When Duke makes the trip to Palo Alto on Friday, a day before they kickoff their second game against the Stanford Cardinal, there will a lot of stumbling blocks waiting.
For starters, the doubters are there, not believing anything could or should be read into the Blue Devils lopsided victory in the season opener against FIU. Oddly enough in the span of one 60 minute game, the Golden Panthers went from a good team and one many predicted to beat Duke, to just being some average Sun Belt Conference team.
'Oh, they only beat FIU-- they aren't really any good.'
I've heard that, but those who are saying that really don't have a clue ,so it is best not to pay any attention to them. The Panthers received three preseason votes in the coaches poll and were the favorite to win their conference. So, while they aren't Alabama, they aren't chop liver.
Granted Stanford is a much better team than FIU, but they don't look particularly unbeatable.
The current line on the game, or at least the last time I checked it, was anywhere between 14 and 15 points. Odds makers like the Cardinal to play better than they did against San Jose State last week and I guess they don't think that highly of FIU either.
All doubters and odds makers aside, the Blue Devils will be playing against history. The last time Duke beat a Top 25 team on the road was 1971, long before any Blue Devil player or one intrepid Duke blogger was ever born.
That victory came against Stanford, so perhaps history has a sense of humor.
The Blue Devils have to travel all the way to the west coast and that doesn't always favor teams from the east coast, especially teams that aren't used to traveling that far. After all Duke plays in the ACC, not the Big East.
David Cutcliffe doesn't seem to be particularly worried about the trip and has said he plans on keeping the team schedule as normal as possible, and following a tarmac stretching routine upon landing in California, Duke will head to the hotel where the team plans to sleep in late.
The fact that the game kicks off at around 10:30 Eastern Standard Time, should make that extra sleep almost a necessity.
So, if Duke can avoid fatigue issues from the travel, that will be one hurdle avoided.
Another challenge will be the mentality of the players. The Durham Herald Sun's Steve Wiseman wrote a piece on the fact that the Blue Devils aren't going into the game complacent after their big win against FIU.
But will Duke enter the game overly psyched up to try and prove that their win wasn't a fluke and at the same time make a statement with an unexpected victory.
Confidence is a good thing, a dangerous thing, but it can have a flip side. If the Blue Devils go into the game too hyped up that can lead to mistakes, and against a ranked team on their home field, mistakes can be fatal.
It will be important for the Blue Devils to maintain a level of poise while at the same time playing aggressive and not backing down from the Cardinal who will also be looking to prove that their performance in week one was an abberation.
Some good news is that Duke managed to get through their first week without sustaining additional injuries to an already beat up roster, especially on defense, but they won't be getting any of their 12 injured scholarship players back.
Cutcliffe said the team will be taking just over 70 players to Stanford and their is a good chance that nearly everyone will play. Duke played about 61 players including 10 true freshman in the season opener.
Despite the odds, despite the obstacles and the history not necessarily in their favor,
the Blue Devils have at least some people talking about a possible upset, and as Cutcliffe has said, his team can win and play with anyone, it is just a matter of going out and doing it.
It will not be easy but this is not a game like the Alabama game was a couple of years ago.
Last season Duke nearly took a lead into the half before getting rolled by Stanford in the second half. The Cardinal are not as good as they were last year, and Duke is better. If that better is good enough, we just won't know until the game kicks off.
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