Saturday means Duke and UNC go at it on the gridiron and this game has an unusual lead up: Duke is 4-0 under new coach Manny Diaz, while UNC is 4-1 following an ugly loss to James Madison last week where the Tar Heels surrendered 70 points to the Dukes.

It was bad enough that there was speculation that UNC coach Mack Brown had immediately moved to the hot seat.

That died down a bit as the week moved on, but the loss had to sting. It’s not easy to score 50 at home and still lose by 20 – much less to a lightly regarded opponent like Madison.

However, that means that Duke will likely get a very irritated bunch of Heels Saturday. Diaz, who used to work for Mack Brown at Texas, has proved to be a very good defensive coach and it won’t be easy for UNC to score 50 this week.

The real question is UNC’s defense: can the Heels plug the leaks? That really was a shocking loss. It would have been bad for anyone, but for the Heels to lose like that, at home…it’s hard to comprehend.

You can reasonably bet one of two things will happen for UNC Saturday: either the loss (and the rivalry) will have gotten them mad as hell, or the program is in free fall.

Our bet is on the former, so expect a major battle in Wallace Wade Saturday.

Speaking of Wally Wade, the field was a big mess Friday after the outer edges of Helene poured a tremendous amount of water on the Triangle. Getting it ready again is going to be a major challenge for the groundskeeping crew and even if it looks flawless, it’s still going to be water-logged. And there’s no way to know how that will affect the game.

Needless to say, things will be interesting.