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  1. #61
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    Quote Originally Posted by Devil in the Blue Dress View Post
    One observation about the recruits brought in by Coach Cutcliffe and what sort of academic qualifications they may have: it's easy to note the high graduation rate for the football team, but it's also noteworthy that the team as a whole maintains a B average. This statistic is mentioned in various news releases and at functions like the football banquet.

    It's rather interesting that such an average is possible despite seemingly low performing student athletes being admitted to play football.
    Thanks for the info D. Seems odd that all these supposedly poor acadamic recruits that Cutcliffe somehow coerced the admissions office into accepting are all graduating on time while maintaining B averages, no? If that was actually happening, one would think the actual academic performance once they got in would be poor. Year after year Duke graduates football players at a high rate, so whatever approach Cut is taking with recruiting, it certainly has not negatively impacted academics.

  2. #62
    Quote Originally Posted by Newton_14 View Post
    Thanks for the info D. Seems odd that all these supposedly poor acadamic recruits that Cutcliffe somehow coerced the admissions office into accepting are all graduating on time while maintaining B averages, no? If that was actually happening, one would think the actual academic performance once they got in would be poor. Year after year Duke graduates football players at a high rate, so whatever approach Cut is taking with recruiting, it certainly has not negatively impacted academics.
    I would get back to my original premise, and that is, Cut did not recruit as effectively as he might have when beginning at Duke.

    Look at Cut's first year, his first full year, where he had already had an opertunity to recruit half a class in the prior year,

    http://rivals.yahoo.com/duke/footbal...ts/2009/duke-2

    Compare the academic profiles and rivals ratings with James Franklin's first year at Vanderbilt

    http://rivals.yahoo.com/duke/footbal.../vanderbilt-72

    What you will find is that Franklin recruited better talent with better appearing academic profiles on average.

    In 2009, according to the rivals database , Cut offered just 11 rivals 4 star rated recruits. We did not offer a number of higher-rated prospects whose academic profiles appeared to be quite strong, and who received offers from the academic schools: Stanford, Northwestern, Vandy, Rice. Cut did not quite get the academic, interest in Duke correlation. We also had no business offering football players who were not projected to be NCAA eligible at the time, and certainly no business taking verbal commitments from them.

    In terms of GPAs and graduation rates, if you added back players dismissed from the Football Program and pulled out walkons it would look a bit different. Recent graduation rates reflect Roof's recruiting, which was at a higher academic level among scholarship players. I also would assert we learn not much in terms of what is possible in recrutiing scholarship players in making observations of a B average for the Football Team. 20% of the team are 20 plus invited walkons with math verbal SATs pushing 1400, which is great btw, and which Cuts predecessors did not have.

    I think the point is to look back and learn from what was done and to understand what might be possible in the future. Because, if Cut gets on the hot seat, and we then have to make a change, we should be better prepared for the next hiring decision and have a better understanding of what is possible. Our goal is to have the most competitive Football Program as possible. The question is, what is possible in recruiting scholarship players. I think you can look to Stanford and Vandy for the answers there.

  3. #63
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    Quote Originally Posted by formerdukeathlete View Post
    What you will find is that Franklin recruited better talent with better appearing academic profiles on average.
    You will also find that Franklin coaches for a team that plays in the SEC, which is huge advantage when it comes to recruiting. I also submit that using Franklin as an example is a lousy idea since he hasn't coached his first class in a game yet. Let's look back and see how he's doing in 4 years. I'm sure you will point out that he went bowling in his first year (and ended still with a losing record) but I'll point out that Fred Goldsmith did the same thing with the class that he inherited. Then the bottom fell out.
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  4. #64
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    One thing I learned in my statistics classes at Duke is that one can make any assertion appear true by selective use of data.

    As one who has been around the football program for decades, I would observe that the climate is so much more positive and vital these days. The last time there was a such strikingly positive climate was when Steve Spurrier was at Duke. To borrow from Coach K who's spoken of this concept in terms of individual players, every team has its own race to run, its own path of development. While some comparisons to others may be helpful, such comparisons can be limiting in appreciating the progress made.

  5. #65
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    Quote Originally Posted by Devil in the Blue Dress View Post
    One thing I learned in my statistics classes at Duke is that one can make any assertion appear true by selective use of data.
    Did you know that 24.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot?

