Duke Football Gets Potentially Beneficial Dose of Reality

The Duke football program must find motivation in the fact that it looked totally overmatched versus Ole Miss.

Duke football head coach Manny Diaz versus Ole Miss / Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

Duke football was not on the same level as its equivalent in the SEC standings. Not even close. Realists recognized that ahead of the Blue Devils' 52-20 loss to the Ole Miss Rebels at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., on Thursday night.

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But that doesn't mean first-year Duke football head coach Manny Diaz and his players should lose hope between now and August. Quite the opposite.

All in all, the 9-4 campaign, the program's first nine-win regular season in a decade, was a pleasant surprise and massive success considering the Blue Devils are now on their second-longest bowl streak in history while routinely exceeding the ACC media's preseason expectations.

Momentum is on Duke's side. Fortunately, Diaz sounds determined to stick around and capitalize on it.

"We learned a great lesson tonight," the 50-year-old said in his opening statement afterward, "which is really what we needed, where our program is, is to be in a game like this in a setting like this against an opponent like that, a team who is going to be difficult to beat when you're playing well. But to make the mistakes that we made, and we've preached all year that it's really doing simple well is what wins, and we made simple mistakes.

"In the first half, it was possession downs. The inability to get off the field on defense allowed them to drive the ball and keep possession of the ball, and all stuff that we feel like fundamentally we should be able to do.

"So, it's a great thing for us to unpack all offseason. I think this game will provide tremendous fuel for our football team in our offseason program and through summer workouts."

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