If a reporter asks a Duke football player about a brutal upcoming four-game road swing, or if the team has to win one of those games to salvage hope for the rest of the season, or if one of those games is more winnable than the others, he'll get one response.
We're just taking it one game at a time.
Ask a Blue Devil how it felt to be routed by the team's least-formidable opponent, or why the defense was paralyzed by a mediocre offense it had all summer to prepare for, or why the offense gained 89 yards in 57 minutes, and you'll get one response.
We're moving on from the past.
Maybe it's time to stop taking it one game at a time. Maybe it's time to stop moving on. And maybe it's time to display a sense of urgency that borders on desperation.
It's time to press.
Because after 21 straight losses, the "taking it one game at a time" mentality isn't working. Instead of ignoring the past two seasons, the Blue Devils need to use them as motivation. When you haven't won a football game in more than 742 days, there has to be something beyond the players and coaches' externally mechanical approach.
Take yesterday, for example, when head coach Ted Roof met with the media in the Yoh Football Center. Before sitting in his chair on the ground level of the building, with Wallace Wade Stadium looming behind him, Roof stared out the window, the light resting in the exact place to make it appear as if he were staring into his future. He spoke in a soft, sometimes inaudible, voice, with his hand occasionally wandering over in front of his mouth to make his words even more vague.
He looked tired, probably because he has sat in that chair for 21 autumn weekdays and has preached the same sermon. He has talked about the impotent offense, the defense that tires after it's been on the field for too long, the special team mistakes that have robbed Duke of wins.
Imagine if President Bush listed every threat to the United States and every mistake the country made that week for 21 straight weeks, but still claimed that the state of the union was strong. After time, he's no longer credible, and has to change his stance.
At this point, Roof's position-the one he instills in his players-is stale and no longer tenable. And from the outside, it doesn't look like he's doing anything to change it.
"It's tough to come talk to your team after a loss like that," sophomore cornerback Leon Wright said of Roof's postgame talk after the latest loss, a 45-14 blitzing against Connecticut. "You can't say the same thing you said last year, because it didn't work. He really didn't have that much to say."
On Tuesday at Yoh, a reporter asked Roof whether his team has started pressing yet. He replied that "probably some" of his players were, but there is a "fine line" between using it as motivation and feeling so much pressure that it becomes a burden. But is it time to cross that line?
Roof paused for five seconds.
"I guess it all gets back to the end result," said Roof, in his fourth year at the helm. "We can spin and speculate, but it all comes back to winning and losing."
Even though Roof did a commendable job of avoiding the question, he did, in some way, answer it. If it all comes back to winning and losing-well, this team hasn't been doing much winning lately. Perhaps I'm spinning and speculating, but why isn't every player desperate enough to press, risking mistakes for the sake of making something positive happen? The program isn't pressing, the program is losing, and, according to Roof, that's what it all comes down to. After all, what's the worst that could happen? If Duke loses because it's too desperate, then the end result is still the same, and at least it has tried something new.
Eventually, this Roof-led squad must stop saying it gave 110 percent and left its blood, sweat and tears on the field. Everyone knows this team is trying and wants to win. But instead of being excited to return to the practice field Monday after yet another loss, Duke should be angry.
Angry enough to quit trying to win for winning's sake "one game at a time."
Angry enough to cease moving on from the past 21 games and start using them to break the nation's longest losing streak.
Angry enough to start pressing.
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