Coach Ted Roof

Duke head football coach Ted Roof met with the press as Duke opened football practice for the 2006 season on Monday [8]. What was different for the team this summer? They focused on building endurance – mental as well as physical – instead of speed. Duke's preseason training camp will have a similar focus, Roof said.

"Our whole mentality with our offseason program and into camp was to push our team to a point of mental exhaustion, mental fatigue and push through those breaking points," Roof said.

The effort resulted in something Roof had never seen in 20 years of coaching at the college level. Every non-freshman player on the Duke team passed the team's conditioning test. Also, every freshman on the offensive line passed the test.

"That's a big win for our football team," Roof said. If you're trying to measure 'buying in' and where our attitude is, that's a pretty good indicator in my mind. We gave them an assignment, a goal and they made it. That's a big deal."

Reporting: Luciana Chavez, The News & Observer [Raleign/Durham NC]

CB John Talley

Duke senior cornerback John Talley has been named one of 33 candidates to the preseason Watch List for the 2006 Jim Thorpe Award, an honor presented annually to the top defensive back in the nation.

A native of Duncan, S.C., Talley enters his final campaign as the nation's active leader in interceptions with 11, tied with Utah's Eric Weddle. A two-time All-ACC choice, he was named a preseason first team All-America by The Sporting News and is one of just four returning first team all-conference defensive backs in the six BCS leagues.

In 34 career games at Duke, Talley has career totals of 141 tackles, three tackles for loss, 11 interceptions, 245 interception return yards and 25 pass breakups.

QB Marcus Jones

Marcus Jones finds himself at the top of the quarterback depth chart going into the 2006 season after his first year as a Blue Devil saw the true freshman prove to be a force on the field. One of Duke's best athletes, he saw playing time in all 11 games in 2005 and started four seeing most of his game action, including all four starts, at wide receiver while picking up some experience at quarterback along the way.

“We didn't have many wide receivers so that's where they needed me the most,” Jones said of his role on last year's squad. “If I wouldn't have played wide receiver I probably wouldn't have had much experience at all since I didn't play much quarterback last year, so I feel like my experience at wide receiver is going to help a lot. Knowing the intensity and the speed of the game will definitely help.”

"Thank goodness we made the decision to move him to quarterback at the end of last season," Roof said. "He got a lot of (plays) in spring practice. I can't imagine where we would be if we hadn't done that."

Jones will be backed by Thaddeus Lewis, a freshman who was the last player to join the 2006 recruiting class in February. Walk-ons Kevin Cronin and Steve Lattanzio are in the mix, but Roof is considering using Clifford Harris, a sophomore running back, just in case, because Harris played quarterback during his high-school career.

Zack Asack, the starter for most of the 2005 season as a freshman, is not enrolled at Duke this year after being suspended for plagiarism. Asack's suspension came last month, with only a few weeks left before last Sunday's start of practice. Roof hurriedly met with Jones and explained that Jones' situation had changed significantly.

"I said, 'I know you didn't want to get the job this way, but you have no control over that,'" Roof said. "I said, 'You're our starting quarterback, and act like it.'"

Jones caught more passes than he completed last year. He had 11 catches for 90 yards and one touchdown. In a handful of plays at quarterback, he completed two passes in seven attempts for six yards. One pass was intercepted.

Jones, who is 6-3, impressed Duke's coaches in high school in Ringgold, Ga., with his athletic ability and his command of his team's offense, and some of that promise began to show through last spring.

Reporting: Bill Cole, Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal

Outside expectations for Duke's season are low -- the Blue Devils were a unanimous pick to finish last in the ACC's Coastal Division at the recent ACC Football Kickoff. But the Blue Devils' expectations for themselves are much higher, even if the steps forward haven't shown up in the standings as quickly as Roof would like.

"We measure [progress] a lot of different ways. Certainly winning and losing is the ultimate way because there is a scoreboard in this game, but there are lot of factors and things that we measure to see how we're developing," Roof said. "I think we've made significant progress -- not as much as any of us want to, that's for sure.

"Building a program and its infrastructure, that has to be in place before the product on the field changes, and I think we've made a lot of headway in that regard. Now hopefully we'll see a lot of improvement on the football field from our team this season."

Roof said that everyone was present when the team reported Sunday night. "No surprises," he said.

Roof did decide to make a couple of position changes before the first practice even started, switching former Jordan High School star Kinney Rucker from defensive line to offensive line and moving speedster Jabari Marshall -- who was out of the program last year -- from cornerback to wide receiver.

Reporting: Bryan Strickland, Durham Herald-Sun

Football will be free at Duke on Sept. 2 for fans in select groups targeted by the school.

Duke has mailed vouchers for two free tickets to the Blue Devils' opener against Richmond to groups, including Duke alumni in the Carolinas and southern Virginia, Duke employees, area businesses and the chamber of commerce in Durham, and community groups such as police, firefighters and the Boy Scouts.

At the game, a NASCAR-related promotion will bring Dale Jarrett's car to the stadium for display and feature ticket giveaways to races. The idea is to create support for a team that went 1-15 in the ACC over the past two seasons and averaged 17,486 fans -- fewest in the ACC -- at its home games last season at 33,941-seat Wallace Wade Stadium.

"We've got to get some people into the game, first and foremost, to create the atmosphere we want for our team," said assistant athletic director Jon Jackson.

Jackson said the school won't disclose how many vouchers were mailed. He said school officials decided to do the giveaway long before the Duke lacrosse scandal, but said the gesture was well timed to reach out to alumni and the community to demonstrate they are important to Duke.

He said the giveaway is a one-time opportunity that should allow Duke to market itself better in the future as the school tracks the response to the offer.

"It was a good opportunity to reach out to a bunch of constituencies at the same time and generate some excitement going into the season," Jackson said.

Practice started Monday at Duke, where the Blue Devils have a lot of obstacles to overcome. They return just three starters on offense and have lost several other players who had eligibility remaining.

Starting quarterback Zack Asack is serving a season-long suspension for plagiarism. Offensive guard Tyler Krieg took advantage of a new NCAA rule allowing seniors who have graduated to transfer to other Division I-A schools, without the normal one-year penalty, and play immediately. He's at California.

Transfers to Division I-AA schools include tight end Ben Patrick (Delaware), offensive tackle Lav Bauta (Villanova) and quarterbacks Matt Schneider (Youngstown State) and Gene Delle Donne (Middle Tennessee).

But seven starters are back on defense, and third-year coach Ted Roof said his returning players accomplished something he had never seen in coaching when they all passed pre-fall conditioning tests.

"If you're trying to measure buy-in and where attitude is, that's a pretty good measure," Roof said.

Duke officials hope the free tickets will help fans buy in, too, for a program in urgent need of support.

Reporting: Ken Tysiak, Charlotte Observer