When Duke and Maryland met at Wallace Wade Stadium last year, their seasons were headed in opposite directions. The same is true this year—but the situation is opposite.
In 2009 the Blue Devils escaped the Terrapins on a rain-soaked afternoon by a score of 17-13, bringing the Blue Devils to 4-3 and 2-1 in the ACC—the first time in more than a decade that Duke had a winning conference record. Meanwhile, the Terrapins dropped to 2-6 and Ralph Friedgen started hearing calls for his firing.
This year, Maryland is surging, while Duke lags behind.
The Terrapins have opened this season 3-1, including a win over Navy in Baltimore in which they shut down Midshipman quarterback Ricky Dobbs, a dark-horse preseason Heisman candidate. Maryland then went on to post a 62-3 win over Morgan State, staged a near-comeback at then-No. 21 West Virginia and bounced back with a 42-28 win over Florida International.
“My hat’s off to Maryland. they had a tough year a year ago, and they worked themselves right out of it,” head coach David Cutcliffe said. “They have a lot of weapons on both sides of the ball.... We will have to play far and away our best football of the year in order to be in this game and win this football game.”
The Blue Devils will face a tough challenge from a confident team backed by a hostile crowd Saturday. Though Maryland’s attendance was low last week, Terrapin fans are well known for disliking Duke, as evidenced by the riot that broke out after a regular season victory over the Blue Devils in basketball.
The combination of a raucous crowd and Duke’s recent lack of success could have had Cutcliffe worried about his team. The coach, though, doesn’t see past demons as present obstacles.
“It doesn’t concern me at all because everything we do, we do it like winners,” Cutcliffe said. “You’re only a loser if you let yourself be a loser.... If we continue to carry ourselves like winners and work like winners, that’s how you work your way out of it. I know we will not give into being a loser. We will not have losers in our program.”
The Blue Devils have demonstrated a capability of playing well at times this year, but have rarely seen all aspects of their team click together. With the offense putting up significant numbers against Elon and Wake Forest and scoring the first touchdown Alabama has allowed all year, Duke’s defense had faced the brunt of the criticism. But against Army, it was the offense that came up short, maintaining possession for only 20 minutes.
Sophomore Conner Vernon said that a possible solution to the team’s inconsistency might be to snatch momentum early.
“At the beginning of the game, [the Black Knights] got the momentum in their favor, and we weren’t able to get it in our favor until late in the game,” Vernon said. “This game is all about momentum. The team that has momentum and is able to keep it is usually going to win the game.”
There’s no doubt that Maryland has thrived this year, while the Blue Devils are sliding. Cutcliffe, however, believes that situations like this are opportunities for Duke to prove itself.
“If you’re the right kind of guy, you like being an underdog, you like being on the road,” Cutcliffe said. “I love to beat people in their stadium, I do. I just think that’s one of the most fun things about my job.”
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