But here in the heart of college basketball country, a different Duke coach and sport are all the buzz.

David Cutcliffe, the dynamic new Blue Devils football coach, is on an Olympic-size mission. The upbeat conversationalist has been crisscrossing the state and beyond, talking up Duke football, trying to convert doubters into believers -- even before the first kickoff.

Now that practice is under way, he has been making his pitch closer to home -- to faculty members, among the toughest to sway; to Iron Dukes, the boosters who gathered at the American Tobacco complex Friday night for cheers and beers; and to baseball fans at nearby Durham Bulls Athletic Park, where he threw out the first ball of the game later that evening.

"I've been a Duke fan for the past forty-some years and I've been waiting for someone since Steve Spurrier to come in and turn around this program," said Archie Bohanon, who made the trip from South Boston, Va., to Durham on Friday night for a chance to meet the new coach. "I went to their spring game, and I liked what I saw. I just like his enthusiasm and I like the way he has the kids involved in the community."

Cutcliffe, whose coaching resume includes stints at Ole Miss, Notre Dame and most recently Tennessee, succeeds Ted Roof, who was fired Nov. 26 after four losing seasons. An Alabama native, Cutcliffe, 53, stands at the helm of a program that has had few victory celebrations since Spurrier's successful run in the late 1980s, which included an ACC championship.

The seniors on this year's roster, Cutcliffe pointed out, have notched only two victories their entire time at Duke.

"Bless you for taking this job," William Senter, a Durham resident told the new coach. "I've been a season ticket-holder for 25 years and I've suffered a little."

Laura G. Wrightson, who works in the Duke Hospital surgery division, has been telling her colleagues and friends that the win-loss columns will change dramatically this season. With split loyalties -- a Blue Devils supporter in the ACC and a Tennessee Volunteers fan in the SEC -- Wrightson is familiar with Cutcliffe's work.

'Biggest cheerleader'

"When I heard he was coming, I have been his biggest cheerleader," she said. "He wants to go to a bowl game, and he can do that with his enthusiasm, his coaching ability, just the good person he is, he can do that. We can do it."

Wrightson is such a fan of the former Volunteers offensive coordinator that she uttered what some might consider heresy on a campus where basketball has reigned. Coach Cutcliffe, she speculated, could eclipse Coach K as the Big Man on Campus.

"He can do it," Wrightson said in a whisper at the faculty and staff rally last week. "He will do it," she added a little more boldly.

Brad McGinity shook his head, doubtful of that prospect, Friday evening as a crowd of new believers hovered around Cutcliffe outside Tyler's Taproom at the American Tobacco complex.

"It's August," McGinity said. "You could bring in USC's football coach. You could bring in Florida's coach. It doesn't matter who you bring in, nobody would be bigger than Coach K."

McGinity, though, is not likely to be a Duke football disciple. He is a 2004 UNC-Chapel Hill graduate who works in Durham, lives in Chapel Hill and is a big fan of his alma mater.

McGinity and several of his fellow Tar Heel fans sipped beers outside Tyler's, where the Iron Dukes' first eight-stop tour ended up, after rallies in Charlotte, Atlanta, Greensboro, Wilson, Wilmington, Knoxville, Tenn., and Raleigh.

Battle of equals

They acknowledged that neither Duke nor Carolina had shown much prowess on the college gridiron recently.

"The rivalry actually has been pretty good lately because both teams have been so bad," McGinity said.

Cutcliffe, though, wants to drown out that kind of talk. In speeches peppered with heavy doses of homespun humor and Southern storytelling, he tries to win over a campus and a community by focusing on more than play on the field.

"A successful football program is not just going to be about the players," he told faculty and staff, "It's going to be about you and I. ... We can't do it without you guys."

Cutcliffe also talks about the additional money the program will need to recruit the kinds of players he hopes to add to his rosters. One of the new staff members is a fundraiser.

To generate more excitement for the season opener Aug. 30 against James Madison University -- and to make sure the stadium is filled -- the Duke faculty and staff and their families have been offered free tickets to the game.

The players will start their pregame rituals with a silent moment at Duke Chapel, then a Devil Walk through the campus quads.

They will run through a stadium tunnel into what Cutcliffe hopes will be a big sea of Duke blue. Students will be moved closer to the field, behind the band.

"The players will bring their best game to the field," Cutcliffe said. "We need our fans ... to come out and bring their best game to the stadium."

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