2020 Game Previews – Let It End

Duke will (mercifully) finish its football season this Saturday in Tallahassee. If the Blue Devils’ history against the Seminoles is any guide, Duke will lose. If this season, particularly the last three games, is any guide, the Blue Devils will lose. Badly. I thought about doing an analysis of FSU’s relative struggles this year, Duke’s anemic offense and now horrendous defense (you can’t say you have a good defense when you give up 48 or more in three straight games) and how two pretty lousy teams will match up against one another.

But what’s the point of that? It presupposes that the Blue Devils will actually show up and put together a complete game in all three phases. When was the last time that this team did that? Charlotte? How can a team play well when the offense is insistent on turning the ball over at every opportunity. Let’s be honest, all indications are that this team quit, gave up, mailed it in (it’s hard to blame them when the head coach doesn’t demand accountability). Other than the punter and the kicker, this team is just plain awful.

Instead of analyzing how two bad teams will match up against each other, I am going to put this team’s final record, win or lose, in historical perspective.

If Duke loses on Saturday, it will finish the season with 2 wins. You read that right. 2 wins. That would be the fewest under Coach Cutcliffe’s tenure and Duke’s worst season since 2007 when Ted Roof was the head coach. The Blue Devils finished that year 1-11 and Duke got a new coach. A 2-9 finish would be the same record Roof put together in 2004, his first full season at the helm, and the same as Fred Goldsmith’s 1997 team, his second-to-last in Durham.

If the Blue Devils somehow win the game, the team would finish 3-8 – one win fewer than Cutcliffe’s first year and practically the same result his teams put together in 2010 and 2011. 3-8 would be the same record Carl Franks amassed in 1999 during his first season as head coach. Goldsmith had the same record in 1995, his second season on the Wallace Wade sidelines. Barry Wilson put together a 2 win season in 1992 and a 3 win season in 1993. He was then asked to leave. So, regardless of whether Duke wins or loses the game, the result is a season that is in line with when the program was at its absolute worst. Like I’ve been saying all year – we’ve come full circle.

Win or lose, there is no disputing the fact that the program has regressed. Cutcliffe supposedly raised the bar in Durham. More is expected of the Blue Devils in football. And, if that is true, then Cutcliffe has to be held accountable.

Oh, and before I conclude, I am going to predict a Seminoles victory. Sorry, but I don’t see it happening any other way.