Welcome 🙏 to Day #10 /42 as we are closing in on learning Duke’s Bowl 🥣 destination for 2024-2025 !

The moment that Duke scored its Walk-Off Touchdown to defeat Wake Forest I turned to Trenton Miller and said ” Pop Tarts “!

Duke University is about to go Bowling 🎳 for just the 11th time in my 61 years. The last second victory over the Deamon Deacons allowed the team to finish 9-3 on the year and all but clinched a Top Three Bowl 🥣 for just the second time.

Orlando (Pop Tarts), San Diego (Holiday) and Jacksonville (Gator) are the upper echelon spots and things looked very, very promising at 4pm last Saturday afternoon.

We just needed Miami, Clemson, Notre Dame and SMU to handle their business or at least three of the four.

if three of those four made the 12-team Playoff then Duke going big time would be a LOCK 🔐

On the walk 🚶‍♂️ back to the Car 🚗. Clemson gave up a Touchdown on 3rd and 20 to South Carolina in the final minute of play to lose to the Gamecocks. Felt bad for Dabo and his Tigers 🐅 (9-3) but we still had hope.

The Fighting Irish fall into our (ACC) Bowl 🥣 pool if they don’t make the Big Dance. Southern California played them tough but our former Quarterback, Riley Leonard capped off their 11-1 season. Put a check ✔ in that Box 📦.

SMU (11-1) took care of California without much of a struggle. ✔ 📦#2

Miami (10-2) jumped out to a 21-0 lead over Syracuse (9-3) in the Dome and all was right in the World 🌎.

Texas A & M took our Coach, Notre Dame our QB, North Carolina State our top Running Back and three solid players headed off to the National Football League. There was little hope of winning six games this season, let alone nine and we were closing in on a Big Game.

Syracuse was the only team that could catch Duke and Clemson at 9-3 so an Orange 🍊 victory would be a double setback. So naturally Syracuse scored six Touchdowns on The U and suddenly led 42-35.

Miami had a 1st and Goal from the 4 yard line with a chance to tie 👔 it at 42-42 but deceived to settle for a Game Losing Field Goal. The U had one job, borrowing from ESPN.

SMU (11-1), Miami (10-2) and Clemson, Duke and Syracuse (9-3). That is the Cream of the league this season. If two go to the 12 then the other 3 get the Goodies !

Miami also lost to right to play SMU in the ACC Championship Game later today. The winner of Clemson – SMU gets our one Guaranteed spot with Miami appearing to be the first team left out.

There’s talk of SMU getting the boot 👢if they lose to Clemson. 11-2 and regular season champs 🏆wouldn’t be enough for the Mustangs ???

Charlotte , New York City and El Paso are the 3 Bowls 🥣 just below the Big 3. We have played in all three recently and while they are nice enough places to visit……

San Diego (27th), Orlando (28th), NYC (28th), El Paso (31st), Jacksonville (2nd) and finally Charlotte (3rd). Those are the six options and later this weekend we will find out where we will be heading, Fingers Crossed !!!

Congratulations 👏 to Boise State for punching their ticket 🎟 last night. They are 12-1 and the only loss was to #1 Oregon.

Day #2/42 is in the Books 📚 and Day #3/42 is full of Promise

Durham – Opening jump ball of Seattle University at Duke University.

Saturday November 30th has arrived and the first piece of Business is to wish my Sister, Sharon Jordan, a very Happy 65th Birthday 🎂 out in St.Peters, Missouri. Sharon is one of my two remaining Siblings and a kinder Soul 💕would be hard to find !

Very pleasant experience inside Cameron Indoor last night 🌙 as we ran into a couple of pretty special people along the way. We also did or did not see Mr. Reitzel on the scoreboard during the action 🎬.

For those who want to ” Hate ” on 17 year old Freshman Cooper Flagg it would be easy to point out that the young man 👨 failed to even score in double figures against the Redhawks last night.

Fans of Cooper will point out that the stat line shows 9 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists. That passes for flirting with a Triple Double while playing just over half the contest.

The Blue Devils held SU scoreless coming out of the break for just over eight minutes, turning a 37-25 lead into a 50-25 advantage

Fun night 🌙 and bumping into fun people made it quite memorable !

Next Up – Women’s ACC Soccer ⚽️

It was a clean sweep last night 🌙 in the three Quarterfinals for the Atlantic Coast Conference. When you add tonight’s match between Virginia Tech and Duke is all ACC, the league will occupy ALL four spots in the Final Four ! 6pm is the start time here on Campus. Congratulations 👏👏👏 to the ACC for the very rare sweep of the Final Four.

