You can hate the proliferation of bowl games all you want, but for some teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, a bowl game means a lot more than meets the eye.
Sure, Michigan does not much care about the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl. Oklahoma — it is clear — did not care at all about the Russell Athletic Bowl last December. Many programs aspire to certain levels of excellence, and a third-tier bowl game often (though not always) feels like a humiliation more than a reward.
For other programs, however, a bowl game is a precious, precious thing. South Alabama made its first bowl game last season. The Jaguars didn’t beat Bowling Green, but they’ll never forget the experience of playing in a postseason pageant and all the local excitement the inaugural Camellia Bowl created in Montgomery, Alabama.
South Alabama played in its first bowl game last season. One team that won its first-ever bowl game was Western Kentucky, which defeated Central Michigan in one of the wildest bowl games of all time. The first Bahamas Bowl was one unending highlight reel, including a signature play documented by colleague Terry Johnson earlier this summer (play number two on the list). Western Kentucky might have avoided one of the worst bowl-game gacks in recorded history by the smallest of margins, but at the end, the program was able to enjoy a milestone moment. As sparsely attended as that game was, the Hilltoppers created a richly satisfying memory.
This brings us to a team from a power conference that wants to climb higher in the college football world, but will accept a relatively modest 2015 season as long as it brings with it a specific accomplishment: a bowl win.
That team is Duke, profiled today at No. 35 in the Bloguin Top 50.
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Terry Johnson wrote that preview of Duke’s season. He also offered this look into the vault of great college football plays. In it, you’ll see one of Johnny Manziel’s most dazzling displays, as Texas A&M overcame a 38-17 halftime deficit (it should have been 42-17) to stomach-punch Duke in the 2013 Chick-Fil-A Bowl. That painful New Year’s Eve in Atlanta, combined with the 2012 Belk Bowl and the 2014 Sun Bowl, have created three straight bowl losses for Duke, but that doesn’t remotely begin to tell the whole of it.
Duke’s three consecutive bowl losses all rate highly on a scale of gut-punch misery. Duke has been the representative case study of a team that can’t catch a break in bowls. The Blue Devils have overachieved in each game and yet have flown (or bused) home with absolutely nothing to show for their efforts.
Let’s look at Duke’s last three bowl games as a group before sizing them up individually. Duke faced programs that have recorded major achievements over the past seven years. Cincinnati reached two BCS bowls and very nearly qualified for the 2010 BCS National Championship Game. Texas A&M produced the first freshman Heisman Trophy winner of all time and crushed Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl. Arizona State won a Pac-12 South championship a few seasons ago and was briefly a part of the College Football Playoff race last November after defeating Notre Dame. These are not members of the “Nobody Club” in college football. They all own varying levels of brand-name heft.
Duke played each of them on even terms, and in two of the three cases, carried the run of play for most of the game. David Cutcliffe had his team ready to play each opponent, each school with a far more established football tradition.
Every game found a way to elude Duke’s grasp.
In examining each game as a single entity, the various scenarios which caused the Blue Devils to lose are just too extreme to make up. How could one team be struck by bowl-game lightning three straight years? Duke improbably received this “piano-falling-from-the-sky” level of misery, and it’s exactly what the program will try to conquer this year, even if the team’s bowl destination is not especially glamorous.
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In the 2012 Belk Bowl, here’s how Duke lost to Cincinnati: The Blue Devils, tied in the final 90 seconds, had marched to the Cincinnati 5. Duke had to do one thing: not fumble. Running back Josh Snead fumbled. Seconds later, Cincinnati delivered an 83-yard touchdown pass to take the lead in the final minute of regulation. Roughly 30 seconds later, the Bearcats came up with a 55-yard pick-six to win by 14, 48-34.
Duke’s trip through bowl-game hell was just starting.
In the 2013 Chick-Fil-A Bowl, you already know that Duke blew a 38-17 halftime lead, which is excruciating enough, but the Blue Devils still found a terrible way to lose. The contest was a pure shootout — a video game turned into living, breathing reality — in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome. Duke led, 48-45, inside the final four minutes, and had the ball. Getting three first downs against A&M’s tissue-thin defense shouldn’t have been too hard, but at the very least, Duke certainly didn’t have to fear the possibility that A&M’s defense would do something special.
Or did it?
For the second straight year, Duke gave up a 55-yard pick-six inside the final 3:35 of the fourth quarter. The Cincinnati interception for a touchdown was merely window dressing in a game Duke was already likely to lose. This defensive score by A&M gave the Aggies the lead. Duke — shaken to its core — could not respond, and another bowl win did not materialize, against all odds.
Against Arizona State, in a Sun Bowl with two sets of Devils, Duke decided to try the comeback route — falling behind, 20-3, but then rallying for a 31-30 lead with just over five minutes left in regulation. There was no guarantee Duke would win, but the Blue Devils — whose defense had been steadily improving throughout the second half — relished the fact that they had been winning the line of scrimmage. As long as ASU did not return the following kickoff a long way, Duke liked its chances.
This being Duke in a bowl game, what happened? Of course — the Sun Devils returned the kickoff 96 yards and scored a touchdown seconds later.
Duke drove downfield into the ASU red zone and had a chance to win the game in the final moments, however. The Blue Devils still had a very reasonable chance of making their bowl dreams come true. On third-and-10 from the Arizona State 14, Duke quarterback Anthony Boone had a man break open over the middle, but he went with the jump-ball pass to the corner. It was intercepted, and Duke’s dream died again, in the most wrenching way possible.
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Would Duke like to beat an elite team in a prestigious bowl? Sure it would. With that having been said, just about any bowl win would enable the Blue Devils to breathe a lot more easily heading into next year’s offseason.
Duke hasn’t won a bowl game since the 1961 Cotton Bowl, when the Blue Devils outmuscled Arkansas and a future Hall of Famer named Lance Alworth, 7-6. Duke defeated Arkansas coach Frank Broyles in his first Cotton Bowl, four seasons before the legendary coach would return to Dallas and win a national championship, capped by a victory in the 1965 Cotton classic against Nebraska.
Duke achieved something very special in January of 1961. It’s been more than half a century since this program has been able to create another winning winter moment in college football’s postseason. Of all the teams in the United States that would derive extra meaning from winning a bowl game, Duke sits at the top of the list as the 2015 season approaches.
