My concern is related to how we were destroyed from the beginning to the end by UVA, ND and Syracuse as well as by WF on offense and defense last Saturday. I think if we had been marginally competitive in those games this discussion would have a different look. The ole “Wait till next year” slogan is very important now.
Only 78 slots. The 40th bowl game is the CFP championship game, so only 39 games need to be filled.
This link is usually updated almost realtime as the games get finished.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E...all_bowl_games
Of the 13 teams that are needing to win one more game, 6 of them are favored, so it's pretty likely all 78 slots get filled, but not guaranteed. The last two years, there have been 3 or 4 eligible teams that did not get invites. Three years ago, two conditional teams got in.
Duke is 3rd in APR this year. #1 is Air Force which is eligible already at 9-2. #2 is Northwestern, who are 2-9 this year.
Agreed. We have been awful the last few weeks on both sides of the ball, particularly on offense. Wake (a team we should be competitive with) spotted us 14 points on kickoff returns and still beat us soundly for the second year in a row. Syracuse was winless in the conference, but came into WW and absolutely beat us like a drum. We managed a pair of field goals against Cuse; this week, UL hung 55 on them. And we were never at any point in the UVA or ND games. Even the UNC game was absolutely gifted to us on a silver platter and we managed to throw it away.
The effort on some of our plays vs. Wake was just atrocious. Two to three guys required for every tackle. Secondary repeatedly failing to locate the ball. Linebackers getting run over by RB's. Wake's first TD of the second half was a great example - we blitzed and never even got within 3 yards of the QB, who had all day to throw. He wouldn't need it, because his receiver had not one, but two or three steps on our safety. Boom. 62 yard TD pass that was just waay to easy.
Sadly, we look more like the teams from the Franks/Roof era right now than we do a typical Cutcliff team.
"There can BE only one."
maybe it takes time for bad coaching to percolate thru the ranks, who knows? For the past few years, we've had quite a few examples of guys with very limited experience getting position coaching jobs...that may have finally caught up with us...that and having some guys, like Bridge, who just don't seem to be very good...Jeff Faris for example became wide receivers coach after two years of being a grad assistant at Duke, no prior position coaching jobs. This year they brought in Trooper to coach the receivers presumably because we needed help there...
Our records reflect the relative talent level compared to the other schools in the conference and as compared with other premium academic schools that play Power 5 football.
We play in the ACC with teams that graduate their players to the NFL, so to speak. Again Duke has 9 ex-players in the NFL who are mostly from the 2012-2016 years.
Heres the NFL player count for ACC teams from ESPN.com:
Duke 9
Wake 9
Georgia Tech 11
Syracuse 11
VT 14
BC 17
UVA 17
Louisville 18
UNC 21
NC State 25
Pitt 25
Clemson 33
FSU 39
Miami 48
Other comparative schools:
Northwestern 14
Vanderbilt 16
Stanford 32
ND 38
While not perfect as a metric our average recruiting ratings are usually in the 50s-80s range.
Who on this team projects as an all-ACC much less an NFLer? Maybe Monk the OT? Calhoun? Jackson? Dimukuje?
We can tinker with coaches and play calling but I can't believe for example that the DBs are being coached to never look for the ball. Ever. Not once. Anyway in the end its on the players. When say Pitt lines up with Duke they have 3 future NFL Players to each one of Dukes. When Duke has done well it reflects on the players. Same as where we are now.
Six-year-old data but too depressing to update. Here are the NFL draft picks by school for years 2001-2013. Omits Syracuse, L'ville and Pitt and includes Maryland
DU 2 (as in "two")
BC 21
WF 21
GT 26
MD 30
VA 33
ST 38
CL 43
NC 43
VT 55
FS 70
MI 78
This is clearly a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot table.
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
OK, try this! While I am not going to update the table, here is an additional column of stats -- draft choices per year from 2001-2013:
Since 2013 -- six years -- we have had four draft choices, which is 0.7 per draft -- less than one-half of any of the other schools listed in the table.Code:DU 2 0.2 BC 21 1.6 WF 21 1.6 GT 26 2.0 MD 30 2.3 VA 33 2.5 ST 38 2.9 CL 43 3.3 NC 43 3.3 VT 55 4.2 FS 70 5.4 MI 78 6.0
Take another look at the last six years. There are from 224 to 256 selections each draft (up to 32 compensatory picks). That's about 1,400 over six years -- four of those 1,400 came from Duke. Now we got quite a few guys in the league who were not drafted, but the lack of players picked should say something about the talent level.
Now 0.7 per year from 2014-2019 is quite a bit better than 0.2 per year for the 13 preceding years.
Last edited by sagegrouse; 11-26-2019 at 09:11 AM.
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
What that also shows me is how much our coaches get out of non-pro talent compared to several others.
How many five stars do we have on the team right now? Or four stars? We seem to specialize in "diamonds in the rough" three and two stars. Which is not unexpected at a small university with high academic admissions compared to the competition.
I have seen that Holmberg might be able to play in the bowl game, although I don't know if we would want to waste the year of eligibility to get him snaps (although that assumes he'll be granted a 6th year since he already redshirted last season). I don't think Diamont is a clear-cut favorite, I expect it will probably be an open competition between he and Holmberg. I haven't heard whether Diamont plans to enroll early, if not I would assume Holmberg is the starter at least to begin the season.