It’s the holiday sporting season

So it’s November, and it’s still 70 degrees in Durham. That’s pretty cool. Unfortunately, you probably know that idle talk about weather is a sign that someone has nothing to say, which, in this case, is pretty much true.

You see, because it’s November and because it seems like the right thing to do, I wanted to write about Duke Basketball today. The season’s just starting, Harrison Barnes is days away from maybe or maybe not committing to Duke, and Kyle Singler is still really good. You know, something. There has to be some fresh new angle about this team.  

Then, creeping closer to deadline, I realized that there was nothing.

Right before the most wonderful time of the year comes the most plain-old-boring-enough-to-make-me-want-to-hibernate-until-March time of the year. Once we hit Thanksgiving, basketball season starts getting hot and heavy, like a plate full of turkey and stuffing. After Christmas, it turns as bright as a bedazzling evergreen. In between? It’s the tryptophan-laced morning after Thanksgiving.

I’ll keep the metaphor alive and say that this little interlude reminds me of a post-Halloween pumpkin, which is about as much of an eyesore as city streets a few hours after snowfall. Some people love pumpkins—pumpkin seeds! pumpkin pancakes! pumpkin spice chai latte with shots of pumpkin espresso!—but I don’t feel too strongly about pumpkins. Except, have you ever seen pumpkins a few days into November? They start to rot. Then they get all gnarled out. And then, in fairy tales, they turn into magical vessels to unite the damsel in distress with her Prince Charming.

Anyway, right now, the basketball season is pretty much a pumpkin on Nov. 10.

It’s a visceral reminder of Halloween (Countdown to Craziness) and a portent of Christmas wreaths and Chanukah menorahs (the NIT and Gonzaga in the Garden). Soon, the holidays will drown out these short afternoons of Daylight Savings Time, just as marquee nonconference games will wipe our memories of Friday night games against UNC-Greensboro.

In the meantime, what can we do to pass the time? Lots of things! Tweet. Do homework. Devise ways to get good tenting spots. Watch football. Catch up on Mad Men. Go to Shooters.

Silly as that sounds, these are fundamental changes to Duke’s football culture, which, for years, was more worthy of conversation than what transpired on the field. In 2007, administrators even took a page from Don Draper and tried to re-brand football games as the Gameday at Duke Experience. (There’s a reason you haven’t heard that since.)

And at least for me—someone tasked with reflecting the campus conversation about sports—there’s no basketball trend worth discussing ahead of a football season still in the balance, albeit precariously.

After all, there won’t be a meaningful game in Cameron Indoor Stadium until the middle of January. The lineup of heavyweights that will come through Cameron before ACC play: UNC-Greensboro, Coastal Carolina, Charlotte/Elon, Radford, St. John’s, Gardner-Webb, Long Beach State and Pennsylvania. It’s not that those teams might not beat Duke—remember Jimmy Baron, anyone?—but it’s hard to get all psyched up about jumping up and down for Radford when Saturday’s football game in Wallace Wade Stadium decides the leader of the Coastal Division. That’s right: Even after the disheartening loss Saturday, Duke still has a shot not only at a bowl bid, but also at a conference title.

The basketball team might be a pumpkin waiting to transform into a carriage, but in these doldrums, what happens in Wally Wade is most worthy of the sports side of our brains. It’s football that will carry us sports fans through these dog days of autumn—and maybe a bit further, too. There are a few dates in December, when the holiday lights are out in full force, that I can think of nothing I’d rather do than enjoy one last Gameday at Duke Experience.