Tag Archives: football

The Duke Football Essay Project: Tulane

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Shane
3 Comments

Holy sweet suffering saints on the cross: Duke scored 48 points.

It’s not like it hasn’t happened before. In fact, it happened last year, twice. But after losing to Richmond and barely surviving on the road at BC, I was just hoping we could eke out a win against Tulane. Instead, the Devils brought the mollywhomp sticks to Wallace Wade. Renfree threw for 278 yards. The Killer Vs rolled up 168 yards in the air. Will Snyderwine made a field goal.

It was a great win, and after a miserable first two weeks we’re back to .500. 2-2. Before the season, I wrote a joke post where I convinced myself Duke could win a national title. Now, it’s time to get serious and ask a legitimate question: can Duke make a bowl game? This is the next rung on the ladder for a program starting to poke its head up from the bowels of misery.

It’s going to take six wins, which means Duke has to win four of its last eight. Let’s check out the remaining schedule and see what we can sell ourselves.

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Posted in Duke | Tagged , | 3 Comments

The Triangle Prophets, Week 4

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Shane
8 Comments

Every Friday, a group of fearless webmasters and sports fanatics from around the Triangle will gather to predict five college football games against the spread. Every Duke, Carolina, and N.C. State game will be featured, along with a smattering of high profile non-Triangle games. As the season goes along, we’ll keep the standings updated and see who emerges as the one true prophet. Make your predictions in the comment section. Each week, we’ll feature any and all commenters who pick all 5 games correctly.

Current Standings

1. William Earnhardt, Site Designer – 9 points

2. Me – 8 points

3. John Watson, The Devil’s Den – 7 points
3. Tar Heel Fan Blog – 7 points
3. Nate Friedman, UNC football correspondent – 7 points

6. The Devil Wolf, TRB – 6 points
6. Jim Young, Editor, ACCSports.com – 6 points

8. James Henderson, Publisher, Pack Pride – 5 points

 

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Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

UNC-Georgia Tech: Can a Brother Get a Beatdown?

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Andrew Westney
1 Comment

Dear Jack,

Long time no talk!  What’s up, brotherman?  How you been?  How was the trip to Maine?  Talked to Dad lately?  How’s the wife and kid, he reciting Shakespeare yet?  But before we get into all that, there’s something urgent to catch up on: you and your alma mater ready to get your stingers handed to you Sunday?

Big words, I realize, considering how little recent success UNC has to stand on against the Bugs and their repetitive motion offense.  Run, run, play-action run, run…and I’m not even trying to hear that Tech has come to embrace the advent of the forward pass in the last three weeks: even grinders get bored enough to throw after scoring 50 points.  But I’ll take my chances this Saturday with the boys in Columbia Blue, as the color commentator for ESPN called them during the UNC-UVa game, to the bewilderment of his partner and the country as a whole below 110th St. on the West Side.*

*It’s a real school, with an actual football team.  Marcellus Wiley admits to going there, and according to Wikipedia, Wiley “played tailback, defensive end, and kick returner for the Lions”.  Yes, Columbia let a defensive end return kicks, and considered itself lucky.

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Posted in UNC | Tagged | 1 Comment

A Pilgrimage Into a Sea of Orange

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Joey
1 Comment

 Each week, contributor and new parent Joey will post his thoughts as he undergoes the transformation from fanboy to father.

Any time you learn about a major event in your life, there comes a relative shift in your planning around that event. Think about it: you either take some time off of work for a move, clear your calendar around the holidays, train for weeks before a half-marathon, etc. If there’s a big to-do coming, chances are you’re going to incur some transitional time on either side of it.

On November 6, I learned that we were expecting our first child. From that date forward, I began viewing the most trivial of things in a “last gasp” light. I’d imagine that for most guys, you feel this twice: before marriage, and before the birth of your first kid. For example: “This is the last time as a single guy that I’ll be able to drive to get Gas Station Sushi and a Yoo-Hoo in my gym shirt and flip-flops.” Or, “This is the last time my wife and I can skip town last-minute and spend three days following a Styx tribute band through Iowa.” In that vein, I had a fairly strong feeling that as those nine months fell off of the calendar, “Guy Weekends” would begin going the way of the Dodo.

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Posted in Miscellaneous, UNC | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Triangle Prophets, Week 3

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Shane
13 Comments

Every Friday, a group of fearless webmasters and sports fanatics from around the Triangle will gather to predict five college football games against the spread. Every Duke, Carolina, and N.C. State game will be featured, along with a smattering of high profile non-Triangle games. As the season goes along, we’ll keep the standings updated and see who emerges as the one true prophet. Make your predictions in the comment section. Every week, we’ll feature any and all commenters who pick all 5 games correctly.

Current Standings

1. John Watson, The Devil’s Den – 5 points
1. The Devil Wolf, TRB – 5 points
1. Tar Heel Fan Blog – 5 points
1. William Earnhardt, Site Designer – 5 points

5. Me – 4 points
5. Nate Friedman, UNC football correspondent – 4 points

7. Jim Young, Editor, ACCSports.com – 3 points

8. James Henderson, Publisher, Pack Pride – 2 points

 

Continue reading →

Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

Optipessimism Week 2: Carolina vs. Rutgers

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Nate
8 Comments

Carolina won. Barely. Now that I’ve had a few minutes away from throwing remotes and trashing my apartment in frustration, I can approach this week’s Optipessimism with some idea of perspective.

