Friend of the pod Steve Wiseman stopped by to talk about his new book – Duke Men’s Basketball: An Illustrated Timeline. I got a copy recently and read it over two days. This is a great history of Blue Devils basketball and I recommend it to everyone. As Steve explained it to me, it’s essentially a coffee table book that anyone can pick up and thumb through. It has a lot of interesting nuggets and facts that fans will love including some fascinating recruiting battles.
In addition to talking basketball, me and Steve share our thoughts on what Manny Diaz & Co. are doing in Durham. We discuss his legacy and where he compares to other Duke head coaches. While it’s too early to get into this, if Coach Diaz can keep Duke rolling, he could end up as one of the greatest coaches in program history.
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You all may remember, probably because Dad won’t let you forget, that he (finally) got a preseason prediction right. In the season preview episode, Dad called Duke going 9-3 and that’s exactly what the Blue Devils did. Instead of breaking down what to expect in the Gator Bowl, we talk a lot about the changing face of college football. With the losses of QB1 and QB2 to the portal, Dad and I discuss how the portal is making bowl games entirely irrelevant. While players should be able to transfer, schools can’t tell fans that bowl games matter when the calendar forces key players to transfer out prior to the end of the season.
Dad and I present differing views, to some extent, on these issues. I also make a prediction that players will unionize to protect themselves and the commitments that schools make to players. Given that the NCAA has become completely irrelevant and can’t police its member institutions, courts are going to become the enforcement mechanism for “amateur” rules that apply to the NCAA. When that happens, players will unionize to protect themselves through collective-bargaining. It’s the only thing that players can, and should, do.
I hope you enjoy this episode. It’s an unusual format for Bull City Coordinators. If you don’t like it, I blame our Richlandia correspondent and take no responsibility for it.
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Because nothing says Rivalry Week like the last full week of September, it’s time to preview Duke-UNC! To get you all ready for what to expect on Saturday, I put together another collaboration with the folks over at Heel Brothers who you remember from an episode earlier this year. This episode starts with me previewing the Blue Devils’ season so far and discussing what Coach Diaz and the staff have been able to do. After that part wraps up, the episode transitions into a discussion about the Tar Heels and the aftermath of the loss to James Madison. It’s a strange time at Chapel Hill.
We also get in a few voicemails including a surprise call that was made at halftime from Keenan Memorial Stadium. I wonder what that’s all about. What does Richlandia think about this game? Stay tuned and you’ll find out.
Now, folks, I’m sure a lot of you don’t really like hearing so much from UNC podcasters, and I get that. But, if you stick around for the entire episode, you’ll find that there’s some common ground between our two fanbases when it comes to what most of us think about a certain team from Raleigh. Trust, as the kids say, trust.
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First and foremost, big thanks to Troy Taylor from Totem Pole Nation for getting this set up. I can’t thank him enough for making this happen.
Former Duke football head coach Fred Goldsmith stopped by the podcast to talk about his early career in football, a stop at Rice and his time coaching the Blue Devils. We learned about a lot of great coaches that Coach Goldsmith worked with including Ken Hatfield, Chan Gailey, Mike Heimerdinger and Craig Bohl among others. During this long and informative discussion, we learn a lot about the challenges Coach Goldsmith faced after an amazing 1994 season, the number of players he got in the NFL and how he was close to getting Duke over the hump before he was let go after the 1998 season. I know you will enjoy listening to Coach Goldsmith tell some great stories about his time leading the Blue Devils.
We also talk about how, after the 1994 season, Coach Goldsmith was close to getting a lot of high-profile coaching jobs. You won’t believe where he almost ended up.
If you get a chance, you should check out his book, Comeback Coach. I bought it a few years back. It’s a quick and entertaining read.
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Josh Boutwell of the Troy Messenger stopped by to talk about Duke’s next opponent, the Troy Trojans, and what to expect from Troy in the Birmingham Bowl. During our interview, we talked the coaching change for both teams, my time working for a sign company and the advantage it gave me in recognizing random cities and towns across the United States, the Trojans’ football culture, what a great stadium we’ll get to watch the game in and the terrible parking situation in Birmingham. Not to give away the ending, but the Blue Devils are going to have their hands full come December 23.
In addition, Josh discusses his cancer treatment during the interview. Please stop by this site to help out with his medical costs if you are so inclined.
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ESPN and ACC Network reporter and noted Tar Heel Marilyn Payne stopped by the pod to talk about her history covering Duke football, my conspiracy theory that she singlehandedly brought about the end of the Elko Era in Durham, FSU getting snubbed and how The ACC can improve its overall brand. We also talked about Manny Mania coming to Blue Devil Nation. Funny thing happened after that as we spent about 20 minutes disputing two points that, once we defined our terms, we agreed on. I edited that out for time. That edit notwithstanding, you will get an update about Marilyn’s upcoming plans for bowl seasons and which future ACC team she will be covering. And, if that weren’t enough, you’ll learn about Marilyn’s favorite movie and get a some real deep nerd references from me.
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So, instead of doing a full post about why I like this hire and how I think it is a good one, I’ll just drop a link to a call I had with Adam Gold yesterday in which we discuss the Diaz hire before it became official. We cover what to expect from Diaz, the transfer portal and what this hire means for the Blue Devils. Hey, we just might be a football school after all!
