What a bizarre thead ...
Poor Barry Wilson ... he inherited a program that had won 15 games in the two previous years and was coming off a bowl trip and an ACC co-championship.
Wilson won 4-4-2-3 games, essentially starting the dive to the bottom of the BCS. And you're defending the guy because he didn't get to play as many D-11 schools (he played two in four years). They guy turned a competitive ACC progrm into a joke.
Goldsmith caught lightning in a bottle in his first year (with seniors recruited after the 1989 bowl season), but when hey left, his program bottomed out quickly -- 3 .. 0 ... 2 ... 4 wins in his last four seasons (he only got to play one D-2 program in that time.
Those are the guys who helped destroy Duke football ... culinnating in the nightmare that it became under Franks and Roof (12 wins in seven seasons ... three of those 1-AA wins).
Cutcliffe has made TREMENDOUS progress. It's true that he needs to take another step, but he's taken the worst football program in the BCS (and one of the worst in all of Division 1-A) and made it cmpetitive. He's won twice as many ACC games in his four years than Roof and Franks manahed in the previous eight years combined.
Yeah, at some point he's got to take the program another step forward, but he's pulled us out of the gutter ... and can't see how any rational fan can think he deserves to be on the hot seat for not getting us airborne yet.
Jeesh, it's a thread full of opinions based on an opinion piece. There is nothing wrong with a healthy debate, and it's enjoyable to read some of the history that others such as OF has posted about. It's one thing to kill a thread because it's full of rumors and falsehoods, but this one is neither. If you disagree with the premise, post why. If you agree with the premise (as at least one has done), then post why. If you don't enjoy it, then ignore it. But don't ask for it to be shut down. It's not like we have a basketball game to watch.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
In conclusion, no Cutcliffe is not in any danger. Let's be serious, we're Duke Football, who else could we get? He is definitely turning the program around slowly but surely, but he aint no Jim Harbaugh. I think Coach Cut is a great person, a great man, a decent recruiter but average in-game strategist and game-planner. Almost loyal to a fault - OC Kurt Roper, I'm looking at you. Our Coach Cutcliffe is a good coach.
Good but not great. A great coach would not allow his team to come out flat and lose to a much less talented team in Richmond (finished 3-9 in 1AA) in the most important game of the season, the season opener, or make as many mental mistakes as we do on a regular basis. But this is Duke football, and a good coach is the best we can hope for.
Even with the extremely difficult schedule, this year might be the best chance we have of making a bowl since we have a senior QB in Sean Renfree. Although Cutcliffe isn't on the hot seat, one has to wonder how many wins the average college football coach could have won given the huge increases in money/facilities/institutional commitment Duke has put into football.
What proportion of the increase in wins can be explained by Cutcliffe's coaching, and what proportion by Duke's increased commitment?
Don't forget, Cut and his assistants are getting paid much, much more than previous staffs and have the benefit of a finally supportive administration, new facilities and planned upgrades, etc. His seat is getting warm. Expectations at Duke have rightfully been raised. Cut is the right man for the job. I firmly believe he will continue to move the program to respectibility. He needs to.
"This is the best of all possible worlds."
Dr. Pangloss - Candide
As I continually hear one local sports radio talk show guy... if you get rid of the coach, are you sure that you can get someone "better"... Just changing, for changing sake, and just hoping that the "new" coach will be "better", is not any better than keeping a coach that has shown a dedication to Duke, and to improving the football culture.
I, for one, support Coach Cut without reservations. He has made (and hopefully continues to make) Duke football something that I anticipate all week for. Fortunately for me, a lot of the games are on ESPN3. I gotta admit, many games have been... like... oh well, just wait till next week.
I'm also hopeful that not only does progress continue, but Coach Cut makes Duke his "last stop" in his coaching career... after bring Duke football back to respectability. And I'm hoping he has the chance to leave on his own terms, when he is ready.
