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It’s all about the Carolina-Duke game for both schools.
Thanks to fast starts for each team, the Tar Heels and Blue Devils will find themselves squaring off on November 11 with far more at stake than the normal bragging rights.
Carolina was once 6-0 and ranked 10th in the nation before what has become a far-too-often occurrence of losing multiple games to supposedly inferior opponents. After falling at the hands of then 1-5 Virginia and then 3-4 Georgia Tech, the Heels are long shots to encore for the ACC Championship game.
Duke was once 5-1, with its only loss in the final seconds to Notre Dame at home. Since then, the Devils drubbed NC State, then lost at FSU and at Louisville before beating Wake Forest Thursday night with a third-string true freshman quarterback to secure a second straight bowl bid with a 6-3 record.
Not quite on the level of their legendary basketball series, Carolina versus Duke has still produced uber-exciting gridiron games dating back 50 years. In two of the last four meetings, for example, the outcomes were decided on the last few plays.
Winning their next match-up will likely be a factor in their last two games of the regular season, with both still to face two dangerous opponents with little to lose. And sub-plots are the full availability of Duke star quarterback Riley Leonard and UNC’s Tez Walker, both recovering from injuries.
Assuming 6-2 Carolina beats small college Campbell Saturday, it still has a chance to go 10-2 and get invited to a New Year’s Day game. The Heels have not won 10 since 2015 (11-3) and 1997 (11-1), and their last 11-win season before that came in 1980, also their last ACC championship.
In defeating Wake Forest, Duke avoided a three-game losing streak behind the ACC’s best defense and a field goal as time ran out. Since starting 5-1, Mike Elko’s second team as a head coach was one of the talking points in college football as well as Elko popping up on the coaching carousel.
To many alumni and fans of both bluebloods, almost any match-up is a must-follow affair, be it women’s basketball, field hockey, soccer or baseball, attracting better-than-average crowds to venues in Chapel Hill and Durham and others tuned into the ESPN/ACC Network telecasts.
We all know there is a certain magic to any Battle of the Blues, a given when the basketball teams square off in early February and early March. And now, November 11 also has some special sorcery to it.
Photo via AP Photo/Ben McKeown.
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