FB: Duke at Virginia, 3:30 pm ACCN

[devildeac]

Agree with much that you say, but I must point out that we play AT carolina on Saturday. Anyone showing up at Wade Saturday will be even lonelier than if Duke is playing at home. 😉

I'd be delighted if a buncha cheater fans showed up at WW this Saturday...

...and had a parachutist join them...

[PDDuke85]

No argument that the overall quality of football recruitment since Cutcliffe’s arrival has vastly improved. Recruitment and quality of play on the field is very much a reflection of the quality of position coaches. Remember the D line before Ben Albert? In time, I look for continued improvement of the receivers play under Trooper Taylor. Can Duke look to improve coaching on the offensive side of the ball? I feel there can and should be a look to upgrade the O line and overall offensive coordination.That said, I think Cuts ability to bring in the best is hamstrung by tight purse strings and well documented loyalty.

For Duke to continue to improve in recruitment, I believe they’re going to need to improve certain elements of the coaching staff.

[rtnorthrup]

I didn’t want to start a new thread; I’m open to that if the moderators feel this is a different enough topic.

When Cut arrived, I was pretty vocal to anyone who had interest that moving from where we where to a program that would consistently be 6-5 or 5-6, competitive in every game (no blowout losses) and be bowl eligible more often than not, I’d be thrilled.

We’re pretty much there, and it feels like the program has either plateau’d, or is at an inflection point for change.

I don’t have any answers. What would it take to make Duke a consistent top 25 team? Conversely, how close are we to the razor’s edge of slipping from relevancy to obscurity?

I mean no disrespect to the existing coaching staff or players.
I’m just sharing what I am processing about the state of the program.

Is where we are “good enough”, or the best we can expect?

The honest answer to this question is YES, this is probably our program's ceiling. The administration simply isn't willing to compete in the marketplace that is big time college football. I think someone previously indicated that they, as a fan, aren't willing to have Duke sell out to do what it takes to be a consistent Top 25 program. From a spending perspective, I think Duke is conservative on what it is going to commit to the FB program knowing that there is a glass ceiling for small private schools and sustained success relating to college football. We don't have a football culture or a a significant gameday experience that would create a return on investment. The trustees are probably comfortable making bowl games regularly and cashing the ACC Network TV share each year. That isnt to say some years won't be better than others. This was always going to be a transition year. On offense we are young and/or inexperienced at key positions. Our defense is good to very-good. Think Duke will always have a high week-to-week variance. We are what we are.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Is there a proven correlation between size of fanbase and being a top 25 football team?

Yes, definite correlation - not precise, not exact, but definitely a correlation. And I would not so much say "fanbase" as size of average FB crowds. Just as Cameron is a huge key in the entire preception of the Duke BB program, and a big time aid in recruiting - great atmospheres are very important for FB too...and most of the best atmospheres are in the huge stadiums where big crowds are normal.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

The honest answer to this question is YES, this is probably our program's ceiling. The administration simply isn't willing to compete in the marketplace that is big time college football.

I agree with your answer, that yes, this may be the ceiling. The peak may go down in history as the 2013 season and the thrilling and memorable, even if unsuccessful, performance in the Peach Bowl on national TV and packed stadium.

But I don't agree that it's got much of anything to do with the administration's willingness to compete. Small private schools have a low ceiling in FB. Two larger private schools, USC and Miami, have the potential to have high ceiling (and have of course) - because by accident of name, they are the two private schools that enjoy that extremely valuable "University of" perception among the local population that has nothing official to do with the school. That's what puts butts in the seats whenever these schools are good. (Oddly enough, until the cheats grew as a university, Duke had some of that cache in NC. Thus the old photos of big crowds in Wade.)

But both USC and Miami will show much faster bleeding of fan support when they are not good, compared to mega sized universities.

[Reilly]

... and had a parachutist join them ...

Hah -- had forgotten that one ... and think I was there when it happened ...

[uh_no]

I'd be delighted if a buncha cheater fans showed up at WW this Saturday...

