Thirteen months ago Riley Leonard decided to chase a life-long dream of playing Quarterback under the Golden Dome in South Bend. I wasn’t fully convinced that the highly likeable Kid from Alabama had that level of talent and just two weeks into his opportunity the Fighting Irish were upset at home by Northern Illinois.

  I have watched the Haters beat up Daniel Jones from start to finish as he went from a Zero Star 🌟 High School player in Charlotte to being drafted 6th overall by the New York Giants. Now it felt like fate would play a similar role for Leonard.

  The folks that get paid to tear people down were feasting on Leonard. He couldn’t even beat Northern Illinois at home.

  In the World 🌎 where I chose to live, you don’t bail on people when the going gets tough. While I would have rather covered Galax at Carroll County on The Hill, my back up plan was to wear my Duke Football gear and root, root, root for our Guy 👦.

Riley Leonard played Riley Leonard football which means it was a roller coaster ride for sure. It was his second interception that put the Irish behind the eight ball. All he did was lead a tying TD drive 🚗 and then set up the game winning Field Goal.

  Here now in roughly 10 days, Leonard and Head Coach Marcus Freeman will face either Texas or Ohio State for a National Championship.

  Freeman will now be the first African American ( and the first Asian) Head Coach to participate in a Natty Title game. Kudos to Freeman and his accomplishments and I’m pretty sure that its the FIRST TIME that a Duke QB will be playing in the ultimate game.

  Somewhere everyone that played the position, back to Sonny Jorgensen, who had to play Cornerback as well as QB, is smiling atleast a little.

  Mike Elko headed to Texas A & M, Waters played running back for NC State and of course Leonard headed to South Bend. Pulled for them all except the day where Duke faced Waters 💧 and his Wolf 🐺Pack.

  Freeman was always not good enough and Leonard was also easy to pick on but now the unlikely duo will take one more ride together. Not sure if they can become the first team to win four straight under the new playoff system.

  Indiana, Georgia and now Penn State all tried to stop ✋ the run 🏃‍♂️ of Freeman, Leonard and Company. The winner of Texas – Ohio State University will be favored down in Atlanta.

  But win or lose that one, it will be the first time that a QB with ties 👔 to Duke University will try and lead his team to a National Championship!!!

My beloved Duke University Football team has finally made it back to a warm weather ” Big Boy ” Bowl 🥣 game!!! The only thing is that the Ole Miss team believes that they belonged in the 12 team playoff.

  I can already here the chant of our 9-3 is bigger than your 9-3. Reality is that the Rebels would be correct. We made it to one of the Big 3 (Pop Tart, Holiday & Gator) because the ACC was just a bit down this year. While we did have 13 of the 17 teams qualify for the post season, the league currently sits at 2-9 with Duke and Virginia Tech both underdogs tonight and tomorrow.

  Manny Diaz managed to lead us to an amazing 9 win season which included a Tar Heel State sweep of UNC, NCSU and Wake Forest. But Lane Kiffin got his 9 wins in the S.E.C. The good news is that Arch Manning just transferred in so we dodge that bullet.

  Enjoy the moment on the Big Stage will be the motto today !

https://augustafreepress.com/news/scott-german-what-we-know-about-the-acc-through-four-weeks/

Scott German is Chris Graham’s partner in crime up in Waynesboro. Each week during the 🏈🏈🏈 season one of them will take a look at the league.

  The sad part for me in the UNC upset loss at home to James Madison University is that it prevented a match-up of 4-0 teams when the Tar Heels load up the Bus 🚌 for the nine mile drive over to Wallace Wade Stadium 🏟 this Saturday.

  Duke – Carolina football has produced insane games the past few seasons, including the Double OT race to 50 points last year. Sadly, the Battle for the Victory Bell 🔔 isn’t front page news on Tobacco Road. It’s remains one of my favorite days of the Year, win or lose.

  Travis King is a Sports fan that I believe lives in my neck of the woods. King recently penned a piece about loyalty to a program and realistic expectations of said program. While I don’t know Travis personally, I was impressed by his words in regards to Virginia Tech.

  It was 50 years ago that I decided that I wanted to attend Duke University. One small thing prevented it happening, complete lack of intelligence. Other than that, I was spot on qualified.

  Ended up living on Campus and pumping Gas ⛽ for the folks that actually got into the School 🏫. But I have been a die hard fan of the University as a whole and the Football team more than all others. When you are a Duke Football fan you have different expectations.

  Terms like Big Boy Football are not part of the day to day and Cold weather Bowl games for 6-6 teams are welcomed. This year I looked up and down the schedule to see if we could sneak out 6 wins as we started the Manny Diaz portion of our Football legacy. First thing that had to happen was we had to open 4-0 ( which we did) because like everyone else, it appeared the league was loaded for Bear 🐻.

  Four weeks into the season some teams, like Scott mentioned, are simply not as scary as the might have first appeared. Still doesn’t change the fact that we are 0-for-Life against Florida State. Two wins in the next eight games gets us to the Great White North (Annapolis, New York or Boston). Anything beyond that is Icing on the Bowl 🥣 cake 🎂.

  Remember that a Duke Football season has only ended in a Bowl game 10 times in my 61 years, so not going to become greedy!

Back to Travis for a minute, I could not agree with him more in regards to his take on remaining loyal to one’s program. In my mind, I look at College the same way I look at High School. Your School should be Your School 🏫.

  Imagine if someone asked about who’s your team in High School and the answer was in Golf its Floyd County, in Baseball its Alleghany, in Football its Radford and in Softball its Carroll County.

  In regards to Duke, we have attended at least one sporting event from every team except Wrestling and we hope that scratch that one of the list this year. But Football is King 🤴 for me because its where we face the greatest challenge, by a wide margin.

The biggest difference between say Duke and FSU or Virginia Tech or SMU is that there was zero expectation when the season began. Getting picked 15th in a 17 team league sets the bar pretty low.

  We have 8 more games in five different Stadiums and I know where I will be sitting for each of those. Cheering on the Blue Devils! Travis mentioned that with all of the money 💰 being tossed around now that going to Miami is more appealing than Blacksburg. If that’s true I don’t think Durham is a must-see destination for Big Boy Football players.

  Schools are often labeled Basketball schools or Football schools. Let’s call Duke a School of Higher Education with an Amazing Hospital 🏥 and a fun Football team. Don’t forget we have a Volleyball team that lets the Basketball team use their Gymnasium.

  Uva is 3-1 now and they do have a shot at getting to 6-6, which will look great after the past two seasons. Sometimes a Cold Weather 🥶 Bowl 🥣 can be a good thing, just not repeatedly.

  Now, if we can get Travis to not use Daniel Jones as a way to say that Barkley is in a better place this year, but that’s another battle.

  Victory Bell 🔔 game this Saturday afternoon !!!