Lose at the rate Duke's football teams have lost over the past several years, and you're everyone's best friend. Even when it comes to North Carolina, the Blue Devils have a recent history of displaying polite sportsmanship.

A motto for Duke football in the years since Steve Spurrier was coach could be "Homecomings 'R' Us."

You could go on and on, which rival recruiters often do. Here's one I've heard occasionally: "What do you get when you pit a Duke football team against a French military unit?" Popular response: "Surrender squared."

In sports, perceptions have a way of becoming reality, and there's no use denying the fact that Duke has earned its football perception the old-fashioned way.

But there has been one exception to the rule -- Virginia. Duke and UVa rarely play nice. It goes all the way back to the 1980s and maybe deeper into history.

There's a very good chance that the football rivalry is rooted in basketball. Maybe it's even rooted in social elitism. We are, after all, talking about a couple of charter-member "Southern Ivy" schools.

Whatever, there have been times over the years when Virginia and Duke football players mixed like offshore oil-drilling advocates and conservationists.

"The intensity of the rivalry has eased some, but it's still fairly deep and intense," said Jerry Ratcliffe, longtime sports editor at the The Daily Progress, which is Charlottesville's hometown newspaper.

Ratcliffe is the author of a forthcoming book, "The University of Virginia Football Vault," which is due for a mid-November release.

"There was a time in the late 1980s when George Welsh [then the Virginia coach] and [Duke's] Steve Spurrier may have disliked each other more than any two coaches in the ACC," Ratcliffe said. "As far as I can determine, they still don't like each other very much. That conflict lingered on for a while -- definitely after Spurrier left Duke. I don't think there's anything of that nature between Al Groh and David Cutcliffe. But I do think Virginia fans still put an emphasis on beating Duke, all these years later."

Ratcliffe recalled a classic Welsh line about making a visit to Wallace Wade Stadium: "You have to walk a mile [from the visitors' locker room to the playing field], nobody shows up, and then they have somebody reading poetry [over the public address system]."

With Cutcliffe serving as the point person, Duke's game-day atmosphere is changing quickly. It's safe to say that when this Virginia team arrives at Wallace Wade Stadium on Saturday, the Cavaliers won't be met by a dead poets' society or by a lifeless opponent.

The rivalry fire of old may never be completely rekindled, but it's already reached the point that a Duke-Virginia game means something again.

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.