...and had a parachutist join them...

wouldn't be the first time the heels didn't know where the game was...a tradition going back to the first edition!

[devilirium]

Harris had a bad game, but let me say it's easy to have a bad game when the line gives you no time, the receivers can't hold onto the ball, and the running backs fumble them. It was a team effort.

I thought the refs made some terrible calls, not overall just a few blown calls I thought. Virginia didn't need any help though, kudos to them.

Virginia finally decided to start throwing on their first touchdown drive I believe. It's like teams want to try to run against Duke just to prove they can even when they can throw at will. I believe it took 4 passes to set up the touchdown run.

I hope Blackwell is okay, but I thought the freshman who came in for him played great! He even GASP, looked for the ball. I guess he hasn't been there long enough to be taught to not to yet.

Parker had a great game and not just the two 1st downs he ran for. Score could have been worse if not for his punts.

Agree on the DB's. That was nice to see. QH has also been instructed to get it out of the hands as quickly as possible on some reads, and at times he took off (with some success) even when the pressure wasn't there. If your QB is uncertain and the WR's cannot create separation then it's a matter of time until things implode. Cut highlighted improved blocking and tackling. How about ball security? Two games and six turnovers just over halfway through the year. Give yourself a chance. May want to research other ball security drills if practice hasn't revealed these deficiencies.

[gep]

No argument that the overall quality of football recruitment since Cutcliffe’s arrival has vastly improved. Recruitment and quality of play on the field is very much a reflection of the quality of position coaches. Remember the D line before Ben Albert? In time, I look for continued improvement of the receivers play under Trooper Taylor. Can Duke look to improve coaching on the offensive side of the ball? I feel there can and should be a look to upgrade the O line and overall offensive coordination.That said, I think Cuts ability to bring in the best is hamstrung by tight purse strings and well documented loyalty.

For Duke to continue to improve in recruitment, I believe they’re going to need to improve certain elements of the coaching staff.

With all of the hand-wringing on the OC and play calling, if Coach Cut continues with his loyalty... well... not sure Duke will get much better offensively. Sadly...

[ChillinDuke]

With all the negativity in this thread (and by and large, I grant that it's pretty civil negativity), I just want to point out that DBR has a long history of posters that frequently prove the mantra: it's never as bad as your last loss or as great as your last win.

We got smoked. It happens. We're still 4-3. And while I have questions just like many of you, concepts like Duke being "consistently top 25" just seem over the top to talk about right now. Let's make (yet another) bowl game and keep this train moving.

- Chillin

[duke2x]

it's never as bad as your last loss or as great as your last win...We got smoked. It happens. We're still 4-3. And while I have questions just like many of you, concepts like Duke being "consistently top 25" just seem over the top to talk about right now. Let's make (yet another) bowl game and keep this train moving. - Chillin

The win @VT was remarkably inverse to the loss @UVA when you look at the box score. The old mantra for basketball as applied to football holds true. Throw out your best 2 wins and worst 2 losses, and you are what the other games say.

For a team that I thought would go 5-7 in August, 6-6 is still a reasonable possibility given the weakness of the schedule except Le Belle Dame Sans Merci. Of immediate concern is the inordinate number of TOs, which can't happen if your program might have a glass ceiling. We had 1 game like this in 2016 (UVA) and 1 in 1998 (Maryland) to the best of my recollection. We've had 2 this year (Pitt, UVA). The normal Cut team is about 1.5/game.

[devildeac]

Who's starting the cheats game thread? "Not me," said the bad luck charm.

I *know* who's starting the GTHc, GTH thread...

19.gifdevil9f.gif

[Acymetric]

Consistent = more often than not? Over what time period?

