For the 11th straight season, Duke will have a whole offseason to ponder a loss against its archrival.
Following an upswing in which the winless Blue Devils (0-11, 0-8 in the ACC) had dropped their last two contests by less than a touchdown combined, a more familiar loss margin cropped up again Saturday. For the second consecutive season, Duke lost to the Tar Heels (6-5, 3-5) by 38 points, falling 59-21 to their visitors from Chapel Hill. The decisive outcome of the game was shocking to the Duke players, who were upbeat beforehand and were generally thought to be capable of winning by most of the local media.
"We really got ourselves revved up and ready for the game," running back Chris Douglas said. "I definitely wasn't expecting [such a big loss]."
And if you had asked the Blue Devils the same question 10 minutes into Saturday's contest, they probably would have given the same answer. Duke came ready to compete, as Douglas tied the game 7-7 when he ran for a 69-yard touchdown with 8:31 remaining in the first quarter, only one possession after Carolina's tailback Willie Parker scored a running touchdown on the Heels' first drive.
"I think we were ready to play," Duke coach Carl Franks said. "They were just a lot better football team than we were today. It's amazing that they lost five games this year."
In other words, the early game stalemate was short lived. The North Carolina offense, led by quarterback Ronald Curry, responded to the Douglas touchdown by exploding for 45 points to finish off the half and-for all intents and purposes-the game. The junior quarterback hit four different receivers in the first period, going 14-for-20 with 184 passing yards. His favorite target throughout the afternoon was wide receiver Bosley Allen, who caught five passes for 88 yards in the first half alone and registered 101 yards on six receptions for the game.
Not only did Curry effectively distribute the ball to his plethora of receivers, he also did much of the damage himself, running nine times for 92 yards in the first half. He even scampered for a one-yard touchdown run that cushioned the Tar Heels' growing lead to 24-7 early in the second quarter.
"I feel like I played well today," Curry said. "There's always room for improvement, but I feel like I helped put the team in position to score points and win the game."
Of course, Curry and his offensive teammates were not the only Tar Heels who dominated the line of scrimmage. The North Carolina defensive unit, anchored by All-America linebacker Julius Peppers, stifled the Duke offense throughout much of the first half, only surrendering 86 yards. In addition, Duke quarterback D. Bryant was held to 40 yards on 5-for-18 pass attempts. Peppers added insult to injury, so to speak, as he intercepted a pass by Bryant and barreled his way 27 yards downfield for a touchdown, which he capped off with a confident dive into the endzone. Peppers' touchdown increased the Tar Heels' lead to 38-7 with 6:34 remaining in the second half.
"Peppers' play today should get him ACC defensive player of the year," North Carolina cornerback Errol Hood said. "I love to watch him play. He has fun, and when he has fun, he balls."
On subsequent drives, North Carolina augmented its already decisive margin, as tailback Brandon Russell ran 26 yards for a touchdown to make the score 45-7 and Curry hit Allen on a 16-yard touchdown pass with only 11 seconds remaining in the second quarter.
Despite being down 52-7, though, the Blue Devils saved face in the second half by using their poor first-half performance as their impetus to compete.
"I think anybody who's down by close to 50 points is embarrassed," freshman linebacker Ryan Fowler said. "A lot of times, embarrassment is the best form of motivation and we showed that in the second half."
On the defensive side, Duke only surrendered one second-half touchdown and held the Tar Heels to only 34 yards passing, most of which came from backup quarterback Antwon Black, who replaced Curry late in the third quarter.
On offense, the Blue Devils blunted North Carolina's lead by scoring two second-half touchdowns, both of which came in the third quarter. First, quarterback Spencer Romine, who replaced an injured Bryant late in the first half, found wide receiver Ben Erdeljac in the endzone on a seven-yard hookup to decrease the Tar Heels' lead to 52-14. Three drives later, Romine struck again, hitting junior Kyle Moore on a 53-yard pass play that set up an eventual one-yard touchdown run to give the game its final 59-21 margin.
Even though Romine engineered the final touchdown of the game, the outcome was nonetheless disappointing to Duke's corps of seniors, who were competing in the last game of their Duke careers.
"It would have been very nice for [the seniors] to win this game," Franks said. "It would have been the experience of a lifetime."
Despite the fact that the Blue Devils could not deliver on their seniors' last game, Franks felt that there were some positives to take away from the contest. The second-year coach was encouraged with the team's relentless second-half effort and was pleased that his younger players got the chance to gain experience against a talented North Carolina team.
More importantly, though, Franks viewed the game as a blemish on an end-of-season run in which his team improved dramatically from its paltry start of the season.
"I think we're in the direction of being a good football team," Franks said. "But I think it was very evident that we were not a very good football team today."
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