The Chronicle

Issue date: 11/6/07 Section: Column
Last update: 11/6/07 at 7:42 AM EST

Media Credit: Chronicle File Photo With the recent improvement of the N.C. State, new ACC scheduling could help promote its rivalry with Duke.

A funny thing happened over the last few years as the Blue Devils jetted to Beantown and South Beach in search of ACC victories in football and basketball.

The Duke-N.C. State rivalry died.

The Blue Devils haven't played the Wolfpack in football since the Red Sox were still cursed. And the last time the basketball teams met twice in the regular season, Luol Deng was a resident of Bassett and not Kobe Bryant's newest crush.

Expansion, and the kinks that came with teams entering the league at different times, has completely sapped the local rivalry of its luster.

Although there was certainly a lot of skepticism and outright criticism in the years just before conference expansion, everyone since has accepted it without much analysis of its effects.

The surprising success of Virginia Tech and Boston College in basketball has even appeased those who believed the title "Best Hoops Conference" was being gambled for the sake of football.

But the significant scheduling drawbacks everyone saw coming have played out, and the Duke-N.C. State rivalry has been perhaps the most notable victim.

The Blue Devils and Wolfpack never approached the level of Duke-Carolina or even UNC-State, but there is a lot of history between the two, compounded by some natural rival elements. The schools are 30 minutes apart, more people in North Carolina are State fans than are Duke fans, and State supporters on the whole even outpace the Tar Heel faithful in their view of Dukies as elitist outsiders.

In football, the games have been competitive. Between 1991 and 1994, the two teams played three games that were decided by one point each. Even in their last matchup in 2003, Duke almost knocked off the Philip Rivers-led Wolfpack, which ended the season by winning the Tangerine Bowl.

Basketball games were almost always nail-biters when Coach K and Jimmy V matched wits. And in the 2003 and 2004 seasons, the teams fought in several tremendous bouts, including the 2003 ACC title game in which the Blue Devils came back from 15 down in the second half.

And then there was Julius Hodge. The Wolfpack star who always had plenty to say fueled the fire in 2004 when he pontificated on the Cameron Crazies following a 76-57 loss at Duke. "There's no way I could let a guy with a 4.5 GPA, acne and bad breath decide the way I'm going to play on the court," he said.

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