The Duke football fan base has been inundated by a tide of doom and gloom lately. Finding a Duke fan who thinks the team won’t win again this season is about as difficult as finding a tree in Duke Forest.
It’s not hard to see why. Duke has lost four straight, three blowouts and an agonizing, last-second loss to North Carolina, a loss which seemed to have sucked the life out of the team.
But a trip in the way-back machine gives some cause for optimism. And not very far back, either. Two years ago Duke started 4-0 before losing six straight. Some were close losses but Duke also had a 31-6 loss to Miami and a 21-3 loss to Virginia Tech.
And that team turned it around, finishing the regular season with wins over Georgia Tech (at home) and Wake Forest (on the road) to get to six wins, which led to a bowl win over Northern Illinois.
Of course, that team did have Daniel Jones. Then again that Jones-led offense produced games with six, 10 and three points during that losing streak before finishing with games of 43 and 31 points.
Of course, part two, Duke entered the final two games of the 2016 season at 4-6 and got blown out in their final two games to finish at 4-8.
So, a fork in the road. Which fork will Duke take?
Center Will Taylor got his first Duke start last week, taking over for injured Jack Wohlabaugh.
“We’ve been working hard regardless in practice. I feel like we’ve had progressively better weeks of practice but things just don’t go our way Saturday. We’ve all kind of looked inward to see what we could fix, the little details here and there. It’s tough to come out here and work as hard as we do and see things go like that. We know that’s not us. Our main focus has been on us. We need to think about playing for each other than rather than who we’re playing against.”
Adding an extra dimension to Saturday night’s match against the Deacons is what happened last year.
You remember that 59-7 Wake Forest rout?
Or perhaps you’ve repressed the memories.
Defensive end Chris Rumph hasn’t.
“Embarrassment. They came on our field and put 50 something on us. We’ve had this marked on our schedule since last year. We’re coming to practice with the mind set that that’s not going to happen again.”
Taylor agrees.
“The way things went last year against Wake Forest, I feel like everyone has a little bit of an edge, at least I do. I’m hoping that shows up on Saturday. It’s crunch time. I feel like we always come together at this time.”
David Cutcliffe says he doesn’t rely much on the revenge narrative.
“I don’t bring it up. That’s a natural response. That’s who they are. They’re competitors. But because you say something, it has nothing to do with outcome. Outcome is all about the work and what your input is. I don’t ever ride that kind of emotional wave as inspiration because it’s pretty shallow most of the time.”
Cutcliffe didn’t suggest any dramatic changes on the horizon at Tuesday’s media luncheon and you wouldn’t want him to if any were forthcoming. Which I suspect they are not.
He said Duke was focusing on the triangle of scheme, execution and intangibles.
But the latter seems to be a priority for a team that has been short of poise, focus and toughness in recent weeks.
“We can be disappointed, we can be dejected for a little while, we can be angry, we can be a lot of things. But we aren’t going to be frustrated. There are always answers. They come through work, they come through communication, they come through being tedious in everything we do. . . . There’s no magic to this. The magical thing is work. That’s getting sweaty and dirty and focused and paying attention in meetings and doing all the little things.”
Cutcliffe says he’s relying on his veterans to communicate these values to the team.
“You know they talk. You hope seniors are giving young people hope in conversations. Captains, that’s a role they should play. . . .Players always have to be relied on in the toughest of times.. . . I’m not going to pull them out. They have to go inside. Nobody is so resilient that they don’t need people to help pull with them.”
Not much was said about Wake Forest other than the obvious, stop the run, get third-down stops, don’t turn it over.
“You’ve got to get your mind set,” Rumph summed up. “ You’ve got to come with the mind set that we’ve got to win these two. You’ve got to buckle down and put your nose down and grind.”
NOTES
Good news on the Casey Holman front. All of the tests were good and he was at practice today, albeit without any contact. I wouldn’t expect him to play Saturday but he hasn’t been ruled out.
Saturday’s meeting will be the 100th between Duke and Wake Forest, with Duke holding a 58-39-2 advantage.
Duke went to Winston-Salem in 2017 with a 5-6 record, needing a win to become bowl eligible, Duke got the win.
Wake Forest returned the favor last season, coming into Duke at 5-6 and leaving with a decisive win.
So, that trend line looks good.
Why is Will Taylor 85 pounds heavier than twin brother John Taylor? Will says it’s because John ate at McDonald’s growing up, he ate at Burger King.
Probably an endorsement deal in there somewhere. Just not sure for whom.