It’s easy to think of Duke football in the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s as one long, miserable slog through mediocrity or worse, with the occasional Steve Spurrier sighting to liven things up.
And you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. But the clouds did part and the sun did shine for a magical month in the 1971 season, one that demonstrated both the brilliance of which Duke football was still capable and the structural flaws that limited the long-term accomplishments of that occasional brilliance.
Bill Murray retired after the 1966 season. Duke curiously replaced him with Tom Harp, fresh off a 19-23-1 stint at Cornell.