on cue, Duke’s kicker missed the field goal, allowing the Blue Devils to once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
“We gave so much, we emptied our tank, and we came so close to getting that golden nugget, but we didn’t get that golden nugget,” head coach Ted Roof said. “All we got was a better feeling about competing.”
It’s that same so-close-yet-so-far-away feeling Blue Devil fans were getting two years ago when Carl Franks led the Blue Devils to the brink of victory numerous times. Duke might have finished 2-10 that season, but some felt the team played well enough to win at least three more games. The first half of the ensuing season turned out to be a debacle, costing the Blue Devils their dignity and Franks his job.
Along the same lines, Frank Beamer won just five games in his first two seasons at Virginia Tech before building the formidable program Duke faces this Saturday—a program with 11 consecutive bowl appearances, including an slot in the 1999 Sugar Bowl, that season’s national championship game.
It is premature to say that Roof is the next Beamer and that he will restore the Blue Devil program to its glory days of the 1930s and ’40s, replete with BCS bids and consistent appearances in the top 25. It is equally premature, however, to claim Roof will follow the same route as his predecessor and join a growing list of coaches who have tried and failed to resurrect the Duke program.
Roof has shown that he is a great motivator and a great recruiter, as evidenced by a pair of particularly strong recruiting classes and near-.500 ball at the end of last season. But it is impossible to predict this early in the Roof era how good of a coach he will become, or where he will take the program.
Additionally, Roof is not only competing with players Franks recruited, but he also lost 11 starters from last season, not counting the loss of Alexander Saturday. This is a young and inexperienced team, and let’s face it—the Blue Devils weren’t exactly BCS material to begin with.
With that in mind, it makes no sense to perpetuate the shroud of pessimism that seems to have settled upon the program after Steve Spurrier’s departure. So spare yourself the cost of a moving van, take a deep breath and stop condemning Duke’s fledgling season—and its coach—as a complete failure.
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