Duke football

[cspan37421]

Wow. Has anyone else yet watched the postgame press conference of Coach Roof? I wish I could say something positive about his appearance, demeanor, etc. It might look like he has no answers and is just stunned, but he did keep coming back to the fact that the players weren't executing. Clearly the punting is one issue and bad punting is a bit like bad free throw shooting. If the punter can get a clean kick away, defense should have no effect on the distance. So there seem to be quite a few self-inflicted wounds.

Game film s/b able to break down what was self-inflicted and what was simply being outplayed. I wonder if it is just correctable mistakes or something more.

Couple comments did concern me. The first player interviewed said they didn't expect UConn to be so prepared. Really? Wow.

I think the coach said something to the effect that he thought they'd be able to continue to do the things they did in the first half. (implying he was counting on UConn not making adjustments?).

I don't know what is fixable but his body language was not encouraging.

[DevilAlumna]

I know the question was posed on how I explain teams winning on the road....my explanation would be that you go on the road not expecting fans to be there cheering for you. To play to shut the other fans up. These Duke guys will come out for the Va. Tech home game in Wallace Wade this year and think they are in Blacksburg. How does that motivate these (18-22) year old kids? If I were a Duke football player, I'd rather play on the road. It has to be humiliating to run out onto the field at Wallace Wade. Especially when playing a Va. Tech that will fill up the stands with their fans.

If there is a Duke player on the current FB team who actually believes that there is outstanding/unwavering student/alumni support, he's more optimistic than Ozzie!

I think these kids are smart enough to know the recent history of the team, and that they have to win over the home crowd as well as on the road. Or at least ignore the crowd and focus on the task at hand.

[captmojo]

Or at least ignore the crowd and focus on the task at hand.

This seems to be the order of the day.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

If there is a Duke player on the current FB team who actually believes that there is outstanding/unwavering student/alumni support, he's more optimistic than Ozzie!

Well, I AM an outstanding/unwavering alumni supporter, and so are most of the other season ticket holders. I am not alone. That said, it doesn't mean that I don't want to see significant improvement in our performance this year.

[dukie8]

we (Duke Football Fans) do not expect Duke to compete for a NC. I dont think our expectations of a team that comes out and every now and then has a chance to win is unreasonable. EVERY OTHER TEAM IN DIVISION I has that expectation. Why shouldnt we?
losing to richmond and uCOn should not be acceptable. being owned by wfu also should not be accecptable.

that's exactly right. the expectations for duke football have to be the lowest in d1a football. if duke won 2 ooc games (that should be easy since we can pick equally futile teams) and 2 acc games each year, every 5 years made a run at .500 and every 10 years made a bowl, football would be a non issue. people wouldn't even talk about it. it's when you go year after year without winning a single game and get blown out by bad teams, that people get up in arms.

[throatybeard]

Thanks goodness for FIU...

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3003847

[Bluedawg]

Thanks goodness for FIU...

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3003847

Wonder why NC State didn't make the list. Wasn't UCF a 1AA school?

[throatybeard]

No, UCF is not IAA. They're in Conference USA with Southern Mississippi, East Carolina, Memphis, Houston &c.

[Bluedawg]

No, UCF is not IAA. They're in Conference USA with Southern Mississippi, East Carolina, Memphis, Houston &c.

thanks...somewhere i read where they were.

[TheDuke11]

i've been reading a lot of comments like "its just one game" and "lets not freak out about just one game" and other similar comments.
its NOT just one game. Its been 22 or 23 or whatever many games, not just one.

I just wish more people that could make a difference actually cared about Duke football. Not everyone likes football and that is beyond fine, but the administration should at least care enough about these kids to make sure they have every opportunity in the world to compete on a day to day basis.

I'm 31 years old. guess how many times I've seen Duke go to a bowl game, or even just beat unc.

[Bluedawg]

i've been reading a lot of comments like "its just one game" and "lets not freak out about just one game" and other similar comments.
its NOT just one game. Its been 22 or 23 or whatever many games, not just one.