  6. #66
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    Did you know that 24.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot?
    If you go onto the rivals recruit search database, select 2009, select 4 star rated, select Duke and then select only recruits with offers. 11 names come up whom we offered in the 2009 class. We landed 2 of the 11 (18.2%). In the same recruiting class, according to rivals, Stanford offered 45 four star recruits and landed 8 (17.8%). And, that is with higher academic cutoffs than we have. How many more elite players might we have landed had we simply offered? I think the answer to that is more, and just one more might have made the difference in winning or losing games. Land 4 times as many as in Stanford and we could be in the hunt for an ACC championship.

  7. #67
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    Quote Originally Posted by formerdukeathlete View Post
    If you go onto the rivals recruit search database, select 2009, select 4 star rated, select Duke and then select only recruits with offers. 11 names come up whom we offered in the 2009 class. We landed 2 of the 11 (18.2%). In the same recruiting class, according to rivals, Stanford offered 45 four star recruits and landed 8 (17.8%).
    I don't know the answer, so this is an honest question. How many scholarships can we (or any school) give per year? I would guess far less than 45. SO if we offer 45 to the same athletes that Stanford offered, without having Stanford's record and reputation in football, do you honestly expect us to land the same number they did? And we'll end up with less overall folks in uniform since we offered to folks we didn't have a chance with.
    Also, why select 2009? Once again, I don't know the answer to this question, but was that the most 4 stars we had offered in Cut's tenure so far? If not, that's the year you need to look at. Hell, even if we offered 20 last year, I would be surprised that if we got 2. I'm surprised we got 2 in 2009.
    Thirdly, if you know anything about Cut's recruiting, you know that he doesn't go by what others say..and I'm thankful for that. Yes..there are obviously some that earn the stars they have, but Cut has found plenty that have proved their doubters wrong. Want an example? Conner Vernon. Rated squat. 3 stars. 148th in his position, Cutcliffe brought him into Duke. I don't think there is much else that needs to be said about Conner to prove that point.
    Last edited by CameronBornAndBred; 04-07-2012 at 06:24 PM.
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  8. #68
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    Quote Originally Posted by formerdukeathlete View Post
    If you go onto the rivals recruit search database, select 2009, select 4 star rated, select Duke and then select only recruits with offers. 11 names come up whom we offered in the 2009 class. We landed 2 of the 11 (18.2%). In the same recruiting class, according to rivals, Stanford offered 45 four star recruits and landed 8 (17.8%). And, that is with higher academic cutoffs than we have. How many more elite players might we have landed had we simply offered? I think the answer to that is more, and just one more might have made the difference in winning or losing games. Land 4 times as many as in Stanford and we could be in the hunt for an ACC championship.
    I don't follow recruiting of any sport, so take this for what it's worth. I spent four years in Durham and, with all love, it ain't Palo Alto by a long shot. Just sayin' -- not apples and oranges necessarily. Plus, we recruit East Coast against the SEC and other ACC teams. Again, not sure that Stanford is the proper comparison.

  9. #69
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    I don't follow recruiting of any sport, so take this for what it's worth. I spent four years in Durham and, with all love, it ain't Palo Alto by a long shot. Just sayin' -- not apples and oranges necessarily. Plus, we recruit East Coast against the SEC and other ACC teams. Again, not sure that Stanford is the proper comparison.
    I think Stanford is a good comparison only in the fact that they were 16-40 in the five seasons prior to Harbaugh showing up. That was two different coaches. I think Duke has to get lucky in finding a great coach (like they did with Spurrier once upon a time). Great coaches can recruit the players they need to work in their system. Anything less than a great coach will probably just result in Duke getting results like we are seeing now. I am not suggesting that Cutcliffe is a poor coach. I am also not suggesting that it is easy to find a great coach. I just think Duke will spin its wheels in football (and recruiting) until they are fortunate enough to hire a great coach again.

  10. #70
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    I don't follow recruiting of any sport, so take this for what it's worth. I spent four years in Durham and, with all love, it ain't Palo Alto by a long shot. Just sayin' -- not apples and oranges necessarily. Plus, we recruit East Coast against the SEC and other ACC teams. Again, not sure that Stanford is the proper comparison.
    I agree with you re Durham versus Palo Alto, but...

    Durham actually has a highly attractive location with respect to recruiting. It is roughly half-way between Boston and Miami; it is not rough to get to from anywhere along the Eastern Seaboard. The town itself is no Palo Alto, but as a college area it rivals Palo Alto, at least, if not surpases Palo Alto, that is, when adding in Chapel Hill and Raleigh.

    Why the comparisons with Stanford? Well, they are among the Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT Stanford most difficult major universities to get into. But, we are next to Stanford in selectictivity among FBS schools, and our 25th to 75th percentile, mid-range standardized test scores are virtually the same. Our next in line competitor is Northwestern, and I believe it is still the case that where Northwestern and Duke are the choices, 80% of entering freshman still choose Duke over Northwestern. We have a lot of appeal academically and this extends to and among football recruiting prospects.