Cut can manage but at some point you have to gamble and take chances which I have yet to see him do. He should look at Grobe over at Wake for coaching with little to no talent.
I can't agree with all of this^. We recruit some of the same high school players as Wake Forest. The difference is Grobe has been going the red-shirt route longer than Coach Cut. As for opening things up, you could be right. I think we've been a little conservative on offense at times. I look for that to change this year. GoDuke!
With no talent you have to run things like half back passes and flea flickers, (as I've seen Wake do)
I remember being at a Duke game @ GT during the Goldsmith years. We quick-kicked, and the Tech guy next to me said he'd never seen one. "Dude," I replied, "I've seen a lifetime's worth."
(Although we won that game and went to a bowl, so there you go).
Third and a mile is bad under any circumstances.
Elon College (now University) ran the single wing offense well into the 70s. And who brought this offense to Elon? Red Wilson. My high school team ran the single wing all the way to a state title in the late 60s. I was a wingback for the jv team. I feel even older than I am right now. And no, our helmets were not leather, at least on the outside.
Man, if your Mom made you wear that color when you were a baby, and you're still wearing it, it's time to grow up!
Cut's teams aren't winning many games, Cut's recruiting seems about where it was before he got here, and Cut's in-game play calling regularly makes me cringe (yes, there's on OC who calls the plays, but Cut's the head coach and is responsible). Nevertheless, he seems like just the guy for the Duke job, and I don't think he'll be fired anytime soon--but it's not like college coaching is a safe job. I'd guess that no coach can win 3 or 4 games a season indefinitely.
To confirm that, I looked for a website that offered up the 20 college football coaches with the most losses. All of the coaches are fairly old, of course, and Paterno is still listed as "active," but it's useful to note that 18 of the 20 also had overall winning records; i.e., the coaches with losing records didn't get to stay in coaching for more than a handful of seasons. http://college-football-coaches.find...-Career-Losses
Oh, and I agree that this thread is pointless, but I'd rather talk about this than Lehigh.
I think we were fortunate to get and keep Cut, and I look for a lot more victories to celebrate in the coming years.
Unfortunately, though I used to be very involved in the program and even after that kept up closely with it, those days are past and I don't get to see many Duke football games currently. So a few questions for those who are currently more familiar with the program than I am.
1. I think Cut had a reputation for offensive prowess. How can that be better fulfilled than it has so far at Duke?
2. Could the pros Cut is close to (Mannings, etc.) and some of their colleagues be utilized to play more of a role in drawing attentinon to Duke football and thus helping recruiting?
3. Does anyone have any solid thoughts on how recruiting can be stepped up? Seems like Stanford and Duke have higher (if not identical to one another's) admissions standards than other schools. But Stanford has met with a lot more success in recruting (and on the field) than we have.
This thread is jibberish. No way he's anywhere close to being fired. Duke has won more games in the last few years under him than in what seems like a decade before.
I agree with your post, but the question you have asked must have been a bit rhetorical. I think good coaches can and would be interestged in the Duke job. Cut's pay with fairly easily met incentives is about 2 mill. The staff have a nice salary budget. Admissions curtails recruiting more at Stanford, Northwestern, Rice, the service academies, than it does at Duke.
Ultimately, if Cut does not make it, it will be because of recruiting. He wasted a lot of effort and time early on pushing the Admissions office to admit marginal students, some of whom who were not NCAA qualified at the time, while not offering elite prospects who were better students. In other words, he started out recruiting much differently than Spurrier, Goldsmith, Wilson, even Roof, and differently than James Franklin in his first year at Vandy. Vandy's big uptick in recruting with first year coach James Franklin is worth noting when considering what might have been possible recruiting wise with Cut had he employed a different approach at first, when it can be the best, most opportune time to sell the turnaround.
I think Cut is under very little pressure right now. But, if we were to lose to FIU and Memphis this season, I think that would change pretty quickly.
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.