Posted on 06/21/2008 11:36:43 AM PDT by CaspersGh0sts
A Kentucky judge has confirmed what Duke fans have known for years: their football team is as bad as it gets.
Bad enough that Louisville should have to find another football team to replace the Blue Devils without penalty after Duke pulled out of the final three games of a four-game contract last season.
In a lawsuit filed late last year, Louisville asked for $450,000 in damages and any additional damages the court saw fit.
But Duke's lawyers argued that the Blue Devils' performance on the field was so poor that any Division I team would suffice as a replacement. Duke is 6-45 over the past five years, 13-90 since 1999.
Judge Phillip J. Shepherd of the Franklin County (Ky.) Circuit Court agreed, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.
"At oral argument, Duke [with a candor perhaps more attributable to good legal strategy than to institutional modesty] persuasively asserted that this is a threshold that could not be any lower," Shepherd wrote in a summary judgment issued Thursday, according to the paper. "Duke's argument on this point cannot be reasonably disputed by Louisville."
Duke, according to the suit, asked the Cardinals to find a replacement opponent and promised to pay Louisville only if the school could not find one after a "good faith" effort. A $150,000 penalty for each game was included in the contract if a "team of similar stature" could not be found to fill the date.
The two schools were to meet four times between 2002 and 2009. Louisville beat the Blue Devils 40-3 in September 2002, but Duke opted out of the final three games, to be played last season and in 2008 and 2009.
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(Excerpt) Read more at sports.espn.go.com ...
Dismissed. LOL
Not exactly good for the teams morale.
This is both stupid and hilarious on quite a few levels.
Duke spokesperson: “Our football team may be the worst in the country, but in the wake of the lacrosse scandal we have taken special care to ensure that every member of the team is politically correct.”
There are only a number of major conference teams that can be counted on for an easy win, and they are in high demand by the major programs.
A few years ago Georgia either sued, or threatened to sue Tulane when that program pulled out of a series, but Georgia let the matter pass when they were able to book a suitable opponent. Per a quick Google search, the Georgia - Tulane suit was for $1 million, with the canceled games in 2002 and 2003 at UGA, and in 2008 in New Orleans.
How about the Tar Heels as a replacement? They’re better (somewhat) than Duke and in the ACC.
In the coaches’ poll, Steve Spurrier used to always vote for them in the top 10 (or was it #1?) preseason anyway, and I think until their first loss. I wonder if he’ll still do that.
With Cutcliffe going from U-T to Duke they are bound to get better...
When there’s a 75% drop in revenue from the high gas prices, they’ll be so happy. Americans voting with their cars,eh?
Looking at UNC’s 2008 schedule, the only non-conference games that they might want to trade out of are Notre Dame, but that would give up a sure national TV appearance, or UConn. Rutgers is a road game already set for TV - no way they’d let UNC out. The other non-conference game is McNeece State as an opener.
Dook should just play the games and quit jerking off. How would Dook react if Louisville backed out of a basketball contract with them?
A top line program may have to pay $500,000 for a weak team to come in and get beaten up a couple of years. $150K a year in liquidated damages would have been letting Duke off easy. And I noticed Duke didn’t line up anyone for Louisville to play.
Louisville would be a perfect replacement.
I used to live near Duke, and from my limited experience, I believe Duke simply does not have the heart for the sort of investment required by big time college football, and not simply spending money but also the emotional will to win at the level of, say, the SEC. And I doubt that any other school in NC has the heart either. The Blue Devils were a football powerhouse, once - but those days are gone with the wind.
Ah yes, much like Tulane. I was at Tommy Bowden’s final home game for Tulane (11-0 that year in the regular season) vs. La Tech back in ‘98. Tulane didn’t even put the upper deck of the Superdome up for sale...so attendance was only 35K-ish when it could have been 75K-ish. They didn’t put the tickets up for sale to the public until well into the afternoon of the game...Thanksgiving Day as I recall... so a lot of folks missed most of the first quarter.
The chants of “Stay, Tommy, Stay!” at the end of the game went for naught.
There is a difference between Duke and Tulane. Tulane might draw 35,000 for a home game, but Duke could never draw that many at home, unless the visiting team brought in the fans. One has to have lived in the Research Triangle area to understand the antipathy toward football that exists in far too many people.
Based on last year’s game, I’d say the Heels are about 3” better than Dook.
MD, UNC Class of ‘97
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