Next up for Duke Football: An embarrassed UNC comes calling

Saturday means Duke and UNC will meet on the gridiron, and this game has an unusual advantage: Duke is 4-0 under new coach Manny Diaz, while UNC is 4-1 after an ugly loss against James Madison last week where the Tar Heels surrendered 70 points to the Dukes.

It was bad enough that there was speculation that UNC coach Mack Brown had immediately moved to the bench.

That calmed down a bit as the week went on, but the loss had to hurt. It’s not easy to score 50 at home and still lose by 20, much less to a lesser-regarded opponent like Madison.

However, that means Duke will probably be very angry on Saturday. Diaz, who used to work for Mack Brown at Texas, has proven to be a very good defensive coach and it won’t be easy for UNC to score 50 this week.

The real question is UNC’s defense: Can the Heels plug the leaks? That was truly a shocking loss. It would have been bad for anyone, but for the Heels to lose like that, at home… it’s hard to understand.

You can reasonably bet that one of two things will happen for UNC on Saturday: either the loss (and the rivalry) will have pissed them off as hell, or the program is in free fall.

Our bet is on the former, so let’s expect a major battle in Wallace Wade on Saturday.

Speaking of Wally Wade, the field was a huge mess on Friday after the outer edges of Helene dumped a massive amount of water onto the Triangle. Getting it ready again will be a big challenge for the maintenance team and even if it looks spotless, it will still be waterlogged. And there’s no way to know how that will affect the game.

Needless to say, things will be interesting.