Here are some schools -- private ones; some conference brethren w/ good academics -- and how many times they finished in the AP top 25 in the 19 years from 2000-2018:

Baylor: 4/19
BC: 5/19
BYU: 5/19
DU: 1/19
GT: 5/19
Miami: 9/19
NU: 4/19
ND: 9/19
Stanford: 8/19
SU: 2/19
TCU: 12/19
USC: 13/19
Vandy: 2/19
Virginia: 2/19
WF: 1/19

As you can see, only TCU and Southern Cal were "consistent" top 25 teams in the sense of more often than not this century. Even Notre Dame, Stanford, and Miami did not achieve that.

I agree that "consistent" is nebulous and if it is 50%+ then "consistency" is probably unattainable, but I would hope that we could keep up with UVA, Wake, BC, Syracuse, and Vandy. It would be nice to stay within striking distance of GT and Northwestern.

USC doesn't belong in this list. While private, it is huge -- undergrad enrollment of 20,000.

I'm going to be honest...I did not realize USC was a private school. Learned something new today.

I'd be delighted if a buncha cheater fans showed up at WW this Saturday...

...and had a parachutist join them...

A classic memory. The confusion at the stadium gradually transforming into glee as word spread that it was the delivery of the unc game ball.


As far as what type of success Duke should expect in football? I would say we should expect 5-7 wins each year, with the occasional peak year where things come together and we put together a 9 or 10+ win season. Unfortunately we've fallen largely short of that since peaking out in the Peach Bowl several years ago.

[AustinDevil]

Watching SMU yesterday is more of an apt comparison. They used to play in the Cotton Bowl before the death penalty. Then they suffered through 20+ years of a lousy stadium (25,000 capacity?) on campus. It's taken an amazing effort to get them back to where they are now, but today's success is intertwined with a QB that transferred from Texas. Who knows what will happen when their QB graduates, or their coach gets hired away.

Shane Buechele is about the only thing in this paragraph that is correct (that, and the what-if about Sonny Dykes moving on). SMU left the Cotton Bowl in 1977; the great 1980s teams and the cheating were in Texas Stadium, 1978-1986. The lousy on-campus stadium that they returned to post-Death Penalty (DP) was Ownby Stadium, which was not much different in 1989 than it was when they paid off the debt on it--that was done, by the way, with revenue from SMU's 1935 Rose Bowl trip. Post-SWC, SMU returned to the Cotton Bowl, which unfortunately was not much different than it was in 1977. A brand-new, gorgeous, almost-identical-size-to-Wallace Wade on-campus stadium (Ford Stadium) was finished in 2000 and renovated a couple of years ago.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, SMU was not hamstrung by the DP (or, as stated above, a lousy post-DP stadium) for the past 30 years. It was the policies of an administration that was admirably determined not to return to the cheating culture, but went so far in the other direction that players who were admitted to Stanford could not be recruited by SMU (I cannot confirm that specific anecdote, which was repeated on ESPN Game Day this week, but the general point is true). Anyway, I'll bring this back to Duke somewhat by pointing out that those unbelievably onerous, self-harming restrictions were put in place by longtime Duke guy Ken Pye, as the SMU President when post-DP football returned. Putting the University of Texas in the visiting locker room at Ownby was a great way to guarantee the eventual breakup of the SWC, with SMU on the outside.

[devilirium]

The honest answer to this question is YES, this is probably our program's ceiling. The administration simply isn't willing to compete in the marketplace that is big time college football. I think someone previously indicated that they, as a fan, aren't willing to have Duke sell out to do what it takes to be a consistent Top 25 program. From a spending perspective, I think Duke is conservative on what it is going to commit to the FB program knowing that there is a glass ceiling for small private schools and sustained success relating to college football. We don't have a football culture or a a significant gameday experience that would create a return on investment. The trustees are probably comfortable making bowl games regularly and cashing the ACC Network TV share each year. That isnt to say some years won't be better than others. This was always going to be a transition year. On offense we are young and/or inexperienced at key positions. Our defense is good to very-good. Think Duke will always have a high week-to-week variance. We are what we are.

Not disagreeing with your point, but could you imagine Duke marketing an academic endeavor in that way. We're not really gonna aim to be top 25 in this particular discipline, but we're here, so...