Duke ready for Temple

Is this the start of a new era for Duke football?

Sportswriter Thomas Boswell famously posited that time begins on opening day.

Boswell was talking about baseball. But it could apply to any team sport, including college football.

The air is ripe with possibilities. Everybody’s going to a bowl game, everybody’s undefeated.

Well, everybody’s undefeated except the handful of teams that lost last week in Week Zero, a name so weird only the NCAA could have come up with it.

“This is our oldest child Amber. She’s child zero.”

I digress. Duke opens with visiting Temple Friday night. Duke is coming off a 3-9 season. Temple is coming off a 3-9 season.

Duke is coached by 45-year-old Mike Elko, a first-time head coach with 10 previous coaching stops on his resume.

Temple is coached by 51-year old Stan Drayton, a first-time head coach with 14 previous stops.

Elko has always been on the defensive side of the ball. Drayton has always been on the offensive side of the ball. Elko was at Texas A&M last year. Drayton was at Texas last year.

Drayon has always been a running back-coach, so maybe we’ll be in for a heavy dose of good, ole fashioned, smash-mouth football Friday night.

Or maybe not. Temple’s starting quarterback is 6-6, 210-pound D’Wan Mathis. The oft-injured Mathis started in Georgia’s 2020 opener against Arkansas and passed for over 300 yards last season for Temple against Memphis. HIs 2022 targets include former Georgia Tech receiver Adonicas Sanders, who had the winning touchdown catch against Duke. last season.

Yes, a former Bulldog passing to a former Yellow Jacket. That’s the world we live in.

Duke is a member of the ACC, still a Power-Five conference, at least for now.  Temple is a member of the AAC, the American Athletic Conference, a league that also includes Cincinnati, Central Florida and Houston, programs clearly competitive with the ACC’s best.

So, maybe Duke’s 2021 3-9 is better than Temple’s 3-9. Or maybe not. But Duke is at home, which may actually mean something. Elko has been working hard at drumming up fan support, both in the community and on campus. If there are enough curious people willing to delay their Labor Day plans by a day in order to check out the new sheriff in town, then maybe Duke will have a real home-field advantage.

Duke drew over 32,000 fans for David Cutcliffe’s first game at home back in 2008.

Of course, Duke needs a win to keep them coming back and jump-start the Mike Elko era.

But Elko is sailing into some strong historical currents. Since Bill Murray retired at the end of the 1965 season Elko is Duke’s 11th coach. Of those only Steve Spurrier won more games at Duke than he lost. Spurrier was 20-13-1 in three seasons at Duke before leaving for his alma mater, Florida, a decision I’ve never heard anyone criticize.

Spurrier coached Florida to the 1996 national title, an outcome that never would have been remotely possible at Duke.

David Cutcliffe lasted 14 seasons at Duke. No one else since Murray has lasted more than Mike McGee’s eight seasons.

Cutcliffe’s tenure ended badly at Duke and I agree that a change had to be made.

But Cutcliffe put together three straight winning seasons from 2013 through 2015, the first time that had been accomplished at Duke since 1960-’62.

He proved that Duke could win in football, and that’s no small feat considering the mess he inherited.

The other guys? Tom Harp and Fred Goldsmith lasted five seasons. Red Wilson, Steve Sloan and Barry Wilson were shown the door after season four. Harp had his only winning season (6-5) in his final season (1970), while Red Wilson had back-to-back winning seasons in 1981 and 1982, also 6-5 and couldn’t keep his job. For all practical purposes Carl Franks was fired at halftime of a 2003 game against Wake Forest, one in which the Deacons led 42-0.

Franks was replaced by Ted Roof, who lasted until 2007. Franks and Roof combined for a 13-90 record. Duke had four winless seasons and a pair of one-win seasons from 1996 through 2007.

In other words, tough gig.

Does Elko have a chance to combine Cutcliffe’s longevity and Spurrier’s overall winning record?

Well, Duke is giving him some serious resources, including enhanced salaries for assistants and staff and Duke has upgraded its strength and conditioning program, its nutritional program and its social-media presence.

Will that be enough?

The stakes are high. It’s been quiet on the conference-relocation front for a few weeks. But don’t be fooled. The two sharks-we don’t have to mention their names--are still looking for their next conference to take a chunk out of and the ACC could be next. It’s more a matter of when than if.

The broad consensus is that college football is heading for a split, the haves and the have-nots and it’s Elko’s job to make sure Duke football is on the right side of the line when that split happens. Basketball won’t do it. Academics won’t do it. It has to be football and Duke has to have that big-time football revenue. The cross-country program doesn’t run on gate receipts.

Which brings us back to Temple. It’s possible to envision a scenario in which Duke loses to Temple and still has a successful season.

I suppose.

But Duke is favored and confidence in the program is at a high, players, coaches, staff, you name it.

“I’m really excited with where we are,” Elko said Monday. “I think we’ve made a lot of strides. I think our boys are working extremely hard. They’re hungry to go out on this football field and show who we’ve become.”

Jack-of-all-trades offensive weapon Jordan Moore says Duke is ready to see another football team across the other side of the line.

“I’m so excited to play. I know we’re all excited to play. It seems like we haven’t played in seems like forever. This is a new team, a new mentality, new everything really. We’re ready to show the world what we’re about.”

The doubters, the ones who are picking Duke to win two, maybe three games?

Quarterback Riley Leonard says the lack of respect just fuels the fire.

“I love seeing Duke football projected to be worst in the ACC. I love seeing ‘Riley Leonard is the worst quarterback in the ACC.’ I honestly just read it and laugh. People don’t know the work that we’ve put in as a collective group. Everybody on this team has just worked their butts off.”

So, that’s where Duke football is.

Or thinks it is. We’ll find out Friday if the reality matches the rhetoric.

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It’s mea culpa time. I guess I’m still in preseason mode. Earlier this week I mentioned the seven new transfers on the two-deep depth chart. But it’s really eight. I omitted long snapper Evan Deckers, a transfer from Massachusetts. You probably don’t notice long snappers much. Unless they make a mistake and then you notice them a lot.

Deckers’ next mistake will be his first. He’s really good. Phil Steele named Deckers to his fourth-team All-America team and Deckers is on the Patrick Mannelly watch list fpr the nation’s best long snapper. That award is named after former Duke lineman Mannelly, who was a standout snapper for the Chicago Bears fo