Originally Posted by
blazindw
In my 4 years at school (2000-2004), I saw 5 football wins. The only time most students went to the games was when the rumor got out we were winning (which didn't happen till the first game of my junior year). I remember the OT game against Rice where there were so few fans in the stands, the students were able to run down to the open end of the field for the 2nd OT to put pressure on Rice's offense. And I saw every game except one. Granted, I was working for the team for 3 of those years, but I've seen how bad it can get, how it feels when no one cares enough to show up at the games, and when they do, they're gone by halftime.
It takes time to build (or in our case, rebuild) a program. Ted Roof tried and wasn't successful, but I credit him for getting that initial seed of working hard and seeing some results into the minds of football players that put on the Duke uniform. Coach Cutcliffe has taken that to a new level, a level even I thought I wouldn't see for decades at Wallace Wade. Before, it was a miracle when we were losing by single digits. Now, our players EXPECT to win every single game and, most importantly, they are ANGRY if they do lose. Coach Cutcliffe has our team thinking like a major football program, and the amenities that have been put in to help that growth (the new football building, new practice fields, improved stadium culture at Wallace Wade) is all a part of that...we're not thinking like a FCS school. We're thinking like the Ole Misses, the Texas Techs, those teams that know they should be going "bowling" every single year and start to compete to be in the top half of the conference.
Getting to a bowl game is the next step, which involves beating the teams we should (the DII opponent, the lower half of the ACC, our mid-tier nonconference opponents), beating our football rivals (UNC, Wake) and competing against the top half of the ACC and perhaps stealing a game or two (we came close against VT last season). I love that every year we are competing and we're just THIS close to winning more games than losing. This is the year that we need to take that next step. But, I'm glad there's more of us thinking this way as opposed to 10 short years ago, when many of my class thought we would never see the football team win while we were in school.