Academic-minded schools enjoying fast starts

Sep 29, 2008 - 5:51 PM By Bob Birge PA SportsTicker Staff Writer

Call it college football's version of Revenge Of The Nerds.

Vanderbilt, Northwestern and Duke, schools more known for their academic prowess than their gridiron success, are providing hope for the smart guys. Maybe they actually can play with the big boys.

While Vanderbilt (4-0) was idle last week, Northwestern improved to 5-0 with a 22-17 victory over Iowa. Even Duke - where football is a warmup act for basketball season - tasted victory. The Blue Devils (3-1) defeated Virginia, 31-3, to snap a 25-game Atlantic Coast Conference losing streak.

The three academic-oriented schools are a combined 12-1, with the only loss being Duke's 24-20 defeat to Northwestern. It marks the first time that all three programs ended September with at least three wins.

Vanderbilt is 4-0 for the first time since 1984 and Northwestern is off to its first 5-0 start since 1962, when the Wildcats were coached by future Notre Dame mentor Ara Parseghian. Duke already has surpassed its win total from the three previous seasons combined (2-33).

Perhaps the early success of the three schools is a statistical aberration, and they may have more difficulty sustaining it as they get into the meat of their conference schedules.

It has been said many times that schools with high academic standards cannot compete in the high-stakes world of big-time college football, where cheating - or at least bending the rules - is often common place.

As private institutions, Vanderbilt, Northwestern and Duke always are at a disadvantage playing against state schools with bigger football budgets, bigger stadiums and bigger fan bases.

Now, they have coaches - Bobby Johnson at Vanderbilt, Pat Fitzgerald at Northwestern and David Cutcliffe at Duke - trying to change a culture of losing.

If you ranked the jobs in terms of their difficulty, first would be Duke, followed by Vanderbilt and Northwestern. Actually, compared to the first two, Northwestern is a national power.

The Wildcats finished 6-6 in Fitzgerald's second season last year and enjoyed a winning campaign as recently as 2005 (7-5). It was not too long ago - 1995 - that Gary Barnett guided Northwestern to the Big Ten Conference championship and a berth in the Rose Bowl.

This year, the Wildcats have benefited from a favorable schedule, as three of their wins have come against Syracuse, Southern Illinois and Ohio. But they went on the road to beat Iowa in their Big Ten opener, rallying from a 17-10 halftime deficit.

Northwestern is off until hosting Michigan State (4-1) on October 11. It then hosts Purdue, with road contests at Indiana and Minnesota to follow.

The schedule does not appear overwhelming, so conceivably the Wildcats could be 7-2 - or better - heading into a November 8 home contest against Ohio State.

In his seventh season at Vanderbilt, Johnson has made steady - if slow - progress, guiding the Commodores within the cusp of .500 in 2005 (5-6) and last season (5-7). That rates as an accomplishment for a school that has not had a winning season since 1982.

The 19th-ranked Commodores will find out how improved they are this week when they host No. 14 Auburn. Vanderbilt has lost 13 straight games against the Tigers, dating to the 1955 Gator Bowl.

Then there is Duke, which has been arguably the worst program in the Football Bowl Subdivision over the past decade. The Blue Devils have had one winning season since Steve Spurrier coached in Durham in the late 1980s and entered this season with a 10-82 record since 2000.

But aside from the hard-fought loss to Northwestern three weeks ago, Duke has outscored its opposition by an overwhelming margin of 103-41 in its three wins.

The Blue Devils' latest blowout came Saturday in their first ACC win since November 2004. It was a landmark day in Durham, which has viewed football as a pushover for the better part of 25 years.

But more importantly, it should make college football's big boys take notice - these nerds can play.