Check it out on YouTube, too:
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Steve Wiseman stopped by to talk about a crazy, crazy week of Duke and ACC football. We begin by talking about how FSU got the shaft courtesy of Boo Corrigan, et al., as did SMU. And, most important, I got to use one of my favorite historical quotes. It’s Truman on Nixon. I mean, what else do you need?
After that, Steve and I talk about his hectic schedule trying to cover Elko’s departure from Durham and the Blue Devils’ coaching search. There’s a lot of ground to cover and Steve will tell you pretty much everything you need to know about what happened with Elko and how Nina King is leading Duke through this transitional period. If that weren’t enough, we also go over how the Blue Devils landed in the Birmingham Bowl and not the Gasparilla Bowl. Thanks, CFP Selection Committee. And Notre Dame.
Oh, and it turns out Duke has a basketball team. Who knew? In all seriousness, we spend some time trying to diagnose why the Blue Devils have been struggling out of the gate. As always, Steve was a great and informative guest. You’ll love this episode.
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Women ages 40 to 50 went crazy when they saw this handsome man on TV.
During the height of the Second Punic War, the Romans were desperate for a leader who could overcome a string of defeats and bring the North African power that was Carthage to heel. Eventually, the man who would become known to history as Scipio Africanus took control of the Roman forces, defeated Carthage and put an end to the Second Punic War. Scipio’s success in Africa was so complete that it gave rise to a myth that only a Scipio could win in Africa. The Romans, a naturally superstitious bunch, believed so strongly in this that Julius Caesar had a descendant of Scipio on his staff during the African campaign of what his Roman civil war.
Just as only a Scipio could win in Africa, perhaps only an Elko can get a win in Durham against Virginia Tech. On Saturday, the Blue Devils defeated the Hokies at home for the first time since 1981. For context, I was just one day short of being seven weeks old the last time the Bull City Boys beat VPI in Durham. Man, that really makes me realize just how old I’m getting. Going to take a break to yell at the kids skateboarding on the sidewalk, check a weather app and did I hurt my neck again? All right, I’m back.
This game started like a lot of games have for Duke this season in that the Blue Devils let a really not good Virginia Tech team hang around. The first quarter ended with the Hokies up 7-3. The first half ended with Duke up by a narrow margin of 10-3. And, compounding that close score, it sure looked like Jalon Calhoun had a catch on a deep ball that could have kept a late drive going and, at worst, likely have set up chip shot field goal attempt. Despite having three timeouts, Coach Elko didn’t call one to give the refs a chance to have the play reviewed. It may not have been overturned given that there didn’t appear to be indisputable evidence of a catch, but you were facing 3rd-and-11, so why not use one of your three timeouts to decide on how best to use both downs to convert? By this I mean try to come up with a plan to use two downs to get the conversion instead of betting it all on 3rd down. You know, try a short pass on 3rd down to get to a more manageable distance and then … What’s that you say? We’re just throwing another incomplete pass on a deep route that leads to a missed 45 yard field goal? Not what I would have done, but okay.
But, that horrible instance of game management aside, the Blue Devils came out in the second half and put together a repeat of the UVA game – they just overwhelmed Virginia Tech physically. The OL started opening up some running lanes, the backs started chewing up yards and Riley Leonard started finding Hagans, Moore and Robertson. Two second half scoring drives later, Duke celebrated a 24-7 victory over a Coastal opponent. While there were a lot of cool moments from this game, like the Hokie quarterback just falling down and giving Duke a sack, I think we can all agree that the best moment of the game was me on TV. Let’s take another look at it
Sorry, ladies, I’m married.
So, what were the big takeaways from Saturday? I’d have to say that the defense continued to hold its own. There were two sacks, two tackles-for-loss and what seemed like a lot of pressure on the opposing quarterback. While the defense struggled at times to contain Virginia Tech when it went tempo, Grant Wells only managed to throw for 177 yards, an early TD and a Three Stooges style interception that landed right in Shaka’s hands. If that weren’t enough, the Blue Devils held the Hokies to just 104 rushing yards. Not a bad day for our defense.
Offensively, we saw several receivers step up in Eli Pancol’s absence. Jontavis Robertson had 5 catches for 81 yards and a touchdown. Sahmir Hagans had 2 for 20, with both coming at crucial times. The same was true of Nicky Dalmolin’s touchdown and Jordan Moore’s 3 for 37 outing (which included an unreal one-handed catch). Throw in 165 rushing yards on 41 attempts and you have a Blue Devil win. It may not have been perfect, but good teams are able to overcome slow and inconsistent outings by being more methodical, more physical and more determined than the competition. That’s what we saw from Duke on Saturday and that’s why the Blue Devils got the win. It may not have been perfect, but it sure made the drive home a lot more fun.
Before I finish up, I’d like to note that this team is 7-3 with two more games to go. This season is going a heck of a lot better than most of us expected. While there may not be a signature win (other than the one that got stolen), this is turning into what can only be characterized as a truly historic season. I know that I’m not the only that wants to see this team close out the 2022 campaign with three more wins, bowl game included.
And that’s it for the game recap which means we have another old-time tune! This one is called “Walking Up Georgia Row”.
Tim and I need to play this song more.
Let me know what you think about what I think in the comments, on Twitter or on Reddit.
