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Duke players set sights on bowl bid
Blue Devils need two more wins to be eligible
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Published: November 5, 2008
DURHAM
Duke is bumping along the roughest stretch of a long road, but is looking for a return home on Saturday to smooth the ride.
Old foe N.C. State will be the opponent for the first time in five years, an interruption created by ACC expansion. Duke has lost three of its past four games to fall to 4-4 overall heading into the 3:30 p.m. game at Wallace Wade Stadium.
The losses have cooled off a hot start, but offensive tackle Fred Roland said that much can still be accomplished in the season's final four games, starting with the two wins that the Blue Devils need to become bowl eligible.
"I don't think, as a team, that we think anything is going to be handed to us," Roland said. "The word ‘easy' doesn't cross your mind at all.
"You know there's going to be a fight every down, every game, every weekend. There's a high sense of urgency knowing that something like a bowl game is in tangible reach."
Coach David Cutcliffe said he can't fault the effort his first Duke team is giving him. The team is coming off eight quarters in which it has played as hard as possible, according to Cutcliffe, beating Vanderbilt two weeks ago and losing in overtime at Wake Forest last Saturday.
Next up is an opponent that Cutcliffe said is more talented than both Wake Forest and Vanderbilt. N.C State will have had an extra week to prepare for Duke after having an open date last week and additional time for injured players to rest and recover.
"I expect N.C. State to play their best ballgame," Cutcliffe said. "We're going to have to play great to be in this game. They're good and that's not coach talk. You know that Tom O'Brien (the N.C. State coach) is going to put a good product on the field."
And for great play to happen, Cutcliffe said, the Blue Devils can't make the same mistakes in the kicking game and on special teams that they made against the Deacons.
The Blue Devils' special teams had committed few glaring errors under assistant coach Zac Roper, until last Saturday. A fumbled opening kickoff that the Deacons recovered and used to score a touchdown was followed by a blocked punt that led to a Deacons safety.
A chance to win in regulation fell apart when Nick Maggio's 42-yard field-goal attempt sailed wide right.
"We were frustrated and truly dejected, I guess, after our last ballgame," Cutcliffe said. "We were feeling that we played well enough to win in most areas and then we made some critical errors.
"The game is about critical errors. We're not a team that can afford to make critical errors."
Any dejection that Cut
cliffe saw last Saturday night when Duke returned home was gone yesterday. Duke doesn't have a losing record after eight games for the first time since 1998, when the team, coached by Fred Goldsmith, was 4-4 then lost its last three games.
Roland and defensive end Greg Akinbiyi said they can't see this team going winless the rest of the season. Akinbiyi said that the remaining games will be difficult because they are in ACC play, but added that gaining bowl eligibility will be Duke's X factor the rest of the month.
Roland has seen this team bounce back before and he is confident that it will come back at least once more.
"I would say that our team is really resilient," Roland said. "We lost; we weren't OK with it and we decided to come out this week and do something about it.
"We do realize that it's not too late. If anything it's definitely inspired us to keep working harder and continue to want more than we have in front of us."
■ Bill Cole can be reached at bcole@wsjournal.com.
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