Tre Freeman, Grayson Loftis talk Birmingham Bowl

And state of the Duke program

May you live in interesting times.

An ancient Chinese curse.

Actually, probably neither ancient nor Chinese.

But certainly applicable to what the Duke football team has gone through since the Pittsburgh game ended the regular season.

Linebacker Tre Freeman and quarterback Grayson Loftis met with the media after Saturday’s practice for Duke’s upcoming Birmingham Bowl game against Troy, ostensibly to talk about that game.

Not surprisingly, other topics arose.

Like the state of a team abandoned by its previous head coach with barely a word of farewell.

Freeman and Loftis told a similar tale.

“Everybody was locked in,” Freeman said of the practice. “Everybody was locked in on the game plan. Everybody wants to win the game, good energy, good vibes. We’re one, big, happy family right now. We’re a close group in the locker room. We talk to each other, help each other out. We want to send our seniors out the right way.”

Loftis was on the same page.

“I think it went good. Everybody was flying around, communicating, stacking good days in preparation for the bowl game. We have a great locker room. Despite the adversity, the turmoil, the locker room stuck together. Like Coach Troop [Trooper Taylor] says ‘the standard is the standard.’ It doesn’t change in the locker room, in the weight room.”

Duke’s opponent Troy also saw its coach leave for greener pastures, Jon Sumrall taking over at Tulane after Tulane coach Willie Fritz left for Houston.

Troy defensive coordinator Greg Gasparato will coach Troy, which has not decided on a replacement for Sumrall, which means Gasparato has a lot on the line.

Taylor will coach Duke.

Troy is a dangerous team. They demolished Appalachian State 49-23 in the Sun Belt championship game and the Mountaineers are pretty good.

That win ran their record to 11-2, the losses coming to Kansas State and James Madison.

Obviously, Freeman and Loftis are looking at different parts of Troy’s team.

“Their running back is pretty good,” Freeman said. “They have a good offense. They work together. We know we have a challenge and have to step up and prepare like we’re playing a great team.”

That running back is Kimani Vidal. He has 1,582 rushing yards this, season, averaging 5.7 yards per carry.

That meets anyone’s “pretty good” threshold I would suspect.

Freeman didn’t mention Troy’s quarterback Gunnar Watson, who’s passed for 3,339 yards this season.

Loftis singled-out Troy’s pass rush.

“They’re really good up front. Scheme-wise, they’re well-coached. But player-wise, they’ve got some dudes up front.”

Defensive linemen Richard Jibunor and Javon Solomon made first-team All-Sunbelt for Troy and as far as I can tell both will play next week.

I asked Freeman and Loftis if this was the last game of the Mike Elko era, the first game of the Manny Diaz era or something that existed in its own separate place in the universe.

Separate place in the universe was Freeman’s answer.

“A continued game with Duke football,” Loftis replied. “We’re not defined by one man. We’re going to continue to build on what we’ve built on the last two years.”

Loftis said everybody has a chip on their shoulder at bowl time. With all the opt-outs, I’m not sure everybody does. But we’re looking at a game where the opt-ins on both sides do have good reason for feeling disrespected by coaches leaving them at the train station and many have an incentive to show the new staffs what they can do.

So, they have that in common. Chips on the shoulder might be the defining variable.