    The nature of the appeal of Duke and Stanford for football recruits over large FBS program schools would be much the same. What would cause a top recruit to pick Duke over an SEC school, for example, as in what Matt Daniels decided to do when recruited by Ted Roof? It would be an interest in attending an elite university. In most all cases a kid making such a choice would be a better student (Matt Daniels was a very good student in high school).

    When Cutcliffe started at Duke, rather than making sure he went after all the Matt Daniels's in recruiting classes, he focused more locally and pushed the Admissions Office and admin at Duke for no limits on the lower end academically in recruiting, no limits on exceptions. If fact he pushed them further by obtaining commitments of prospects who were not NCAA qualified. Several of these kids were not able to attend any FBS school on scholarship. One ended up going to East Carolina. Cutcliffe also spent a lot of time recruiting regionally kids who were just above the lowered cutoffs, who had other FBS offers, including UNC offers. These efforts were futile for the most part.

    What do we learn from Stanford's success and how much of this transfers to Duke? Stanford has a 1000 math verbal cutoff for Football in admissions. There may be some, very slight flexibility if the GPA is high enough, but not much. The team I have read averages into the 1200s math verbal, into the 80s percentiles. Faced with higher cutoffs than Duke's, they go out and identifly firstly among elite recruits who among them may meet their academic criteria. It just so happens that this identification process also indentifies recruits who may be receptive to the notion of attending an elite school, which is more work, than spending 4 years in say Columbus Ohio before going or planning to go pro.

    I think a lot of what works at Stanford recruiting wise will work at Duke. I think most of it is transferable. I think Cut is employing more of the Stanford approach today, which is helpful. Stanford's tremendous success, because much of their recruiting approach transfers to Duke, dispels notions that successful Football at Duke requires admitting very marginal students. To the contrary, and we, I think, should be aware of this, what will work at Duke when, if we go looking for another coach.

    The impediment to success at Duke in Football has not been academics. Its been level of commitment. We are paying very competitively for coaching. We were able to fundraise for a new fieldhouse. Now I would look to the stadium as a problem. What the administration and faculty may choke on is why would we want to spend 100 million on a stadium for a sport which may be incompatible with the academic mission and adverse to the prestige of the University? I think the answer is, based on Stanford's success, that we can be competitive and profitable in Football with a team which averages 1100 plus math verbal. I think all it takes is fixing Wallace Wade and having the right approach to recruiting.

  11. #71
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    Quote Originally Posted by MaxAMillion View Post
    I think Stanford is a good comparison only in the fact that they were 16-40 in the five seasons prior to Harbaugh showing up. That was two different coaches. I think Duke has to get lucky in finding a great coach (like they did with Spurrier once upon a time). Great coaches can recruit the players they need to work in their system. Anything less than a great coach will probably just result in Duke getting results like we are seeing now. I am not suggesting that Cutcliffe is a poor coach. I am also not suggesting that it is easy to find a great coach. I just think Duke will spin its wheels in football (and recruiting) until they are fortunate enough to hire a great coach again.
    Of course, Harbaugh is now the coach of the 49ers after a short stay in Palo Alto. Spurrier was at Duke for 3 years before making the leap to Florida. It remains to be seen how Stanford holds up now that Harbaugh and Luck are gone. 20 years after Spurrier, Duke has finally started to show signs of life in Cutcliffe.

    Finding a "great coach", for a program like Duke (and, I'd submit, like Stanford) frequently means losing the great coach shortly thereafter. I'm not suggesting that Duke should aim for mediocre...but it's not a bad idea to do what Duke did - hire a guy with some street cred who is already at a point in his career that he is more likely to stay and build a program that can be sustained, rather than putting together a couple really impressive teams and then bolting for greener pastures.

    Cutcliffe has put some life in Duke's program. There are better success stories out there, faster upward arcs...but Cutcliffe has certainly taken Duke out of perennial inclusion in ESPN's Bottom 10 and made our program competitive in most games we play. This is the same Duke program that threatened records for most consecutive losses and was an annual possibility for a winless season before Cut arrived. No idea if that means we'll see a bowl bid next season or the season after, but there certainly appears to be a foundation of athleticism and competitiveness in the program that I haven't seen since Spurrier left town.