But before we get into that, I need to ask about the Blue Zone. I saw a bunch of shots during the game of an end-to-end camera that showed the Blue Zone, aka The House That Butch Built, almost completely empty. What the hell? This is becoming a legitimate problem, because besides the fact that it makes Carolina look like a small-time loser school (okay, some argue that its football program is just that, but I don’t agree), it ruins any aspect of intimidation created by having it filled with angry Carolina fans. I know that it’s hot in the sun there, and I know the concourse is air-conditioned, but seriously, what the hell. Never fear. I have a solution, though one that might not even be legal and definitely won’t ever happen.

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Posted in UNC | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

The Triangle Prophets, Week Two

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Shane
6 Comments

Every Friday, a group of fearless webmasters and sports fanatics from around the Triangle will gather to predict five college football games against the spread. Every Duke, Carolina, and N.C. State game will be featured, along with a smattering of high profile non-Triangle games. As the season goes along, we’ll keep the standings updated and see who emerges as the one true prophet. Make your predictions in the comment section. Every week, we’ll feature any and all commenters who pick all 5 games correctly.

Current Standings

1. Me – 3 points
1. The Devil Wolf, TRB – 3 points

3. John Watson, The Devil’s Den – 2 points
3. Tar Heel Fan Blog – 2 points
3. William Earnhardt, Site Designer – 2 points

6. James Henderson, Publisher, Pack Pride – 1 point
6. Nate Friedman, UNC football correspondent – 1 point
6 Jim Young, Editor, ACCSports.com – 1 point

 

Continue reading →

Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

The History Corner: Duke-Stanford, 1971

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Lewis_Bowling
3 Comments

As Duke prepares to play Stanford at 3:30pm Saturday, Lewis Bowling enters the TRB fray with a piece on the last time these teams met, in 1971. In addition to being a published author and a Duke historian, Bowling writes for GoDuke.com and the Herald-Sun, and teaches a sports history class at Duke.

Duke had a new coach in 34 year old Mike McGee. Tom Harp’s last year as coach of Duke was 1970, so 1971 under Coach McGee had a lot of question marks. Great players in Leo Hart, Wes Chesson, and Dick Biddle had played their last games in 1970. The team lacked depth, according to Coach McGee, and faced a tough schedule.

But after impressive wins over Florida, South Carolina, and Virginia to start the season 3 and 0, Duke climbed to the 19th ranked position in the nation in the AP poll.

But now their task was their biggest of the season, taking on the defending Rose Bowl champion Stanford, who came into the Duke game ranked number ten in the country. Like Duke in losing their great quarterback from 1970, Leo Hart, John Ralston’s Stanford club had just graduated the 1970 Heisman Trophy winning quarterback in Jim Plunkett. But Stanford had an outstanding replacement for Plunkett in Don Bunce, who had a plethora of skilled, agile, and fast receivers to throw to.

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Posted in UNC | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Everyone’s Dirty: An Ethical Guide to College Football’s Top 25

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Shane
14 Comments

Folks who know me will tell you in a Carolina heartbeat that I’m a moral man. I want to root for the good guy. I want to embrace the good guy. So in an attempt to filter out the good from the bad, I took a broad look at the black marks marring college football programs and their players and coaches in this year’s preseason AP top 25. (I know the rankings have changed, but such is life.) The results, to put it mildly, are not encouraging. Quick synopsis: watching college football may compromise your soul.

Special thanks to SportsDelve, which compiled a comprehensive list of schools which have been placed on NCAA probation since punishment policies began in 1953, and made the research much easier. Let’s begin at the bottom.

Justice, where is thy stern visage on the gridiron?

25. USC – The Trojans are in the second year of a 2-year bowl ban due to “lack of institutional control” between 2004 and 2009. Reggie Bush was the focus of the sanctions, and the illegal benefits he received from two sports marketers (including a rent-free home for his family) cost the football team 30 football scholarships through 2013. They were forced to vacate the 2004-05 national championship, and Bush was later stripped of his Heisman trophy. USC is second all-time with 15 years spent on probation in program history. Recent graduate Everson Griffen was arrested in Los Angels in January for battery, and had to be subdued with a taser after he grabbed a cop in the groin.

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Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged | 14 Comments

The Queen of Style Checks In

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Carrie
6 Comments

Ever week or thereabouts, our new contributor Carrie will be analyzing uniforms from around the Tobacco Road universe. Today’s assignments are below.

1. Duke Football’s Black Uniforms

Duke's "controversial" new uniforms. Also appears they didn't quite make this play.

It’s not so much the shoulder stripes that concern me with Duke’s new uniforms – I actually think those are quite sharp and on a different uniform (on a different team?) might even lend an (appropriately) militaristic look to the uni – really, I’m bothered by those white helmets. Continue reading →

Posted in Duke, Miscellaneous | Tagged , , | 6 Comments