Editor’s note: The following is a republished Daily Orange coverage of Syracuse’s 21-0 loss to Duke — the first-ever meeting between the two programs. The game was on Nov. 12, 1938 and the story was published on Nov. 15 of the same year.

Teams may come and teams may go

Like a cigaret’s feeble spark,
They take the field, display their show

With casual talk their mark.

But some teams dazzle, striking somehow

Minus flaw or fluke
To such teams one must surely bow

Saturday it was Duke.

Perhaps the best way to sum up the Duke meeting, or the story of the one-sided handshake in four chapters, would be to open discussion on Columbia as defeats usually come under the heading of the less said, the better.

But you can’t evade or dispense with the Blue Devils that way. When there is a loss, which is questionable or which shows gross error on the part of the losers, the forgetful attitude may be apropos but when the defeat is 100 percent genuine, you have to clap the winners.

Duke was a victor Saturday all the way, in every sense of the game. The southerners not only had superior material in every position but in addition had football finesse.

They had a polished repertoire of grid knicknacks, that collectively were significant to the point of paying off. Ability to sense plays when on defense, a lax, loose stroll coming out of the huddle followed by sudden explosion of the play, machinelike conversions from a crouch after touchdowns – that’s what the Durham dynamo showed you Saturday.

The triumph was the seventh straight set of perfect play by the Dukes. And those seven wins have included an opposition whitewash in each. Duke is grid aristocracy not only in the name but in everything the word implies.

The invaders schedule could well be called the Dance of the Blue Devil, with a dizzier cycle of pigskin pirouettes each succeeding Saturday. And Duke is determined that the dance won’t reach its apex until the Rose Bowl whistle is blown.

Two encounters remain to bar the path, North Carolina State and Pittsburgh. North Carolina should fall away but if Pitt overpowers Duke, the Panthers should get an all time sports scepter for being the greatest football greats.

Published on November 7, 2014 at 12:03 am