  12. #72
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    Quote Originally Posted by davekay1971 View Post
    It remains to be seen how Stanford holds up now that Harbaugh and Luck are gone.
    I agree with you but Stanford is ranked #13 in ESPN's preseason poll:

    http://espn.go.com/college-football/...test-2012-look

    Perhaps it will be unlucky 13 for The Cardinal. September 8th will provide the answer to how Duke and Luckless Stanford match-up against each other in the here and now.
    Bob Green

  13. #73
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Green View Post
    I agree with you but Stanford is ranked #13 in ESPN's preseason poll:

    http://espn.go.com/college-football/...test-2012-look

    Perhaps it will be unlucky 13 for The Cardinal. September 8th will provide the answer to how Duke and Luckless Stanford match-up against each other in the here and now.
    I wasn't so much thinking of this year, when much of that Harbaugh recruited is still there. I was thinking more of 3-4 years down the road...and whether Stanford can continue to maintain top 20 talent and performance without Harbaugh. They may very well do it, of course, and Duke may want to, as FDA suggests, pay close attention to Stanford's example.

    Hopefully September 8 will show that Duke's way is working better than Stanford's.

  14. #74
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    Quote Originally Posted by davekay1971 View Post
    Of course, Harbaugh is now the coach of the 49ers after a short stay in Palo Alto. Spurrier was at Duke for 3 years before making the leap to Florida. It remains to be seen how Stanford holds up now that Harbaugh and Luck are gone. 20 years after Spurrier, Duke has finally started to show signs of life in Cutcliffe.

    Finding a "great coach", for a program like Duke (and, I'd submit, like Stanford) frequently means losing the great coach shortly thereafter. I'm not suggesting that Duke should aim for mediocre...but it's not a bad idea to do what Duke did - hire a guy with some street cred who is already at a point in his career that he is more likely to stay and build a program that can be sustained, rather than putting together a couple really impressive teams and then bolting for greener pastures.

    Cutcliffe has put some life in Duke's program. There are better success stories out there, faster upward arcs...but Cutcliffe has certainly taken Duke out of perennial inclusion in ESPN's Bottom 10 and made our program competitive in most games we play. This is the same Duke program that threatened records for most consecutive losses and was an annual possibility for a winless season before Cut arrived. No idea if that means we'll see a bowl bid next season or the season after, but there certainly appears to be a foundation of athleticism and competitiveness in the program that I haven't seen since Spurrier left town.
    The ongoing compilation of loss after loss was a true low point for Duke. Most of the sports programs reporting on college football each Saturday back then seem to begin or conclude by pointing out that Duke had lost again. It was a staple to report the number of losses and how it was something of a national phenomenon. It wasn't just threatening records, the losses did result in some records.

    It was extremely embarrassing, but never appeared to embarrass anyone in charge at Duke. I attended some functions at which Duke administrators without being asked about football, poked fun at the Duke football losses as if they were talking about somebody else's team on the other side of the world. Thank goodness the recent upswing of the program seems to have overshadowed that dark time when Duke was a national joke. Progress is being made incrementally. Having a break even season and then a winning season are the next major goals for the program's records.

  15. #75
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    Quote Originally Posted by davekay1971 View Post
    Cutcliffe has put some life in Duke's program. There are better success stories out there, faster upward arcs...but Cutcliffe has certainly taken Duke out of perennial inclusion in ESPN's Bottom 10 and made our program competitive in most games we play. This is the same Duke program that threatened records for most consecutive losses and was an annual possibility for a winless season before Cut arrived. No idea if that means we'll see a bowl bid next season or the season after, but there certainly appears to be a foundation of athleticism and competitiveness in the program that I haven't seen since Spurrier left town.
    The complaints aren't that we aren't better now than we were under roof and predecessors...nobody is questioning that we are...

    the complaints are that since the initial bump from cutcliffe, the progress has seemed to have stalled...is last years team better than the year before? 2 years before? 3 years before? parts of me say yes, and parts of me say no....

    the question becomes...when are we going to break out of the ennui of 3-5 win seasons...get more than 1 or 2 ACC wins...MAKE A BOWL!

    IDK...but if we don't get there in say, 3 more seasons, then perhaps then we can ask the question of whether cutcliffe has maxed out what he can do....I don't think it will come to that, but you always need to have goals...and I think after 7 years here, if we can't get a bowl...maybe its time for a change again.
    1200. DDMF.

  16. #76
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    Quote Originally Posted by Devil in the Blue Dress View Post
    The ongoing compilation of loss after loss was a true low point for Duke. Most of the sports programs reporting on college football each Saturday back then seem to begin or conclude by pointing out that Duke had lost again. It was a staple to report the number of losses and how it was something of a national phenomenon. It wasn't just threatening records, the losses did result in some records.

