<p>What is the story with the football team? It seems to be pretty bad year in and year out. Any explanations?</p>
<p>why is gravity?</p>
<p>Hey who cares? You gotta support the team! Hella yea!</p>
<p>hmmm...well we can start with the fact that the ACC is maybe the toughest league from top to bottom in the country year in and year out. We can also point to the highest academic standards FOR FOOTBALL PLAYERS in the conference - not to say BC, UVA, GT, WFU, UNC aren't excellent schools in their own right, but the only comparable ones sizewise are WFU and GT, and they aren't quite as academically stringent on admissions as Duke. Let's also throw in some truly abject coaching from Fred Goldsmith and Carl Franks over the past decade. </p>
<p>Until recently, our training facilities for football were certainly sub-par for a D1program. Thanks to the basketball team's NCAA $$$, that excuse no longer holds up. We really have no recent winning tradition to recruit to, that makes very difficult to get top prospects who are fits academically. For every Greg Paulus who comes to Duke over ND for basketball there are probably 10 football players who would be perfect fits at Duke academically that end up at ND, and who can blame them.</p>
<p>I do like what I see out of Freshman QB (Thaddeus ?), who has been thrown into the fire courtesy of Zack Asack's inability to write his own paper...but when you see us v. the VT, FSU, Miami crowd, it's goodnight nurse. It's really too bad we couldn't execute a simple 25 yd FG last week v Wake, that might be our best chance at an ACC win this year. </p>
<p>When I was a student lo those ... years ago, it was the same deal, although there was no Miami, BC, or VT to add even more wood to the fire. You went to the game to have a good time (which may or may not have involved flasks), jeer the opposition's pathological devotion to winning football games, and to live for the inevitable upset that would be cause for running on the field and tearing down the goalposts (ok that part never happened, but I do remember running on the field after beating NC State...</p>
<p>Maybe it's because I'm so used to going to Gator games...but I can't bring myself to go to a football game here, it's just too painful.</p>
<p>I grew up in the Washington area, so obviously a losing football team isn't too much of a drag for me...(go 'Skins!)</p>
<p>Undefeated. Untied. Unscored on. (1938) How quickly we forget.</p>
<p>Until they lost to USC in the last minute of the Rose Bowl.</p>
<p>Duke maintains higher academic requirements for its football players than do most other Division I football programs. I would rather attend a school with smart football players than one with a winning team of idiots.</p>
<p>though the winning team of idiots would make me happy every saturday</p>
<p>The football players are smart?</p>
<p>I believe high*er* academic standards was the key to that sentence. (If they're going to lose like this anyway, should we have them on scholarship/with reduced admissions criteria? Answer: but they might start winning... in the semi-near future... at least a little?)</p>
<p>Duke may have a losing football team, but I suspect that the football team (along with basketball) still brings in most of the money for the school's other athletic programs. If winning is that important, Duke could consider moving to Division I-AA where it would beat the daylights out of most other teams. On the other hand, if Duke were to begin admitting players as dumb as Miami players, not many would graduate. What would that say to the school's mission and to the other players who were denied admission but could have graduated?</p>
<p>Uh, how does that not totally contradict their philosophy with the basketball team (go for the best players regardless of academics)? If you're going to have a strong D1 program in one of the big sports which sacrifices academic standards for winning there's no excuse not to try in the other.</p>
<p>Well, one obvious "excuse" is that basketball only requires around three scholarship students a year.</p>
<p>razor - I hate to point out that we did manage to <em>lose</em> to a Division I-AA team this year...</p>
<p>Ok, instead of saying "beat the daylights out of" other Division I-AA teams, I should have said something about having a winning record or being competitive. I stand corrected, but then again I am an optimist -- even about Duke football!</p>
<p>Greenshirt - very good point - much easier to stash 3-4 b-ball players who may not even stay for 4 years than 15-20 football players, none of whom are going early. </p>
<p>Maybe I'm drinKing the Koach-K Kool-aid here, but I don't believe we go after top b-ball recruits who are academically challenged. Not saying some haven't been near the left tail of the ol' SAT/GPA bell-curve for our fair school, but I don't recall us having anyone who was academically unfit.</p>
<p>Bottom line - it's extremely tough to get a critical mass of smart, above-average college football prospects to commit to a program with zero recent winning history when many of those same guys are considering ND, or even Stanford, NW, Vandy or several of our semi-selective ACC rivals all of whom have had more recent successes. </p>
<p>I don't believe 1-AA is an option within the agreement with the ACC. The whole reason the ACC voted to expand and let 3 football powers in (UMiami, VT, BC) was to get the 12 teams the BCS requires to have a playoff and get a front row seat ($$$) for the BCS Championship. So all ACC schools must must field a D1-A football team. Duke, UNC, and Wake all strongly opposed this expansion, as they realized it was all about the football, and what we see now, 3 basketball schools getting smeared on the gridiron every Fall with pressure from students and alums to open up football recruiting, as we are discussing, is what would result. </p>
<p>Now, I read on Duke's website that we are 'investing' $15M into a new student-athlete center, more practice facilities, etc. Don't know if this is from increased rev from ACC football or not. Dirty little not-so-secret - pretty sure that somewhere in there Duke does make a piece of change everytime those 'student-athletes' from Miami or VT show up on New Year's Day. </p>
<p>IMHO, I think the whole LAX issue has probably hardened the admin and faculty position against any further relaxation of standards and turning away more potential academic stars in order to go 6-5 in football and get to the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio on for an ESPN2 audience on December 28. I don't think you can be serious remaining a top-10 school and retaining/recruiting top faculty if those faculty feel they have to baby-sit a certain percentage of students. </p>
<p>Personally, I will consider this season a success if we beat the Tar-Holes, which is doable if you have watched them play this year. Hang in there guys!</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, wasn't there some kind of scandal relating to Dockery's ACT scores?</p>
<p>The Acc could easily get its 12th team from the Big East in West Virginia or Syracuse or Louisville.</p>