Carolina needs to get that dad-gum Victory Bell back.
The Tar Heels will be trying to break a three-game losing streak to Duke Saturday in a bad stretch against the Blue Devils.
The last time UNC lost three in a row to Duke was 30 years ago with the infamous 41-0 beatdown by Steve Spurrier’s bowl-bound team in Kenan Stadium, where some nincompoop left the electronic scoreboard in the southeast corner of the end zone on long enough for the delirious Devils to pose for an embarrassing picture.
Mack Brown’s team lost the last two of those games but then beat Duke eight straight times before Brown departed for Texas in 1997. Carolina went on the beat the Blue Devils 13 in a row and 21 out of 22 years under head coaches Carl Torbush, John Bunting, Butch Davis and Everett Withers. We owned the Victory Bell during that equally delirious run. No longer.
Despite holding a 61-40 edge in the all-time series, Carolina as we know hasn’t fared that well against Duke lately, losing five of the last seven to a program most of our fans think we should NEVER lose to. Three of those defeats were by three points or less. In the two victories, the Heels scored a total of 111 points behind quarterback Marquise Williams, who had the Devils’ number.
Now, Duke has an improved program and has pumped multi-millions of dollars into their facilities since David Cutcliffe took over in 2008. But these Blue Devils don’t have the offense of yore since Daniel Jones left for the NFL and Quentin Harris took over at quarterback. The Heels might not match the 48 Virginia scored on them did last week in Charlottesville. But Carolina will score some points for sure.
The key to the 4 pm game in Kenan will be the defense, which has played better than expected for most of this season. Duke will surely try to test Jay Bateman’s young secondary, which has lost two more starters since the last home game, the gallant heart-breaker against Clemson 28 days ago.
The Blue Devils of today can be beaten but they usually don’t beat themselves. So the sensational Sam Howell, who apparently has passed Trevor Lawrence in the unofficial race for All-ACC quarterback, will need to keep up his sterling play.
Let’s get the Bell back and that will be the post-game picture.
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