    It was extremely embarrassing, but never appeared to embarrass anyone in charge at Duke. I attended some functions at which Duke administrators without being asked about football, poked fun at the Duke football losses as if they were talking about somebody else's team on the other side of the world. Thank goodness the recent upswing of the program seems to have overshadowed that dark time when Duke was a national joke. Progress is being made incrementally. Having a break even season and then a winning season are the next major goals for the program's records.
    Excellent as always, DiBD.


    The main drift of what I get from some is that Cut has raised expectations but has not delivered yet. Breaking that down, first recognize how difficult it is to even get Duke fans to give a damn about our football team -- let alone "raise expecations" amongst a large group of folks. that in itself is a great effort. Second, as far as whether Cut has delivered -- there are many of us who see vast improvement in our team and think that we are on a reasonable time frame. i understand those who disagree with me on that point. Cut himself would agree, I think, that at some point soon the "better effort" needs to convert to "more wins." It seems to me that Cut and Co. are on the right path and are on the upswing. Basketball takes a few studs, football takes three-deep at each position with redshirts galore. You can turn a basketball team around with one great recruiting class, immediately -- look at Calipari's current plan -- but football takes several years.

    I am happy with the progress we made, hope we make a bowl this year, and understand that the schedule is very difficult for us this year. Gotta keep plugging along.

  17. #77
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    Stanford

    Stanford has another huge advantage over Duke .... it's located in the SF Bay Area.

  18. #78
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bay Area Duke Fan View Post
    Stanford has another huge advantage over Duke .... it's located in the SF Bay Area.
    Having lived in both, and spent much time on both campuses, this reasoning is hard to argue with. BUT, I suspect that Duke is going to succeed more east of the Mississippi (figuratively) and Stanford will do better west of the Miss. Along these lines, relatively there is a lot more competition out east for us, such as the SEC and quite a few other ACC and Big East (and other non-BCS conferences) schools within a few hundred miles of Duke. Conversely, among "major D1 schools" Stanford must only deal with Cal-Berkeley within the Pac-12 for serious D1 competition within the northern 2/3 of the state of California. If a kid grows up among that fairly sizeable population base and wants to play big-time D1 football, and stay near home, well he doesn't have a whole lot of choices there. (Sorry San Jose State fans - just not the same league... and Fesno State seems far away and targeting different sort of kids.) That's a huge "natural base" drawing area that Duke doesn't have anything resembling, unfortunately. This also helps Stanford attract much larger fan followings and attendance for FB games.

    Also, while Stanford hasn't always been a major player among the Pac-10 elite, its FB success (i.e. "winning tradition") is nowhere near as sad as Duke's over the last 30 years. So there's a huge difference in terms of what Cut has faced culturally in coming into Duke versus what the last two Stanford coaches have dealt with.

    This whole string seems kinda silly, though, as there's just no way in hell that anyone in the Duke AD's office is going to threaten Cut's job (with a "hot seat") in the next year...
    Last edited by -bdbd; 04-09-2012 at 12:22 AM.

  19. #79
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    Quote Originally Posted by uh_no View Post
    The complaints aren't that we aren't better now than we were under roof and predecessors...nobody is questioning that we are...

    the complaints are that since the initial bump from cutcliffe, the progress has seemed to have stalled...is last years team better than the year before? 2 years before? 3 years before? parts of me say yes, and parts of me say no....

    the question becomes...when are we going to break out of the ennui of 3-5 win seasons...get more than 1 or 2 ACC wins...MAKE A BOWL!

    IDK...but if we don't get there in say, 3 more seasons, then perhaps then we can ask the question of whether cutcliffe has maxed out what he can do....I don't think it will come to that, but you always need to have goals...and I think after 7 years here, if we can't get a bowl...maybe its time for a change again.
    Precisely right. It's no longer sufficient to say "look how much better we are than we were under Roof and Franks." Those guys got Zero support from the administration. Pitiful head coach salary, pitiful assistant coach salaries (with an occasional exception)...lousy facilities.

    Cut has been given highly competitive salaries (including his own) and vastly improved facilities (check out the new indoor practice facility. His accomplishments the first two years (four and five wins) were fabulous, no doubt about it.
    But two three win seasons DOES constitute a stall...let's hope it's temporary...but if it isn't, we're going to see Cut's seat warm up in the next two years. There's no way Duke can continue its football progress, and raising the money required to further improve facilities, with three win seasons.

    And by the way, I wish people would say there's no way in the world we can attract a decent coach if Cut fails (which, again, I fervently hope he doesn't)...our salaries are very competitive, and if the job opens up again, it's going to
    be reasonably attractive.

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