Duke’s Cutcliffe at a loss for words after Miami game

Duke coach David Cutcliffe didn’t quite know what to say to his players after Saturday night’s improbable and gut-wrenching 30-27 loss to Miami.

There wasn’t much more to say on Sunday, either, Cutcliffe said, even after the ACC admitted it made officiating mistakes that cost Duke (6-2, 3-1 ACC) the game.

“What instant replay is in place for is to get it right,” Cutcliffe said on Sunday. “And we did not get it right.”

Cutcliffe lamented that there was nothing Duke could do, despite the ACC’s admission of the officiating errors on Miami’s game-winning 91-yard kickoff return on the last play of the game.

“Unfortunately there is no mechanism in place, that I know of, to reverse the outcome of a game,” Cutcliffe said.

Under NCAA rules, there’s no way for Duke to protest the bizarre ending to the game.

Duke took the lead with 6 seconds left on quarterback Thomas Sirk’s 1-yard touchdown run. The Blue Devils tacked on a 2-point conversion and took a 27-24 advantage, its first lead of the game.

Then madness ensued. Miami returned a squib kick from Duke kicker Ross Martin using eight laterals and five players. There were several illegal blocks on the return that, the ACC said on Sunday, were missed by the game officials.

Duke also brought one of the Miami returners to the ground, in a tackle that should have ended the game.

The officials didn’t whistle the return dead and then missed the knee being on the ground on the replay. Referee Jim Magallanes and his crew were suspended for two games by the ACC on Sunday for their errors in Saturday’s game.

All of that doesn’t add up to a lot of comfort for the Blue Devils, who trail No. 21 North Carolina (7-1, 4-0 ACC) by a game in the division standings with their rivalry game coming up Saturday.

“The game’s over,” senior safety Jeremy Cash said. “Not much we can do about it now. Just move forward.”

Like any good coach, Cutcliffe said he prepares a post-game speech for any occasion, or almost any occasion.

“I’ve never heard a locker room as quiet,” Cutcliffe said on Sunday. “There wasn’t anybody moving, let alone speaking. It was deafening silence. There were just no appropriate words to talk about what happened on the field.”

Duke’s players tried to take the loss in stride. After all of the commotion on Saturday night, and there was almost a 9-minute review of the final touchdown, senior center Matt Skura said the Blue Devils can’t dwell on the result.

“What happened happened,” Skura said. “You can’t play the ‘What ifs?’ What if we did this? What if we did that. You take it for what it is.”

Even after the stinging loss, as Cutcliffe put it, Duke still controls its own fate in the division. A win over the Tar Heels on Saturday in Chapel Hill, would give them the tiebreaker for the Coastal title.

Duke has a home game with Pittsburgh on Nov. 14, followed by road trips to Virginia (Nov. 21) and Wake Forest (Nov. 28) to close out the season.

Cutcliffe met with his players around 4 p.m. on Sunday and said he impressed with their resilience.

“They had a great spirit and they’re ready to go to work,” Cutcliffe said. “And it wasn’t just pretend.”

After about 15 minutes with the media on a teleconference on Sunday, Cutcliffe said he had to get back to work.

“We’re going to stay on our normal routine and I think that will help all of us,” Cutcliffe said.

After an insane finish on Saturday and a rare suspension by the ACC, and admission of the mistakes, Duke’s weekend has been anything but normal.

This story was originally published November 1, 2015 at 6:48 PM with the headline "Duke’s Cutcliffe at a loss for words after Miami game."