I just wish more people that could make a difference actually cared about Duke football. Not everyone likes football and that is beyond fine, but the administration should at least care enough about these kids to make sure they have every opportunity in the world to compete on a day to day basis.

I'm 31 years old. guess how many times I've seen Duke go to a bowl game, or even just beat unc.

A couple of us have. In a previous post I pointed out this same thing and asked the question "How long will it take for Duke to get away from its old, bad habits and learn how to win?"

Patrick Yates had a great post with a fabulous line. He wrote

Duke now has incoming freshman who were not born the last time Duke was releveant (with the lone exclusion of the 94 season, which was a fluke). That is not a period of futility, that is generational.

I think both of these recognize that losing is a way of life at Duke football and that will be the hard part. Coach Roof said last year that the hardest job he has on game day is to keep the players from watching the clock. When they get ahead they get so nervous that they tense up and don't play well. that is knowing how to lose but not knowing how to win.

they need to be taught how to win.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

I think both of these recognize that losing is a way of life at Duke football and that will be the hard part. Coach Roof said last year that the hardest job he has on game day is to keep the players from watching the clock. When they get ahead they get so nervous that they tense up and don't play well. that is knowing how to lose but not knowing how to win.

they need to be taught how to win.

These kids all know how to win when they get to Duke. They (virtually) all were on winning teams in high school. Of course, winning at Duke has proven a bit more problematic...

[6th Man]

Just a question to throw out there....do you think when Spurrier was a Devil we had superior talent to our squads of the past several years? I know Hines was a stud! I guess I am just wondering if Spurrier was such an offensive genius that he was able to do what he did with the same talent we have now, or if we just had better players. I have been preaching fan support in this thread, and the way Spurrier had the offense rolling it was exciting. I know Franks tried to have an "Airball" season and it was a disaster. The first drive against UCONN was great...I guess we didn't have much planned after the first drive.

[TheTrain]

Better players across the board and it was not even close

The OL was outstanding with Port, McNairy, Tulacro, Metts and Nitkowski
Great TEs with Jason Cooper and Dave Colonna
Fantastic QBs...Slayden, Dilweg and Brown...all of whom played in the NFL
Solid RBs with Cuthbert, Boone, Randy Jones, Stanley Monk, Wayne Charles
Solid secondary with Erwin Sampson, Derrick Jackson, Wyatt Smith and QUinton McCracken
LBs were a little suspect because Rodney Dickerson was small and Hollywood Howell was often hurt but George Edwards was a constant
DL was deep with McDonald, Youmans, Anderson and others

The only place where today's team would be better talent-wise would be on the DL

[Bluedawg]

Better players across the board and it was not even close

So duke was able to recruit at some point. What changed?

[Bluedawg]

Wow. Has anyone else yet watched the postgame press conference of Coach Roof? I wish I could say something positive about his appearance, demeanor, etc. It might look like he has no answers and is just stunned, but he did keep coming back to the fact that the players weren't executing. Clearly the punting is one issue and bad punting is a bit like bad free throw shooting. If the punter can get a clean kick away, defense should have no effect on the distance. So there seem to be quite a few self-inflicted wounds.

Game film s/b able to break down what was self-inflicted and what was simply being outplayed. I wonder if it is just correctable mistakes or something more.

Couple comments did concern me. The first player interviewed said they didn't expect UConn to be so prepared. Really? Wow.

I think the coach said something to the effect that he thought they'd be able to continue to do the things they did in the first half. (implying he was counting on UConn not making adjustments?).

I don't know what is fixable but his body language was not encouraging.

is there a link to the video that we can view. I've searched for it and can't seem to locate one.

[mapei]

So duke was able to recruit at some point. What changed?

According to some who posted this week. "Roof is good recruiter." So maybe nothing has.

<tongue planted firmly in cheek>

[throatybeard]

Roof's "good recruiting" doesn't show up in Phil Steele's rankings. (Insert caveat about recruiting rankings being flawed). We're usually 10th-12th in the league and 60th-70th nationally, or so. I don't see us any higher in any of the others. There was some talk about a 31st ranked class in some service, but that was before all the late signees and we dropped later.

