Originally Posted by
jimsumner
Much different mood today.
Cut fell on his sword repeatedly, taking blame for not having his team ready. But it was pretty generic blame-accepting.
I asked him about the play-calling. Cut insisted that the problem against Stanford "was not schematic." Comes down to blocking and tackling and Duke did neither well. Stanford's best consistently tackled Duke's best, while Duke's best did not tackle Stanford's best.
A lot of the quick throws were off called runs. Duke hoped to "make their pass rush honest."
Stanford only had two sacks, versus 63 pass attempts, so I guess that part worked.
Duke also rushed for 27 net yards, in 23 attempts. So that part didn't.
It should be noted that Cut has consistently portrayed football as a series of 1 v. 1 battles. The team that wins the majority of those, tends to win the majority of games.
Some more problems with the Stanford game? Poor first-down production hurt. Led to too many second-and-longs.
Too many big plays. Duke played solid D most of the time but is still too prone to giving up the big one.
Some positives? The Duke D forced field-goal attempts early. Run defense solid. Desmond Scott had a big game as a receiver. Ross Cockrell is a keeper.
Still, there's only so much polishing a 50-13 loss can absorb. When the head coach says things like "we got whipped in every phase," you know it was a bad road trip.
I asked an insider if the mood on the plane back was somber, mad, determined or here-we-go-again. The answer was all but the last. Fair enough.
Duke got back around 4:30 Sunday.
No injury news. Cut was asked about Jamal Bruce. Said Duke didn't know anything but his body language was not encouraging.
The players were on message. Learn from your mistakes, rely on veteran leadership, ready to accept the challenge.
The proof will be in the pudding. NC Central is overmatched and Duke should win easily. But 35-20 is easily, 56-3 is easier. So, Duke needs to establish dominance early and build some good habits that they can carry into a run of winnable but more competitive games.
Speaking of Central, Duke expects a good crowd, maybe in the capacity-crowd range. So, allow for traffic. Weather projected to be excellent.
Injury report Thursday.