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Georgia – Georgia Tech really messed with my sleep 💤. After walking 🚶‍♂️ across the street after the end of the Basketball 🏀 game, I turned on the TV 📺 where the Bulldogs – Yellow Jackets were coming out of halftime. Should have made for a few relaxing minutes but as Lee Corso loves to say- Not so Fast.

Glued to the TV for the second half and each of the EIGHT overtime periods it quickly became a 3 hour process. Georgia beating Georgia Tech was the outcome Duke needed in its pursuit of the Best possible Bowl 🥣 game destination.

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Football 🏈 games that we will follow today in addition to attending the Duke @ Wake game (Noon).

Virginia at Virginia Tech 👀… winner becomes the 12th ACC team to earn a Bowl 🥣 bid.

NC State (5-6) at North Carolina (6-5) as the 🐺🦊🐺 try to become team #13 by spoiling Mack Brown’s final Home game.

Duke needs SMU to beat Cal, Clemson to beat South Carolina and Miami to take care of Syracuse. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if Kentucky beat Louisville and Boston College pushed the Pitt (7-4) losing streak to five straight.

Two more significant games for me have Appalachian State (5-6) at Georgia Southern ➕ Bronco Mendenhall and New Mexico (5-6) at Hawaii. Both teams are looking for a victory and a Bowl 🥣 Bid !

In my 61 years, Duke has only played in a Top Tier Bowl one time. It was the Peach 🍑 Bowl 🥣 versus Texas A&M. This year the desired Bowls for the ACC take place in Orlando, Jacksonville and San Diego. We really hope to be in one of those three cities just after Christmas 🎄.

The group of cities that sit just below that three are Charlotte, El Paso and New York City.

If you are headed to Blacksburg tonight, Bundle Up and then some.

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Wrapping it up with a Fun Weather fact about the 7 Days ahead in Whistler, British Columbia.

When I talk about where we moved from, I get asked about how Cold 🥶 does it get in the Winter ? In a few hours we will be sitting inside the Stadium 🏟 at Wake And later the Soccer ⚽️ Stadium 🏟 at Duke. Both places will be much colder today than any moment at Whistler – go figure 🤔

Have yourself a Blessed Day and if the opportunity 🙏 presents itself, choose Kindness !

So it turns out that UNC – Chapel Hill can lay claim to more than just one 🐐 G.O.A.T

Sunday afternoon in Boone, North Carolina was memberable to me for a trio of reasons and #3 was experiencing the Erin Matson effect.

Matson, standing just a few inches taller than 5 feet (5’4), is the Head Coach of the North Carolina Field Hockey 🏑 program. Before that this impressive young Lady 👩 went from High School to UNC-CH and calmly led the Tar Heels to four consecutive National Championships. This would make Matson the Bre Stewart (Stewie) of the World 🌎 of Field Hockey 🏑.

After capturing four straight Natty’s in a team sport, Stewie left UCONN and went on to the WNBA, playing for the Seattle Storm and now the New York Liberty 🗽.

Matson took a different approach in that immediately after capturing Natty #4, she went from being the Top player on the Top team to being the Coach of said Top team. Quite the transition but Matson won 🏆 Natty #5 last season and I wouldn’t bet against her winning a 6th straight here in a month or so.

Here are the two Squads (UNC & App State) just after I introduced them before our match yesterday in Boone.

Captains meeting prior to first touch.

Reason #2 for the Day being special was that after 46 years of holding a 🎤🎙🎤 I was calling a game that included the #1 team in the Nation. Reason #3 is the reason for reason #2 and the #1 reason that October 13th, 2024 will stick with me for a spell is that we re-opened the campus of Appalachian State University.

Hurricane 🌀 Helene pounced on the Greater Boone area just over two weeks ago, leaving part of the Campus and City under flood waters.

Classes are set to resume here in two more days and the sign leading up to our Stadium 🏟 shows how high the water reached.

Boone and a large portion of Western North Carolina will be recovering from the Storm for months, if not years.

For a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon things felt normal on The Rock and its just the first step 🚶‍♂️ on a long road back to normal.

Here’s our Coaching Staff that have been doubling up as Care Takers since the storm. Emily Dinsmore and her two Assistant Coaches, Azure Lokos and Pima Iturraspe were all great players in their time and are excellent recruiters. They have traveled the Globe 🌎 to bring people to Boone and I’m fairly confident that the recruiting brochures didn’t include any possibility that one day you might have to swim out to your car.

Our Marketing promotion team passed out miniature Field Hockey sticks and Ice Cream 🍦 Bars. It was a great day to be back doing what we do after a long couple of weeks !