I think part of what happened w/r/t recruiting is we went from the 80s era ACC, with arguably 3-ish FB schools at the time (mainly Clemson, MD sort of, GT sort of based on history) to the 00s-era ACC, with those plus FSU, VT, Miami. And BC is a school like Minnesota or GT--you can't quite classify them as FB or BB. WFU has improved mightily, State at least thinks they're a semi-FB school, and feces are raining down on us from all directions.

[TheTrain]

With all due respect Throaty, the recruiting has been relatively good despite our pathetic on-field performance. The two preeminent rating services (Rivals and Scout) have rated the last four recruiting classes as follows out of 117 1-A programs

2004: Rivals #70 / Scout #65
2005: Rivals #46 / Scout #31
2006: Rivals #56 / Scout #36
2007: Rivals #78 / Scout #64

[ChrisP]

let me tell you how much Duke University cares about its football program.
We have lost 22 (or is it 23?) consecutive games, some to DII programs and many to horrible DI programs, yet we still have the same head coach.

I love Roof to death, I swear I do, but my God how obvious is it that he isnt going to be able to get the job done?

Ya know, if you're gonna complain about something, you really ought to have your facts straight...I went back and looked at stats from 2004-present available on GoDuke.com. We have now lost 21 straight games (lost 8 in a row to close out '05, all 12 last year , and now the UConvicts to start '07). During that time frame, we have lost ZERO games to "DII" programs. We have not even played a DII program. I suspect that what you're referring to is D1-AA programs The Citadel (W back in '04), Richmond (L to open '06 season), and VMI (our last win, back in '05). So...thanks to my Duke edumacation, I can calculate that's a WINNING record against the so-called "lower-tier) D1-AA schools.

As for losing to "horrible" DI programs, exactly which teams would be on that list for you? Since the 2004 season and including last Saturday's debacle, Duke has played 11 non-conference games. If you subtract the D1-AA opponents, that total changes to 8 non-con games (in other words, 8 against D1 teams). Foes included: Navy (3x), UConn (2x), and then once each against, ECU, Alabama, and Vandy. I don't know about you, but last time I looked, all of those schools - with the possible exceptions of UConn and Vandy - had pretty strong football programs. And even in Vandy's case, let's not forget that they lost to eventual NC Florida by only 6 pts last year.

In terms of our conference schedule, we've played very good teams in GaTech, VaTech, Wake, and FSU every year for the past 3 seasons. We've also played a pretty decent program in UVA every year. We've played Miami and Clemson twice each and last year, we had the good fortune to see BC as an away game. So...it ain't like we're playing a bunch of chumps as your post insinuates.

Now, I didn't look all this up to try and prove that Duke football is actually doing well (I do think there have been some signs of progress, though) and I didn't bring it up to try to say, "See Ted Roof's our man - he's got us moving in the right direction!" Like you, I really like Ted and I wish like H**L he could get it done as our head coach. Up until last Saturday, I was firmly in his corner and really, really hoped he had the program turned around this year and that we'd begin to see some real progress in terms of at least 2-3 W's (let's face it, our schedule is a bear and to expect any more wins this season is just silly) but I'm very disheartened now. The reason I brought it all up is simply to counter your claim that Duke University doesn't care about it's football program (I don't believe that) and to refute your contention that we've lost to a bunch of bad teams. I think mistakes have been made in the past and firmly believe we can and should expect to field a more competitive team (there is absolutely no excuse for not having a decent punter and/or place kicker) but I think your claim is ridiculous and that your reasoning and evidence are flawed. If you're going to criticize, please at least make sure you know what you're talking about.

I don't claim to know how to "fix" Duke Football and so I won't begin to speculate, but I do know that we've played a pretty tough schedule the past several seasons and would like to believe that the experience gained playing against those good teams will start to pay dividends - and SOON!