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Duke travels to Army on Saturday for a 12 noon EST kickoff. Army is on a five game winning streak, sits at 7-2 overall with those two losses coming to Ohio State and Tulane.
Duke is obviously not an Ohio State caliber team but closer to the 3-5 Green Wave. The Blue Devils are coming off their worst offensive performance of the year against Virginia Tech, so one could obviously hope things go up from here.
Luckily, Duke has historically been good against option offenses, so the defense should continue playing effectively at a high level. The question is whether the offense will do its part.
Another significant subplot is that Duke has had a bye week to prepare for this game, which is doubly relevant: Duke has historically played quite well after bye weeks, thanks to Cutcliffe's excellent ability to prepare well and fully take advantage of that extra time.
Secondly, the extra time has hopefully have been used to fix some of Duke's struggles on offense. It's difficult to give a positional breakdown of guilt, because the issues are pretty much everywhere except the running backs (and of course, they don't get the ball enough what with the playcalling the way it is), but hopefully at least the offensive line will have made some headway.
Hopefully the coaching staff has reviewed lots of tape and has come to the conclusion we have that Brown and Wilson haven't gotten enough carries.
However, this losing streak is really depressing and it's hard to imagine getting out of this rut this late in the season.
That said, Army is the weakest opponent left on the schedule, despite their record (which comes against inferior competition) and their privilege of hosting the game.
If there was ever a time to get a win, well, it was probably the Pitt game, but this may be Duke's last chance to save the season. We're on a win streak against Army, and that's at severe risk.
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- Surging Army seeks perfection at home against ACC foe Duke
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