DURHAM, N.C. -- The college football world has changed a lot since Duke and Army first met in 1944.
That game – played before 45,000 fans at New York’s Polo Grounds – matched Eddie Cameron’s wartime Blue Devils against an Army team that has come to be recognized as one of the great teams of all times – the Doc Blanchard-Glenn Davis Cadets that would win national titles in 1944 and 1945.
Army was so strong in 1944, that even though the Blue Devils lost that day, 27-7, Duke’s showing was so impressive that it helped a 5-4 Duke team earn a bid to the 1945 Sugar Bowl (where the Blue Devils upset Alabama in a thriller).