Sportswriter Thomas Boswell famously declared that time begins on opening day. Boswell was talking about baseball and the beginning of the regular season not college football and the beginning of fall practice. But the principle is the same. It’s a magic time when everyone is undefeated and anything seems possible. Great teams strut across the stage, while good teams hope to move into the ranks of the great. A 5-7 team can become a 7-5 team, maybe better.
And then there are the teams whose goal is to defy the skeptics. Coming off a dismal 2-9 mark last season, Duke football is in full defy-the-skeptics-mode.