It’s time for Cut to get fired, not retire
I spent all of 60 seconds looking to support my thesis, and found that for example, Miami leads the MAC this year in football standings (and as many know, the MAC has been known as a great conference for up and coming coaches), and their coach is paid $533k. I would imagine a Duke offer at 2.67 million (if they were to match Cut's present salary) would get his attention at the very least...the next ranked team's coach in the MAC gets $600k...
No, we're not getting Knute Rockne or Urban Meyer (thankfully), but we'll get plenty of interest from up and coming coaches...and yes, the Duke job, if they succeed, will be a stepping stone, that's to be expected and not an especially bad thing.
We managed to endure stepping stone Spurrier just fine...
It’s time for Cut to get fired, not retire
Well, of course, we're staging a comeback right now as I've been working on my meme. But, I have a sneaking suspicion it could still be useful this year...or next.
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Let's not become one of those over-entitled fan bases that goes through coaches like Kleenex.
This is a frustrating, down year. And coming to grips that the administration and fan base are not going to offer the support to be a top-level program is tough.
Even K had down years. But K would make adjustments and it's a reasonable expectation that Cut have an evident plan for returning us to our reliably "good" performance.
I hope that Cutcliffe is our coach for several years to come. I would be bummed if he retired just because of a disappointing season or nattering fans.
In the eighteen the years between Spurrier leaving and Cut getting here, we failed to win 4 games in thirteen of those seasons and only exceeded 4 wins ONE TIME (1994). That does not mean we should be satisfied with the season, but it does mean we need to be realistic about how hard it is to build a program at Duke.
I don’t disagree with you either. My disagreement is with the concept that Cut is somehow holding us back, and that anyone would hope he retires (or is ousted as someone suggested a few posts ago).
Cut has taken Duke to 6 bowls in 11 years, and hit national rankings in 4 seasons. Grobe took Wake to 5 bowls in 14 years with four seasons hitting national rankings. So pretty much a draw, maybe a slight edge to Cut.
Clawson is starting well — will make 4 bowls in 6 years — but he did not have to start at the bottom like Grobe did or below the bottom like Cut did. Cut has gotten us to bowls in 6 of the last 8 seasons, having a few building years after inheriting a moribund program from Ted Roof (6-45 record), Carl Franks (7-45 record), Fred Goldsmith (17-39) and Barry Wilson (13-30-1).
Can we find someone as good as Cut when he chooses to retire? I hope so. Can we find someone who will do markedly better? Doubtful.
Could we find someone who performs worse? Easily, yes.
No we should not let him go just yet. His record here is good compared to what we had previously. We know how hard it is to win here. My problem is his reluctance to can obviously incompetent underlings. One has only to look at the offensive plays being called, and how dbs don't seem to know how to look back for the ball.
We should have won both The Pitt and UNC games. Look how we manhandled VT. It was all down hill after that..Very mystifying to me.
Give Cut another year. Let's see what happens..
Almost by definition, as fans, we are passionate about the team, in this case Duke football. Fans express that passion in any number of ways, from yelling and cheering at the game, to second guessing the coaching, arguing about ways to get better, and all other forms of passionate recreational assessment. Duke football needs more fans and is working hard to build the fan base.
Ironically, fans calling for Cut to step down or coordinators to be replaced, is in no small part the product of his success. He has built the fan base, elevated standards, and increased expectations. He deserves all the credit in the world for his successes.
He doesn’t deserve a free pass. He deserves our respect, our generous appreciation for what he has accomplished, and like most coaches, a recognition from the fans that as much as we care about the team and its success, he cares more.
It would be a bad sign for Duke football if there weren’t fans who question the job Cut has done with the team this year, wonder whether the offensive coordinator didn’t need replacing, doubt whether Cut is the coach to take us to the next level.
As a fan, I’m tired of going to big games and not just watching the team lose but seeing them lay an egg. I was more tired a few years ago of winless seasons in the ACC. Our offensive schemes are unremarkable, our offensive play calling atrocious, and our strength and conditioning, while obviously better than before coach Cutcliffe arrived is obviously inferior to Wake Forest, which seems like a standard we should able to equal or exceed. Our recruiting improved after Cutcliffe arrived and then stopped improving. Wake Forest had two wide receivers who will play in the NFL injured and unavailable last night and yet still had the two best wide receivers on the field.
My question is not should Cutcliffe retire or be fired. It is what’s the plan to get better. If it is do more of the same, then maybe . . .
I'm not keen on the "Coach Cut needs to fire assistant coaches X, Y, and Z" - it smacks of micromanagement to me. I suspect he can tell whether our shortcomings are more due to his coaches or the players. If he couldn't, he wouldn't have been able to bring the program back from the dead. If he used to be able to, but can't now, that's on him more than his assistants.
Better to just deal with Cut as a package deal. Take it or leave it. But ... change for the sake of making a Howard-Beale-type statement feels good in the short term, but can be disastrous in the long term if there's not a solid Plan B. Does anyone really think Urban Meyer is going to walk through that door? Better chance to get Oscar Meyer [sic]. Or maybe Russ. Russ Meyer might help attendance, actually.
To be clear, I am of the opinion Duke should build a statue of Coach Cutcliffe and place it at the entrance to Wallace Wade Stadium.
Because of Coach Cutcliffe’s hard work successfully rebuilding the football program, I believe Duke will have no problem hiring a new coach once Coach Cutcliffe decides to retire.
Bob Green
Tell you what. Leave things the way they are, and we may be having an even deeper subject next year.
I agree. First-class, top-ranked university, which stands behind its coaches who are successful (see, Cut at Ole Miss for a totally chicken AD; I'll deal with lacrosse below my signature). Outstanding young men who will have success after football (a zillion examples); same for women athletes in other sports. Ability to compete in conference (i.e., not the SEC). Competitive and excellent facilities for sports (and everything else).
Kindly,
Sage
'Not a major point here, but the Duke Board of Trustees appeared to view the LAX incident (hoax, really) as an existential threat to the U. In other words, a poor response could have cast a shadow on the university for a generation or more. IMHO (where the H is long gone) the BOT is the only part of Duke leadership that looks out 100 years. The chair took over the leadership of Duke's response; Brodhead was told to stay out of it; the athletic department was not allowed to weigh in when that would have been reasonable. The cost to Duke was fairly high in alienation of alumni and others in the community, but I understand their long-term view'
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Cut does certain things well. He is not the best motivator (by his own admission after one of the Richmond losses), and he is not going to win championships at recruiting sites. I have long said you can extend your career at Duke with a well-coached team that competes 95%+ of the time. We haven't met that standard in 2016, 2018, and 2019.
Duke is going to have a hard time replacing Cut after he retires. I don't think he should retire even if Nick Saban wanted the job, but there isn't a good candidate this year. Keep in mind Cut will probably quit if White asks him to make any changes to his staff.
Clawson is also a little bit of a job jumper but not Buzz Williams-bad. He's reached the peak as far as what he can do at Wake, but there isn't a good job that he can take this year. It's not Arkansas, and I'm not sure he would want Michigan State if it opens up.
Also, for the Stanford fans on here, note that they are also 4-7 and have been in a notable decline since Jim Harbaugh's recruits left.