Impossible, you say. Well, probably so.

Then again, the last Saturday in September of 2008 ended with the banks running out of money, Southern California's football team winless in the Pacific-10 Conference and Duke undefeated in the ACC.

So take heart, Bob Barr. If Oregon State can beat Southern Cal and Duke can start 1-0 in the ACC, there may be no end to all this foolishness.

Not only did Duke win an ACC football game, the Blue Devils actually pulled it off the easy way. They ran away from a 3-3 halftime score against Virginia in Wallace Wade Stadium for a dominating 31-3 rout that ended with first-year coach David Cutcliffe declining the opportunity to pile on down-and-maybe-out Cavaliers coach Al Groh, whose team opened the season with a 52-7 loss to -- who else? -- Southern Cal in Charlottesville.

With Duke up 24-3 and with a first down on Virginia's 25-yard-line following a Cavaliers turnover late in the game, Cutcliffe pulled starting quarterback Thaddeus Lewis and went to reliever Zack Asack. The offense still scored a touchdown, but it was an act of mercy by Cutcliffe that Duke rarely had been afforded in 25 straight previous league losses.

It wasn't as though Lewis was putting on a world-conquering performance, either. By his recent standards, Lewis was little more than adequate, completing 18 of 32 passes (two interceptions) for 160 yards. Not only that, he was sacked three times.

"All quarterbacks have off-days. But when you can win 31-3 on a quarterback's off-day, you've got to be happy," Cutcliffe said.

Hey, Coach Cut, when Duke wins 31-3, it's not just a happy day. Heck, it's a holiday.

Everything considered, there may not have been a stranger afternoon of ACC football in many years.

Coupled with North Carolina's upset win at Miami and Maryland's upset victory at Clemson, Duke's win put the league standings in such a discombobulated state that casual observers must be thinking basketball season began two months early this year.

Cutcliffe, of course, was borderline delirious, and he had every right. He has turned the laughingstock of college football into a 3-1 team that will enter October needing just three more wins to become bowl eligible.

But it's the nature of football that one person's gain is usually another's pain, and Groh clearly was a big loser Saturday. His team (1-3, 0-1 ACC) is in such trouble that last season's league coach of the year may need consecutive wins in Scott Stadium over Maryland, East Carolina and North Carolina to keep the wolves off his doorstep as the season's weather gets colder.

"You can't run for the hills when things get tough," said Groh, technically referring to his young quarterback, Marc Verica. "There's no one out there to bail [him] out."

What goes for Verica, in this case, also applies to his coach. Groh said he saw some "positive things in a lot of different areas" against Duke. No one should know his team better than Groh, and there's no question that he has served as a capable successor to legendary George Welsh.

But at the end of the game Saturday, Duke looked a little like what Virginia used to be, and the Cavaliers had the look of becoming the new Duke. It's a strange world out there. And for the record, the school with the new longest losing streak in ACC football games is Miami.

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