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It may be two weeks later, but the situation will be much the same for Duke. This Saturday night, the team will find itself facing the No. 7 team in the nation, unsure of who will lead the offense in an uphill battle for the Blue Devils.
CHAPEL HILL - To understand the level of intensity of Friday's women's soccer match, you have to understand the intensity of Duke's opponent, North Carolina. A team that has seen only 20 losses in a 22-year program. A team that has seen wins against Duke in every matchup in that history except one lonely 1994 upset. A team that inspired 4,355 (mostly Tar Heel) fans to come out and cheer Friday night at Fetzer Field.
All Carl Franks wanted was improvement, winning small battles along the way.
And introducing the 2000 Heisman Trophy winner...
It wasn't really a matter of "if," but rather of "when."
By HAROLD GUTMANN The Chronicle Thank God North Texas missed that field goal last week. Although many Duke fans think that there couldn't be a worse offense in football, the Blue Devils (5.0 ppg) in fact rank only 113 out of 114 Division I football teams in scoring, ahead of North Texas by one point, but behind, well, everyone else. For coach Carl Franks, the reason is a simple matter of execution. "The first series, we gained about five yards on the first play, and then we decided to drop the snap from center," Franks said. "The next play we got three guys open and can't hit any of them-we dropped the ball. That's been our problem-we can't execute the play that's been called." The defense, ranked 109th in total defense and 99th in points allowed, looks downright dominating by comparison. But if anyone can understand Duke's position, it is its next opponent. Vanderbilt shares Duke's 0-3 recor, and the Commodores were only able to put up 17 points in their last two games, losses to Alabama and Mississippi. Because of their ineffective offenses, both teams must rely on their defenses to win. Duke's defense feels up to the challenge. "If the other defense is able to confuse our offense and give them trouble, then we should take it on ourselves to do the same thing," outside linebacker Kendral Knight said. "If our offense is struggling, then it's our job to make their offense struggle." Keeping up with Vanderbilt's defense will not be easy. "They've always been a team that plays very good defense," Franks said. "They're a blitzing defense, they like to put a lot of guys at the line of scrimmage and try to confuse you. We need a solid plan to make sure our quarterback doesn't get hit a whole bunch." The Blue Devils' solid plan will focus on junior All-American Jamie Winborn and preseason All-SEC cornerback Jimmy Williams. Both players missed the first two games of the season due to suspension, but against Ole Miss Winborn led the team with 15 tackles and Williams added an interception. Of course a solid plan is worthless if the Blue Devils can't execute it for the whole game. Last week Duke played Virginia to a 3-3 tie for the first 29 minutes of the first half, only to let up just before halftime and give up a critical touchdown with 28 seconds left until the break. "Vanderbilt is a very tough team, very hard-nosed," Knight said. "They want to compete every down and every snap. That's what we need to prepare to do, and that's what we did most of the game [against Virginia] but everybody knows that most of the game won't win it for you." One unit that can't afford any breakdowns is the secondary, who allowed the Cavaliers' Dan Ellis to complete 20-of-30 passes for 333 yards, including scoring passes of 55 and 31 yards to Billy McMullen (eight receptions, 189 yards). While Vanderbilt quarterback Greg Zolman will not be getting any Heisman votes, he has passed for 757 yards this season. Zolman's passes almost always find their way into the hands of receiver Dan Stricker, whose 109 yards per game ranks seventh in the country. Seeing McMullen and hearing about Stricker must cause physical pain to Franks, who saw his receivers catch only six passes for 64 yards last game. The Blue Devils were also guilty of dropping pass after pass, including one in the end zone that would have given Duke the early lead. "I really believe that last week if we had scored that touchdown that we dropped, that it would have given our team, which is predominantly a less-experienced football team, a big lift," the coach said. "It comes down to believing that the quarterback can't throw a ball that you can't go catch. I don't know what our confidence level is at that point right now." It is unclear whether the result of the game would have been different if the touchdown hadn't been dropped. But it certainly would have changed one amazing statistic: none of the seven wide receivers listed in Duke's depth chart has ever caught a touchdown pass in college. For Knight, the problem isn't physical, but mental. "I don't think the mental toughness is where it needs to be at this point," he said. "I don't doubt the effort that we put forth, but we just need to make the big play and not give up the big play."
The Olympics may be a scene of international competition, but this year the Australian metropolis is also the stage upon which six Duke coaches and athletes will compete for the gold.
After the first half of the first game of the season, Carl Franks already had an eye on the 2001 season and even further down the road. He'll tell you-having lost all but seven starters from last season, it's a building year, and Franks is starting that process early.
Indiana president Myles Brand wasn't the only one making waves in Hoosierland this week.
Charles Porter said he has a thing for lions.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.
If you walked into Cameron Indoor Stadium only 15 minutes into last night's volleyball match against High Point, you would have already missed one-third of Duke's performance.
He played in six of last year's games and started in the home opener, but he was nowhere to be found Saturday night.
Even though Krista Dill was playing her first collegiate volleyball matches, you never would have known it by her performance this weekend.
David Garrard has a little extra incentive to perform well this weekend.
First team All-America selection. ACC Defensive Player of the Year. One-hundred-eighty-six tackles, leading not only the conference, but the entire nation. And that was just his sophomore year.
It's not the Big 10 or the SEC, or even Conference USA, but the ACC promises to hold its share of surprises this season.
It could have been Tricia Martin's last collegiate match.
Clar Anderson, Duke's wrestling coach, spent a year in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s training for the 1988 Olympics. Now, he wants to give the same opportunity to his team at Duke.
Maybe it was fear of losing at the ACC Championships for the first time in 13 years. Maybe it was the pain of watching Wake Forest snap their ACC 116-match winning streak. Whatever it was, the ninth-ranked women's tennis team (21-5) found the motivation to lift it to its 13th consecutive ACC championship yesterday at the Racquet Club of the South in Norcross, Ga.
