For Duke football, any change is good change. After all, the Blue Devils won a grand total of zero games against Division I-A football teams last year.
So while some people might say moving practice from the afternoon to the early morning basically means nothing, I say, "Hey, whatever. It's not like head coach Ted Roof has to worry about disrupting his team's winning routine."
Maybe practicing before most of the campus is awake is kind of like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. But maybe that's just what the Titanic needed-we'll never know. If it doesn't make the team any better, at least Wally Wade's afternoon joggers won't have to watch Duke's team practice.
On the other hand, moving practice could be more like telling the Titanic's captain that he'd better pay attention and not run into any icebergs.
Think about what most students are doing at 8 a.m.-either sleeping or wandering home half-drunk and half-dressed from whoever's room they slept in the night before. Duke doesn't even schedule 8 a.m. classes anymore, but the football team will have meetings starting at 7:15. At 11, when a lot of students like me still aren't awake, the football players will be ready for class.
Maybe waking up early won't change a thing on the field. But since there's a chance it will, it's worth a shot. After all, there's really nowhere to go but up.
"We're more focused on football in the morning, no worries about class during the day and then coming to football all tired out and dragged out," linebacker Jeramy Edwards said. "Once you get the hang of waking up it's just a routine thing."
Despite his habit of fastening the top button of his Duke football collared shirts, on display again Monday, Roof gets it. He's trying just about everything to fix Duke football. Sooner or later, one of those surface changes is going to make a difference.
If it's not the practice time that's the problem, change the feng shui in the locker room. Maybe it's time to move around the furniture to get the chi in balance. Maybe Roof just has to unbutton that top button. Who knows? I don't have all the answers.
Either way, it makes more sense to tinker with what you have than to blow it up-at least until you're sure it can't be fixed.
"We're thinking about what we can do as coaches to try and make our operation better, different ways of speaking about things, different ways of running things out," Roof said. "From the schedule of the players, how can we make it the least amount of stress on them?"
If the only effect of the change is to help the players academically, then it's still worth it. Duke may not be Florida State on the field, but it's also not Florida State in the classroom-which counts for something.
Roof's not just supposed to produce football players. There are only eight Duke players currently on NFL rosters-most of the guys on the team are going to have to get real jobs. Practicing before classes start is a good way to make sure that players can take more of the classes they'd like to take. And Roof gets that too.
"You have more academic options" when the team practices earlier, he said. "A little more diversity in terms of scheduling is a big reason, more options for our players. That was really the biggest factor."
By consistently waking up and getting something accomplished before noon, the players will already be demonstrating more responsibility and discipline than many of their fellow college students. It's too early to say whether that increased maturity will translate to wins on the field, but it's not too early to say it's a good idea.
When you've been that bad, a little bit of change is always a good idea.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.