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View Full Version : Football team plays winners



Atldukie79
10-30-2008, 10:41 PM
I read an article in SI that was conveying the fact that the "smart schools" (Duke, Wake, Northwestern,Rice,Stanford, Vandy) all had winning records to date. On one particular weekend this season,all 6 of these teams won a game at the same time for the first time since 1950! The article further speculates, but does not conclude why this has happened.

This led me to evaluate the schedule...at least Duke's. It only then occurred to me that all 7 of our opponents to date have winning records! Pretty startling. In fact, for our entire 12 game schedule, only NC State and Clemson currently have losing records. Only NC State seems a lock to end the year as a loser. Clemson might recover. Perhaps another of our opponents will conclude with a losing record.

I don't know what our strength of schedule looks like (I know we aren't playing the top ten types) but this is not a patsy schedule. Our out of confernce teams are the right teams to play, but each of them exceeds "normal" expectations:

JMU - #1 in 1AA- beat App State - 7-1
Navy - Loses their coach, 5-3
NW - 6-2
Vandy - 5-3

These teams are a combined 22- 6 in games excluding Duke.
I think this makes Duke's early success all the more impressive!