(04-20-2014 08:35 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote: (04-19-2014 09:08 PM)XLance Wrote: (04-18-2014 08:53 AM)Hokie Mark Wrote: (04-18-2014 07:43 AM)Wolfman Wrote: Why do people say "at Duke" like it is some kind of a negative? Duke has ~1,000 less students than Miami, ~2,000 more than Vanderbilt. Their endowment is over $6 billion, Miami is $778 million, Vandy is $3.7 billion. Duke is a top 10 (#7) university, Miami is #47, Vandy #17.
Duke doesn't have the built-in fan base that larger, public schools have but people will come to the games if they are successful. If they are not successful they get the Miami treatment.
Duke has been horrible in football for as long as most of us have been alive (with the exception of a couple of years when some guy named Spurrier coached there). If Duke remains in the top 25 for a few years then OK, we'll believe it. Until then, they still have a reputation to live down.
Dook's undefeated, un-scored on team played in the Rose Bowl.
Duke football was awesome during the WWII era, they just haven't been very good since color TV was invented (until now).
Duke deliberately de-emphasised football in the late 1960s for a variety of bad reasons, before that we were as good as anyone. We even hired a coach away from Alabama, and it was a genuine step up for him. And yes, the only Rose Bowl played outside Pasadena was in Durham (Duke lost, I believe).
But from 1970 until about six or seven years ago, everything good that happened in Duke football was pure dumb luck (the highlight was hiring Spurrier for his first college head coaching job). The football program had limited to no support from the administration during that time. Leadership wouldn't invest in the sport, fans and boosters stuck with basketball where they saw investment and success (or at least follow-through when dumb luck occurred, like the decision to hire Coach K).
That has definitely changed, especially with the hiring of AD White from Notre Dame and Coach Cut. Duke is pouring its considerable resources and support into football. For example: five years ago, Duke's practice field was outside and it was 80 yards long; now, Duke has full sized indoor and outdoor practice fields. They are expanding the stadium as well. The lockers/training rooms/PT etc have already been renovated. A significant portion of the current fundraising campaign ("Duke Forward") is directed at improving the football program.
I think the leadership saw what Stanford was doing in football, and what football success was doing for Stanford. If Stanford can do it, there's certainly no reason Duke can't do it too.
The other Duke fans I know (all alums) who ten years ago wouldn't have even thought about Duke's football team have all been waking up to football over the last few years. Last season started a fire. And it doesn't hurt that the basketball season was disappointing. Lots of conversations among Duke fans this basketball season included the phrase "we're really more of a football school" or "wait till next fall." It's half in jest now, and I know it will take a few decades to erase the shameful last four for fans of other schools (so that a picture of a Duke ACC Coastal Championship ring would be as unremarkable and un-apocaplyptic an image as a LSU SEC West Championship ring), but it looks like that's where things are headed.
I don't know much about the Duke basketball t-shirt fans outside North Carolina (to tell the truth I'm always surprised to meet them), but the things that have made the basketball program appealing to those fans should translate to football: Like Coach K, Cut runs a clean program, knows what's more important than the sport, teaches character, and he recruits decent kids. Inside North Carolina, most of the t-shirt fans are just looking for an alternative to Big Baby Blue and I could see Duke gaining some ABC t-shirt support for football that would have otherwise gone to State or Wake with continued comparative success against the UNC-CHeaters.
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