David Cutcliffe frequently says that he tells young coaches not to forget the way to six. That would be six wins, the minimum necessary to qualify for bowl eligibility under normal circumstances.
Well, the veteran coach and his struggling 4-5 Duke team needs to find the way to six. It has to start this Saturday against Syracuse, a team that began the 2019 season nationally ranked but has struggled to a 3-6 mark so far.
Of course, that means they are still mathematically alive for a bowl spot this season and likely view Duke as a chance to start a late-season charge of their own.
Duke has some veterans who remember staying home in 2016 and do not wish to repeat it.
Senior defensive end Tre Hornbuckle is one.
“It wasn’t fun watching other teams play in bowl games. Granted it was nice to go home and be with my mom for Christmas and all that but I would much rather, after experiencing it two years in a row, I love spending Christmas with the team, such a great environment, creating a true family environment. We’re definitely working hard to get back to another bowl game.”
Duke had to win its final two games in 2017 to get to six and did so with victories over Georgia Tech and Wake Forest.
Tight end Noah Gray says that experience should help Duke in this stretch run.
The lesson is “stick together and stick with what we’re being taught. The Georgia Tech game we played like we had nothing to lose and I think it showed and we played with unity and love for each other and that showed and carried over to the Wake Forest game. We have a lot of guys on the team who were on the team three years ago and they definitely talked about it, how much of a struggle it was not making a bowl game and how much it hurt their pride and how much it means to seniors to move into a bowl game.”
Of course you can’t get to six without getting to five first and Cutcliffe was clear today that Duke is playing for five this Saturday.
“We’ve got three games left and we’ve got to try to go 1-0 this week. I’m not worried about three games,” Cutcliffe said. “We’re trying to go 1-0 this week. Anybody that’s worried about a bowl game this week won’t be in our locker room. That’s pretty clear, right?”
So, now that we’ve established how important it is for Duke to beat Syracuse, how does Duke make that happen?
The Blue Devils will have to accomplish that without standout center Jack Wohlabaugh, who underwent ankle surgery earlier this week. He is out indefinitely.
Backup Will Taylor will move up but staring guard Zack Baker is also getting some work at center, a position he played earlier in his Duke career.
There seem to be a couple of approaches. Keep in mind that if Duke were planning on making significant changes in either scheme or personnel, they wouldn’t announce them to the media on Tuesday. And I wouldn’t expect that anyway.
But conventional wisdom is that going back to the basics is the best recipe when things start to turn sour.
Here’s what David Cutcliffe says.
“I went back to my roots as to how we do things. . . . You build anything . . . you build it from the ground up. When it get’s shaky, you go back and look at the foundation. That’s really where we are.”
Gray acknowledges that offensive execution needs to improve.
“The offense is making a lot of mistakes, missed assignments, not doing our job to the best of our abilities.”
Much of that improvement has to take place on third downs, where Duke was a woeful 3 of 16.
“The three-and-outs are a big priority,” Gray acknowledges. “The coaches know that, the players know that, we work on it every day in practice. We take pride and responsibility in trying to move the ball with more efficiency going forward.”
Cutcliffe says Duke is “slowly declining on possession downs.” Cutcliffe cites accountability and says the coaches need to “coach third downs to a detail to get the energy and effort we can.”
The defense also has to do a better job on third downs.
Hornbuckle acknowledges the problem is “some mistakes we shouldn’t have made. We corrected them this Sunday. Execution, schemes, people trying to do more than they what they were supposed to do. It all comes down to doing your 1/11th. You’ve got to trust each other.”
Duke also needs to stop explosives, Cutcliffe emphasizes.
“Defensively, some of the explosive runs came from a guy trying to cross the gap and trying to cross it too quick and getting the wrong gap and therefore, long runs. I haven’t seen any of that on offense and just recently on defense.”
About that trust Hornbuckle mentioned. Teams on three-game losing streaks can fracture. Both Gray and Hornbuckle say that isn’t going to happen.
“Being unified and working together as a group is really going to help,” Gray says.
Especially when things aren’t going well.
“We’ve got to keep our heads up,” Gray adds. “Not every play is going to go your way, not every drive is going to go your way and we understand that. It goes back to being unified and keeping our heads up and keeping your brothers’ heads up and working through it. Got to continue grinding and continue playing for one another and continue playing for our coaches.”
Hornbuckle cites “sweat equity” and says the key is to do your 1/11th and trust your teammates to do theirs.
There’s no question that Syracuse is a huge game. Cutcliffe made no attempt to hide this.
“It maybe sounds like I’m in a serious mood,” he told the media, “then yes, I am. I’m far from defeated. But if you ask me if I was in a good mood, I’d tell you no. There’s a reality to all of this.”
NOTES
Damond-Philyaw Johnson seems to have won the kick-off return job after Duke tried Michael Carter and Deon Jackson and found them wanting.
Cutcliffe said it was his call.
“I made the decision to put him back there because I’m a firm believer that a kickoff return man has to be fearless and he has to generate speed and Damond has both. He’s one of the few we’ve got who can hit the 20-yard line at 23 plus miles an hour. I have the sheets on it. I have the numbers. That’s what DeVon Edwards, that’s what Shaun Wilson did, that’s what Deuce McAllister did. . . . So, I felt like Damond had worked on his hands. The first thing you’ve got to do is possess it and when I reached a level of confidence, that’s why I put him back there.”
Cutcliffe is not a fan of the recent change in ACC reporting on injuries. He’s one of the few coaches who favors full disclosure in a league of loose-lips-sink-ships colleagues. He thinks this should be a league decision not a coaches decision.
And, yes, I do miss the Thursday injury reports.