Another football season at Duke has started with another loss, but quarterback Thaddeus Lewis is confident that greater success will come soon.
Lewis thinks that the recovery from last week's 24-16 loss to Richmond will start today, when Duke plays at Army. Kickoff will be at noon.
"We had a talk with the seniors, and we understand what we need to do," Lewis said. "I took that to heart because of the loss. I know that I don't want my senior season to go down the drain. I want to be remembered for having a successful season."
Army won its opener 27-14 at Eastern Michigan last week.
Army has a player who could present Duke with a problem. Ali Villanueva -- 6-10 and 283 pounds -- is in his first season at receiver after spending the past three seasons on the offensive and defensive lines. He didn't catch a pass against Eastern Michigan, but Coach David Cutcliffe of Duke is concerned that his defensive backs will have trouble against Villanueva because all of them are almost a foot shorter.
The loss to Richmond was Duke's third season-opening loss in four seasons, but Lewis considers it an aberration, not a sign of another losing season.
"You kind of felt that way on the field," Lewis said. "It was like, ‘We're better than this. We're not playing up to our potential.' A lot of that was because some guys were afraid to get on other guys. We can't do that. We saw that on Saturday.
"I made a vow to push myself to the limit and get out of my comfort zone…. That's what we needed on Saturday. We've got a lot of young guys playing, and they've never been in that situation before."
Duke could have more young players on defense today. Cutcliffe is considering playing freshmen Augie Campbell and Tyree Glover, both linebackers, and John Drew, a defensive lineman, and trying to use their quickness against Army's triple-option offense, which had 300 yards rushing and four touchdowns in the opener.
Lewis threw for 350 yards and two touchdowns against Richmond, but the rushing game -- built around Re'quan Boyette and Jay Hollingsworth -- needs to generate more than the 19 yards on 16 carries that it had last week.
"Certainly it's going to be challenging for us to do this on the road and try to bounce back on the road," Cutcliffe said. "That's always a little different when you haven't won at home and you have to turn around and try and come back when you're a road team.
"We'll find out again a lot more about the competitiveness of our team. Right now I'm totally convinced that our team will respond and go play the best it can play at Army. And that's what I want to see."
Brandon King, a backup tight end, is confident that Duke won't make the same mistakes against Army that it made against Richmond.
"We know now we've got to come out and play," King said. "We know now we've got to come out and play every game like it's our last game, no matter who we play or what they do.
"Every game's a ‘must' win. Obviously we need to go out there and prove ourselves, especially after last week."
■ Bill Cole can be reached at bcole@wsjournal.com.
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