Duke football culture changes under Cutcliffe

Caulton Tudor's Take

It's been said there can be a fine line between medicine and poison. David Cutcliffe, in his first season at Duke, is deep into the process of trying to balance the two.

Odds are, Cutcliffe is just what the doctor ordered for one of college football's severely ailing programs.

The longtime former SEC coach has completely revamped the way Duke football players are supervised. Having been handled with kid gloves for most of the time since Mike McGee was fired after going 4-7 in 1978, the Blue Devils are again under the fist of a McGee-like disciplinarian.

Cutcliffe has ratcheted up demands and expectations across the board. By Duke standards, it's a drastic cultural change.

"I had to give up sweet iced tea. I love sweet iced tea," wideout Eron Riley said. "But it was putting body fat on me, which was slowing me down. Now, I drink water. I miss my tea. But if it'll make us a better team, I'm going to keep drinking that water."

Similar stories dot the roster. "Everyone is making sacrifices we'd never even thought about before," Riley said.

Thus far, the forced conversion from laid-back to hard-labor has been met with enthusiasm by the players. They've bought into Cutcliffe's vision of improvement through intensity, and there's little question that the Blue Devils have lost several games during the past few seasons primarily because they expected to lose.

But Cutcliffe is the first to admit that a relatively quick return on the extensive physical investment is a must. "We've got to see there's a payoff for all of this work," he said. "Almost everything has changed fast for these players, but there's got to be a change in the record for them to know it's all going to work."