With its season opening upset over Clemson, Duke Football announced its return to national relevance. With this weekend’s dominant victory over Northwestern, it showed that it has the firepower to stick around. And that may be the more important accomplishment in Year 2 of the Elko Era.
At first glance, that’s a take that admittedly should generate some scoffs; after all, the victory over Clemson was arguably Duke’s biggest since at least Steve Spurrier’s time in Durham. But college football is a notoriously mercurial game, one in which the energy of a home crowd and a few lucky bounces can yield seemingly unpredictable results.