"New Winning Streak."
Those words popped up on the screen as the Big Ten Network showed Duke's first win in two years. This was after the broadcast had featured the "Longest Losing Streak" graphic roughly 7,214 times throughout the game.
Winning streak.
Somehow the Blue Devils broke the nation's most disheartening streak by never getting disheartened in a game that gave them every reason to. And they did it with the gripping, almost suffocating, desire to break a slide that seemed to get steeper and faster each week.
If the Duke players acted over the last year as if their string of losses didn't hang over them with the weight of a goal post, they betrayed their true feelings at the end of Saturday's game. There was what could only be described as unbridled joy. Players rushed the field. Sophomore nose guard Kinney Rucker knelt on the turf with his hands clasped, shouting to the heavens in thanks.
And they deserved to celebrate. In my time at Duke, Saturday's game ranks only behind the 2005 UNC basketball home game in terms of standing-on-your-seat, heart-attack-inducing drama. The win wasn't pretty by any means, especially in the second half, but the Blue Devils surpassed any cliché you could throw out there in regards to winning simply through pure will.
With this team's recent history, it wouldn't be too surprising to see them fold under all the adversity they faced Saturday. They could have given up after a pair of atrocious calls that went against them midway through the third quarter, which gave the impression that the football gods just didn't want Duke to snap that losing streak.
A phantom pass interference call on Adrian Aye-Darko on third-and-10 kept a Northwestern drive alive. The Blue Devils held firm and stopped the Wildcats on fourth down minutes later.
On the next drive, Thaddeus Lewis clearly got the first down on a fourth-and-1 quarterback sneak. Television replays confirmed it, yet the call was overturned, ending Duke's scoring threat and giving Northwestern the ball with good field position. (ACC officials said Monday they have asked for a review of the play from the Big Ten because the replay official was provided by the home conference).
Yet somehow, despite the gut feeling of every Duke fan watching the game, the Blue Devils overcame blunders, both the refs' and their own, and held on.
Duke showed the potential for gutting out a win the week before in their loss to Virginia. In that game, the Blue Devils made too many mistakes to pull out a victory, but the team continued to fight and clearly believed it could win-two things that couldn't be said about the opening week loss to Connecticut.
In Evanston, Ill, the Blue Devils, for what seemed like the first time that I can remember, refused to lose. The tactical adjustments, like utilizing a spread set, certainly played a part in the win, but this triumph came from simply not allowing Northwestern to spoil the night.
And perhaps the best part of this victory is that Duke can be treated like a real football team, at least for the time being. The football talk can revolve around questions like "Can the Blue Devils beat a solid Navy squad if they can't establish a running game?" instead of "Should we have a team?" or "Should we be in the ACC?"
And I think if he's honest with himself, that's all Roof needs for now. If he's quiet and withdrawn when he's asked about all the program's battles, he can talk to you for an hour about what his team needs to do to win the next game.
So, go ahead, discuss what the team did well and did poorly Saturday. Argue over whether the spread will continue to work against quicker defenses. Question whether the Blue Devils have the tools to pull off another win this season.
Because now you won't have to question how much it means to them.
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