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Blue Devils Optimistic About the 2007 Season
By Al Featherston for theACC.com
It was not surprising when Duke was picked to finish last in the Coastal Division in media's preseason poll at the ACC Football Kickoff. That's exactly what Blue Devil coach Ted Roof expected for a team that enters the season with the nation's longest active losing streak.
"We've got to play our way out of it," Roof said. "We can't politic or poll our way out of it. We've got to block and tackle our way out of it."
Duke's last victory came on Sept. 17, 2005, when the Blue Devils beat VMI in Wallace Wade Stadium. The team's last ACC win came late in the 2004 season, when Matt Brooks kicked a 53-yard field goal as time expired to beat Clemson. Since that game, Duke has lost 17 straight ACC encounters and since the VMI win early the next season, the Devils have lost 20 straight games overall.
And, yet, there is a surprising amount of optimism surrounding the program headed into the 2007 season.
"Everybody is upbeat," senior fullback Tielor Robinson said. "You wouldn't think we'd lost every game last year if you were around and saw the atmosphere. It's amazing."
The reason for the upbeat atmosphere can be summed up in one word - experience. After two seasons as one of the ACC's least experienced teams, Duke returns 17 starters, including all 11 offensive starters from last season.
Sophomore Quarterback
Thad Lewis
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Nowhere is that returning experience more important than at quarterback. The Blue Devils have started a true freshman quarterback in 17 of its last 19 games. But this season, Roof has the luxury of two proven quarterbacks - sophomore Thad Lewis, who started 11 of 12 games a year ago, and sophomore Zack Asack, who started six of the last seven games in 2005.
"It's wonderful that we have two who have started," the Duke coach said. "The performance of your quarterback is critical. Unless you have dominant personnel, your quarterback has to play well to give you a chance to win. Look at who makes the most money in the NFL - quarterbacks. And I think that's for a reason.
"(It's great) to have guys now who are not just walking up to the line of scrimmage, hoping they know what they're supposed to be doing. Now they know what everybody's supposed to be doing. Because they're comfortable and confident in what they're doing, they can provide some of the intangibles that are so critical to playing the quarterback position."
Asack was supposed to provide those intangibles for a young team last year - a team that began the season with the least experienced offensive line in college football. Instead, he was suspended just before the start of pre-season practice, forcing Roof to thrust Lewis into the fray before he was ready.
The Opa-Locka, Fla., product did a surprisingly good job under the circumstances - throwing for 2,134 yards (the fourth highest total for a freshman in ACC history) and completing almost 53 percent of his passes. He showed his potential early, throwing for 305 yards in a near upset of eventual ACC champion Wake Forest.
Roof can only wonder how much better Lewis will be as a sophomore with Asack to push him in practice and with new offensive coordinator Peter Vaas, a former head coach in NFL Europe and Brady Quinn's quarterback coach at Notre Dame for the past two seasons, to mentor him.
"I think he has a chance to be a very good football player in this league," Roof said. "Obviously we'd have liked to red-shirt him, but we couldn't. But we're going to benefit this year (from) having him play last year."
Lewis will have a bevy of proven receivers to throw to, a deep, talented group headlined by junior Eron Riley, who led the ACC in yards per catch last season. He'll also have the benefit of a veteran offensive line that paid its dues last season, but showed marked improvement as the year progressed.
"You can't just throw people in and in their first starts expect immediate results," Robinson said. "There's a learning curve. I feel like this year on offense, we have a lot of experience. At the end of last year, we put up some good numbers."
Sophomore Defensive Tackle
Vince Oghobaase
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The same learning curve also has Roof excited about his defensive front. Three years ago, his recruiting class was lauded for the strength of his defensive line prospects - players such as tackles Vince Oghobaase and Clifford Respress and end Ayanga Okpokowuruk. Those players should be coming into their own as they start their third collegiate seasons.
"You really start to find out about your recruiting class the third year in the program," Roof said. "That will pay dividends. Some of those guys are still developing. There's definitely going to be competition with some of those young guys. You'll see them make big jumps throughout the season."
As dismal as Duke's 0-12 record looks on paper, the Blue Devils weren't that far from success last season. Roof's young team actually outplayed Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, out-gaining the eventual ACC champs by a wide margin and only losing when a chip-shot field goal was blocked on the game's final play. The Devils also lost to Miami on the game's final play, when Lewis couldn't get the team in the end zone for the winning touchdown from the six-yard line. And the North Carolina game should have gone into overtime, but the game-tying extra point was blocked in the final minute of play.
"It's not just Wake," Robinson said. "We saw we can play with the best teams - the Miami's and the Alabama's. We were right there in the fourth quarter. Our talent is there. Our confidence is there."
But Roof understands that it's not enough to come close.
"Teams that win their close games have good years ... teams that lose their close games have bad years," the Duke coach pointed out. "Four plays last year during the course of the year and the outside perception [of the our program] would be different. Where people see the program headed would be substantially different.
"We have to believe we've made a lot of progress. We KNOW we've made a lot of progress and believe we're close."
STRENGTHS: Added experience across the board, especially at quarterback and on the offensive line ... a receiving corps that is as deep and talented as any in the ACC ... growing strength on the defensive front.
CONCERNS: Cornerback -- Roof must replace the school's all-time interception leader, John Talley, and veteran Deonto McCormick ... the kicking game - a disaster in 2006 that must be rebuilt from scratch.
EARLY BELLWEATHER GAME: Duke opens at home against Connecticut on Sept. 1 in a game that the Blue Devils need to win to escape the pressure of owning the nation's longest losing streak. The UConn game is also vital because four straight road games follow.
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