As the final seconds ticked away of the most improbable of wins, the Duke Blue Devils left their bench and charged across the field. Water flew in the air in celebration as the team angled toward the far corner of the end zone, on the opposite sideline.
That’s where the Victory Bell had been sitting all night long. This was just the Bell’s third visit to Durham since it’s three years in residence, from 2016 to 2019. Since then, it had come, painted light blue, for just a few hours, then returned to Chapel Hill.
It would be staying for a bit longer this time.
The players leading the charge pulled up before reaching their destination. They stood, in the red zone, confused.
The bell was gone.
Once the outcome, as unlikely as it had seemed an hour earlier, was no longer in doubt, officials, looking to avoid a postgame confrontation as custody of the bell transferred, had moved the bell from the far end zone to the Blue Devils’ tunnel, far from the Carolina bench. Now it was being wheeled to midfield to join the celebrating players.
It took awhile to get there, as players and fans, pouring from the stands, met it and crowded around.
Fans and players sang together as songs best known as the basketball team’s anthems played over the loudspeaker—“All I Do Is Win, Win, Win,” complete with the Cameron Crazies’ unprintable customization of the chorus, followed by Cascada’s “Every Time We Touch”.
Once that was done, the Victory Bell began its slow victory lap of Wallace Wade Stadium. Players took turns pulling the Bell on its path, two at a time, while another two Blue Devils rode on top, ringing it wildly. As it reached the Duke bench, and stands still full of Blue Devil fans who hadn’t stormed the field, Tre Freeman was one of the passengers. He had clinched the 21-20 victory over the Tar Heels with an interception in the final minute. Receiver Jordan Moore sat next to him. Defensive back Chandler Rivers waited his turn to jump on board.
The bell came to a halt, and backup quarterback Henry Belin approached. At halftime, as the Blue Devils fell behind 17-0 and seemed incapable of moving the ball, there seemed to be a good chance that Belin would be seeing time on the field. Instead, Duke mounted the biggest comeback in the history of the series and the Blue Devils’ largest football rally since 1962, and Belin’s arm was about to get its only use this evening. He grabbed the handle and spun the bell wildly, uncorking the only spiral required of him, and the crowd cheered the ringing.
“I told them at halftime, ‘We have a chance to do something legendary,’” coach Manny Diaz said. “But it would require all of our belief in ourselves and each other. Especially since there wasn’t a lot of evidence in the first half that we were capable of that.”
At that time, Duke had managed just 97 yards of offense. They trailed 10-0 before they’d recorded a first down, and they’d managed just six in the first 30 minutes of play. Quarterback Maalik Murphy was just 7-of-19 for 45 yards and had been consistently overthrowing his receivers.
“We told them all week, ‘It’s not just another game, until it begins,’” Diaz said. “’And then, when it ends, it’s not just another game.’ But I think it felt different. They get in that stadium, with all the juice in there, and then they’ve got to do simple football stuff.”
Diaz told his team not to panic.
“The way to come back was going to be through body blows,” he said. “Just keep hitting singles. What happens is you want to get it all back at one, and that really is what they want us to do—get impatient on offense. We just had to go to work on them.”
That’s exactly what the Blue Devils did,
Running back Star Thomas carried the ball seven times for 44 yards in the third quarter. The ground game opened things up for Murphy, who completed 6-of-7 throws for 99 yards in the quarter. The Blue Devils got on the board in the third, on a Murphy pass to Thomas for 29 yards. Duke still trailed 20-7, however.
In other words, they had UNC right where they wanted them. “We call the fourth quarter the sewer,” Diaz said. “Our guys believe that’s our quarter. We can catch you. You can’t catch us. And that’s exactly what happened tonight.”
Thomas ran in a touchdown on the first drive of the fourth.
“I thought we could dominate the fourth quarter,” Diaz said. “I thought we got stronger as the game went on, and they went in the other direction.” The Duke defense held UNC to nine plays and 26 yards on the next two drives, and then Peyton Jones ran in the go-ahead touchdown. Another 16-yard UNC drive stalled, setting the stage for the last-minute interception by Freeman.
In a postgame radio interview, Diaz added, “If we’d played another quarter, we’d have won by more.”
Instead, Duke escaped with a dramatic one-point victory, and Diaz’s first win in the rivalry series.
In his first year as Blue Devils coach, there might have been a question as to whether Diaz fully understood what was at stake in the rivalry game.
“Of course,” he said, gesturing toward the locker room. “There’s a big ol’ bell in there that reminds us on repeat.”
