WINSTON-SALEM — Duke coach David Cutcliffe said he knew he was going to try an onside kick in the second half at Wake Forest because he thought the Blue Devils could make something happen on the Demon Deacons.

It didn't work. Wake Forest ended up with the ball at the Duke 26, after Duke was called for interference on the play, and took a 22-20 lead at the end of the third quarter on a Shane Popham
field goal.

"I don't like digging fox holes but I thought there was something there," Cutcliffe said after the 33-30 overtime loss.

Staff video by Scott Sharpe

• First Look
• Photo gallery
• Video: Smith's OT pick
• Video: Boldin touchdown

WINSTON-SALEM — It was the kind of game Wake Forest had won many times before and the kind Duke had seen and won just a week ago.

Experience and an old Duke bugaboo won out on Saturday.

Duke got snakebit by another last-second missed field goal at the end of regulation as Wake Forest pulled out a 33-30 overtime victory over the Blue Devils in a seesaw battle at BB&T Field.

WINSTON-SALEM — So what does this say for the 4-3 Blue Devils? The game isn't on TV and the only bowl rep in town to watch Duke play Wake Forest this afternoon is the Chick-fil-A Bowl (Dec. 31), which has a spot for the ACC's No. 2 team.

Duke won't be the second choice out of the ACC even though both Duke and Wake need two more victories to become bowl eligible. Obviously Wake has more clout in bowl circles.

See video of a Wake Forest interception in OT that gave the Deacons a win over the Blue Devils. Video by staff photojournalist Scott Sharpe.

• Combined BCS rankings
• BCS rankings by winning percentage
• BCS ranking by GSR

• From today's print edition

Data from the NCAA suggests the ACC has the "student" part down in the "student-athlete" equation. The conference does a better job graduating its players than its Bowl Championship Series brethren. 

• BCS rankings by winning percentage
• BCS ranking by GSR

Ranking the 66 Bowl Championship Series teams by winning percentage and graduation rate (GSR) for the past decade — then combining the two rankings (weighted evenly) into a score — helps assess which programs did best in both areas. Like golf, the lower the score, the better:

• Combined BCS rankings
• BCS ranking by GSR

The Bowl Championship Series teams, No. 1 through No. 66, by winning percentage from 1998 to 2007, the same range as the NCAA-issued report on Graduation Success Rate, which measures a program's ability to graduate players.

• BCS rankings by winning percentage
• Combined BCS rankings

The Graduation Success Rate, released by the NCAA, measures how many players earned a four-year degree within a six-year window. The GSR accounts for transfers, both in and out, which is how it defers from the Federal graduation rate.

Four ACC programs ranked in the top 10, and nine in the top 25 of the 66 teams in the Bowl Championship Series, in graduating players from the freshmen classes from 1998 to 2001:

What UNC basketball fans really have to sweat out in ‘08-’09 isn’t so much Tyler Hansbrough’s injury, or Marcus Ginyard’s injury, or Ty Lawson’s injury-in-waiting.

Instead, it’s that so many sportswriters and coaches are in total agreement that the Tar Heels are a lock to win the national championship. The last time so many experts were in such total agreement on a single subject, long-shot Syracuse beat Roy Williams’ Kansas team for the 2003 NCAA title in New Orleans.