I Was Pulling Hard

I don't know which team you pull for but I find it hard to believe unless you were a Texas A&M fan that you weren't pulling for Duke Tuesday night in Atlanta.  An underdog from the odds maker in Vegas right on down to the one sided coverage on ESPN.   Did anyone besides me notice that leading out of every timeout ESPN showed a picture of Johnny Manziel.  I got to the point I thought he was the only player on the field for A&M.

Having seen Duke football way back during the days of the lonesome end right through the dry spell of the past 40 years David Cutcliffe has transformed a program at Duke that all Blue Devil fans can be proud.  Even as good as this year has been they still are not yet ready for the prime time.  You could see speed is lacking on both sides of the ball.

What you get from the Devils is all out give me everything  you got on this play mentality.  They tried every trick in the book and in the first half every trick worked.  Just think in the second half all the third down plays they made.  What they didn't have was enough speed on defense to stay with A&M.

I think Manziel is a very exciting player and for college and he had better come back to college next year.  If he turns pro he will be a flash in the pan.  He will have his moments and everyone  will rave at how good he is and then spend time on the injured list.  To me he is a Tebo or Vince Young.

You know the pick six that won the game for A&M had nothing to do with Manziel.  Then there were two missed interference calls that helped lead to the second pick.  Duke needed that touchdown just before the half instead of the field goal on the last play.  Despite defeat Duke put on a show with the effort they gave because I thought they would lose by 30.  It was a heck of a game.

This was a dream season for the Devils but you know they didn't play any great team during the season.  They beat Virginia Tech but as the rest of the year unfolded Tech was awful on offense.  They didn't play FSU during regular season and missed out playing Clemson. Everything this year fell the Devils way.  There is no doubt it was fun watching them play but next year no longer will everyone they play think in the summer Duke will be a win.  They will now get respect from others when their schedule has Duke this week.  They have never had that before in this generation and Duke will have to adjust that they no longer will be looked at as an underdog.