Head coach David Cutcliffe has already made noticeable changes to the Duke football program on the field. His off-the-field work, however, is becoming equally impressive.
On Wednesday, Cutcliffe continued “Cokes with Cut”, a half-hour session in which Cutcliffe interacts with Duke students and goes over tape from the most recent game. The head coach opened by thanking all the students who came out, noting that he had observed his football players write more papers in a semester than he had in his entire career at Alabama.
Cutcliffe then urged more student participation in athletics as a whole, and showed great awareness of his audience by using the metaphor of a resistor and a conductor — immediately, all the engineers in the room begin to simultaneously nod.
As for the actual UNC game film, Cutcliffe praised the defense and special teams for their strong efforts, especially defensive lineman Charlie Hatcher. He noted that the offense struggled, mostly because the Tar Heels switched from zone defense early in the game to man-to-man defense, beating up the Blue Devil receivers at the line of scrimmage. Cutcliffe also lamented Duke’s inability to run the ball, showing a clip of quarterback Thaddeus Lewis scrambling and noting that it was by far the longest run of the game. Although Duke did not get the Victory Bell this year, Cutcliffe remained upbeat and concluded by saying that soon, the Blue Devils would take control of the Tobacco Road rivalry.
As for upcoming opponent Georgia Tech, the head coach joked that Duke planned to block a punt against the Yellow Jackets as well. Unfortunately, it might take more than that for the Blue Devils to pull the upset.
