Duke head coach John Kerr has a rare advantage in preparing Duke for its next opponent: he built the team himself.
Having left Harvard for his alma mater Duke this year, Kerr will have the chance to face off against his former recruits and players for the first time today at 7:30 p.m.
The matchup against Harvard in Koskinen Stadium is also the Blue Devils' first game of the Duke Classic. The Blue Devils finish the tournament Sunday at 2:30 p.m. against American (1-1).
It is a challenge Kerr says he and the Blue Devils (0-2) are ready for.
"It's going to be mixed emotions, but I work for Duke now," Kerr said earlier this week. "We're looking forward to the challenge on Friday."
Despite the close ties he developed over his nine years coaching at Harvard (0-0), Kerr's history goes back even further with Duke. In 1986, Kerr captained a team that won Duke's first national championship, and the current coach is still considered perhaps the best player in school history.
Harvard's high-powered offense, led by its pair of preseason All-Americans Michael Fucito and Andre Akpan, could cause problems for the Blue Devils. But fortunately for Duke, the dynamic unit is largely Kerr's own creation.
"I had a great coaching career at Harvard, and I enjoyed everything there," Kerr said. "I recruited all of the players that are there now."
For Kerr's current team, expectations remain high despite two early losses against top-ranked opponents. The matchup with Harvard comes at an early, but critical, part of the Blue Devils' season.
Duke's 2-1 loss to Indiana Aug. 29 was accepted as an instance of bad luck, but a sluggish 4-1 defeat to Notre Dame Sunday left Duke frustrated. Now, the Blue Devils look to increase their work ethic and boost their quality of play in the final third of the game.
"We're looking for consistency," Kerr said. "We're looking to get back to the kind of work-rate and effort that we had against Indiana and put that right, as we didn't do that well enough against Notre Dame."
For junior goalkeeper Brendan Fitzgerald, the Harvard game is a chance for redemption from last weekend's performance against Notre Dame.
"One game was better than the other," said Fitzgerald, who started for the first time at the end of last season. "I was happy with Indiana. I made the right decisions. My preparation was spot on. And then, be it just lack of experience, but my mental preparation for the Notre Dame game probably wasn't what I wanted it to be."
Between the bitter Notre Dame loss and today's Harvard contest, Duke has had five days of preparation. And although it's Kerr's first game against his old squad, the players themselves are still the ones that will have to take control on the pitch.
"It's all a part of the learning curve," Fitzgerald said. "[The lack of focus] won't happen again, put it that way."
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