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DURHAM -- When Duke lineman Fred Roland peeked at the national college football rankings, something unusual caught his eye: Some coach included the Blue Devils on his USA Today top-25 ballot.

Unlike those token thank-yous every preseason from former Duke coach Steve Spurrier, this time the Blue Devils earned that vote.

"It does feel a little better not to be the laughingstock of the league anymore," Roland said Tuesday.

They aren't chuckling anymore in Durham. It's only a month into the season, but these David Cutcliffe-coached Blue Devils (3-1) no longer resemble perennial losers.

"We're not surprised at all, because we knew it all the time," quarterback Thaddeus Lewis said. "Coach actually had made this team go out there and believe and know that every week, we can win. So there's no doubt in our mind that we're going to win each week. The guys practice like it, they prepare like it and on Saturday, if you're in that locker room before we come out, (they'll) sure as heck let you know that they're actually ready to go out there, get out there. And they've been playing like that, and they're not even content with it."

From the season's opening series against Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) power James Madison, it was clear these weren't the same Blue Devils who became synonymous with comically bad football during the two decades after Spurrier left for Florida.

Widely ridiculed as the worst program in the six major conferences, Duke posted four winless seasons since its last bowl berth in 1994 and lost at least 10 games in each of the past three years. That prompted the school to fire Ted Roof and lure Cutcliffe, the one-time Ole Miss head coach, from Tennessee's staff to turn things around.

"The thing that made it all a little bit simpler is the fact that we all bought in at the beginning, and we didn't question," Roland said. "That really made a big difference. If we didn't have the faith or believe in his system, then it would have been a little tougher than it had to be. So I guess we made up in our minds that we were going to buy in from the beginning, just get it done."

Last Saturday's 31-3 win over Virginia -- an "off day" for Lewis, Cutcliffe said -- marked the end of a 25-game slide in ACC play.

"You kind of, sort of, for a quick second get to take a sigh of relief," Roland said. "But you don't sit there too long -- there's still work to be done."

On the line Saturday at Georgia Tech (noon, ESPNU) is a 16-game losing streak in ACC road games, and a win would give Duke its first three-game winning streak since 1994 -- the last time the Blue Devils reached the postseason.

The Orange Bowl sent its blazer-wearing representatives to Wallace Wade Stadium last weekend, and they spoke to the team after Friday's practice and attended Cutcliffe's postgame news conference.

"I thought they were guys from Virginia hanging around at first, with those orange jackets on," Cutcliffe joked.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the Blue Devils' start is they're one play from being undefeated: A holding call nullified a potential go-ahead touchdown in the final minute of a 24-20 loss to Northwestern.

Yet skeptics say Duke's results came against a weak schedule. Sure Virginia isn't having much of a season, but a win over Navy is looking pretty good after the Midshipmen beat Wake Forest last week.

Still, even Cutcliffe isn't getting carried away. He'd rather wait and see how things shake out in the ACC's late-season stretch run.

"A lot of people wanted to make a lot about the start," Duke's coach said, "but this team will be defined in November."