Well, it's not as though either school is a football powerhouse. Last night's game was much more a competition to see which team would play slightly less bad, which team's inconsistent offense could overcome the other team's bad defense. And Duke wins in overtime, when the Rice kicker missed the tying field goal from 34 yards. On the other hand, Rice wins the moral victory, as Duke was favored by 11 or 12 points.
Rice had its opportunities to win during regulation, such as a 60-yard drive in the second quarter which ended with a fumble at the Duke 8 yard line. Rice was up 14-7 at that point, and a score there would have aided their cause immeasurably. Duke had its chances, too - stretching their lead to 10 points with 10 minutes to play should have been enough.
Evenly matched teams make for an exciting game, though, even if it wasn't an especially good game. Rice's final drive included converting a 4th-and-7 at midfield with a minute and a half to play and a 4th and 1 at the Duke 25 with 35 seconds left and no timeouts remaining. And the tying score came with 3 seconds left in the game.
Oh, well. It was a fun evening. The Rice Alumni Association barbecue beforehand had some 250 alumni and family attending, which was a pretty good turnout. Didn't see anyone I knew from my time at Rice, but I suppose that wasn't much of a surprise. On the other hand, I did see two people from my class from Duke's business school, so I got to catch up with some alumni, after all. (One of them is also a Rice graduate, albeit some mumblety-mumble years after me, so that wasn't a huge surprise.)
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