Duke Football: A Tale Of Two Commits

Football recruiting is vastly different than basketball recruiting. For one, you have to get more guys, obviously, and for another, a lot of guys seem to be unclear on the meaning of the word committed.

Duke has developed a nifty habit of finding guys that no one else knows about or who play a different position than they’re recruited for or even an entirely different sport.

So it was with Eli Pancol, who until recently was set on playing basketball. But the 6-4 receiver switched to football last fall and Duke quickly noticed. He’s chosen the Blue Devils and will be a hugely under appreciated asset. For all anyone knows, he could walk on in basketball too - he’s seen as a 4-star guard in that sport.

On the downside, Zonovan Knight, a 4-star running back out of Southern Nash, has decommitted. He sent out a tweet saying that “I know now that I made a decision before I was ready & feel as though I should take my time with this whole process.”

We’re sure it upset the staff but also appreciate what David Cutcliffe said a while back about guys decommitting, that basically, if they weren’t sure they wanted to go to Duke, and if they weren’t people who could keep their word after giving, it generally better to know sooner than later. Football and character are often associated with little reason but we really appreciate the character that Cutcliffe has insisted on in his program.

Knight says he’s still considering Duke, along with several other schools. Duke obviously can’t respond under NCAA rules but Cutcliffe made his feelings on such things pretty clear.