Quarterback Thaddeus Lewis has watched football the past two Saturday afternoons. Wide receiver Austin Kelly has slept. Defensive end Greg Akinbiyi has mentally prepared by observing others.
Faced with 7 p.m. kickoffs in the season's first two weeks, the Duke players have had little to do until they leave the hotel around 4 p.m. So the Blue Devils wait in the Durham Hilton. And wait and wait...
But not this Saturday. Lewis, Kelly and their teammates will wake up and play Navy at noon-no more cat naps, and no more long hours of feeling antsy.
Still, for some Blue Devils, the Saturday night lights are preferable to the heat of the afternoon.
"Night games take me back to high school, playing under the lights in the big games," Akinbiyi said. "The afternoon games, they're kind of hot and steamy. Not that many people show up to hot games in the afternoon, so I just really like the atmosphere that comes along with the night games."
"For me, it's night and day," nose guard Clifford Respress said of the difference, laughing. "Daytime is a lot hotter, and the heat affects me, because I lose a lot of weight and sweat a lot. The atmosphere of the night game, being under the lights-there's something about it. It makes it a little more electric."
But for others, including many skill players, night games are good for nothing but wasting time. After all, Duke typically practices every morning. Temperatures still haven't peaked when the Blue Devils wrap up around 10:30 a.m., but it is still hotter than it is at 7 p.m.
The pressure of playing games, then, simply builds over the course of a Saturday .
"I hate night games," tight end Tielor Robinson said. "We're in the hotel here and you can sleep, but after breakfast, you're sitting around, watching games on TV-you just want to get up and play already. Then you have to come in and play at night.
"It does have its advantages. It's not as hot. More people come out to the games, because what are you going to do at 7 p.m. on a Saturday night? Come and watch football."
Robinson will have his way this weekend for the first time all year, even if head coach David Cutcliffe prefers dusk starts. Duke's schedule is dictated by a pecking order of television stations that pick and choose their featured games.
This week's game will be broadcast on ESPNU-along with ESPN, Raycom Sports airs a chunk of Blue Devil games-and Cutcliffe was not permitted to determine the time of his team's home game. Game times will be released 12 days before games for the rest of the season.
Cutcliffe said he prefers night games, especially early in the season when it's still scorching in the South.
"I love night games early in the year. I like the atmosphere," Cutcliffe said. "They're a little difficult for players and coaches to wait all day.... Certainly later in the year, the weather is much better for afternoon football. I know most fans aren't great fans of the noon kickoffs, but as long as there's TV, there's going to be noon kickoffs."
Akinbiyi, like Cutcliffe, has a penchant for the aura of night games, but he acknowledged the flaws of the night game.
Instead of rising and traveling to the field, he is forced to agonize over other players' mistakes-and hope he doesn't make the same ones.
"When you see things on TV and you're like, 'Man I don't want to look like that guy on the field,'" he said. "You get your mind right and think that you have to go out there and execute and do what I have to do, because I don't want anybody looking at me on TV or when I turn on the film, like, 'Damn, you messed up.'"
Because if he does Saturday, he'll have the whole day to think about it.
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