Will there be a football season? No one knows. But Duke’s Cutcliffe is still preparing
.JPG "Duke head football coach David Cutcliffe waves to fans after a 45-10 NCAA college football game victory over Virginia Tech, Friday, Sept. 27, 2019, in Blacksburg, Va.")
David Cutcliffe has no idea when he’ll return to coaching football on the field, in the outdoors, surrounded by dozens of players.
It’s been the 65-year-old Cutcliffe’s life’s work.
He’s still doing a form of that work, the coaching part of it, even though the worldwide coronavirus pandemic means it must be done in new and different ways.
He does recruiting and holds team meetings online via the Zoom video call service. He and his Duke staff organize workout routines for the players to do from their homes since many of the nation’s fitness clubs and gyms have been closed.
There’s a growing chance this public health emergency, which has halted professional, college and high school sports in this country, could last into the summer and impact the football season.
Cutcliffe knows that. But there’s nothing he can do about it now.
“We’re not trying to go way out,” Cutcliffe said. “I’m not trying to answer questions that people have. When a parent asks ‘Well, what’s going to happen next August?’ I mean I can’t even let my mind go there. I think that’s probably an important part of this for all of us right now is to take care of the present.”
So he’s focused on getting his team ready no matter when the sports world cranks up again.
The Blue Devils were fortunate in that they already utilized TeamWorks, the Durham-based, athlete-engagement software company founded by former Blue Devil football player Zach Maurides. College and pro teams around the country are also TeamWorks clients, so athletes are more and more accustomed to communicating in this manner.
Zoom is becoming an even more popular tool at Duke.
This week, the Blue Devils held a virtual team meeting via Zoom on Monday at 10 a.m., just as the Blue Devils would have done if they would have been on campus for their scheduled spring practice session that day. Players located in four different time zones participated.
It meant putting together NCAA-approved care packages to send to the players, with the same workout gear, nutritional supplements and snacks they would have had access to on campus.
Cutcliffe and his staff even did that while practicing social distancing standards. One staff member gathered the stuff. Another packed it in a box. Another made and attached the shipping labels.
The boxes were placed out where they could be picked up and shipped without anyone interacting closely.
“We sat them out for the UPS guy and they picked them up,” Cutcliffe said. “How great is that? Assembly line work.”
It’s an offseason like no other in his long coaching career. But, entering his 13th season as Duke’s coach, he’s determined to get the Blue Devils ready to improve after last season’s disappointing 5-7 campaign.
He does have one advantage.
Duke is one of the few Division I programs around the country that actually got some spring practice work done on the field before everything came to a halt. The Blue Devils practiced three times, beginning March 2, then left campus for spring break.
As it turned out, they never returned. The health situation became so dire that campuses were closed and live sports were shut down.
Though only one of Duke’s practices was held with pads on, Cutcliffe is poring over that video footage getting all the analysis he can from what’s turned out to be precious work.
“I’m looking at it a lot, in a lot of detail,” Cutcliffe said, who has video screens at his home so he can work from there. “I’m going to have staff meetings. I can do it on Zoom. I can point out things with the laser (pointer). We can have some good football discussions.”
There’s even a way to bring in a special guest speaker while not endangering anyone. Vincent Rey, a 32-year-old former Duke linebacker who spent nine years in the NFL with Cincinnati, spoke via Zoom to the team’s defense on Wednesday.
On Friday, the Blue Devils will be back on Zoom for a 10 a.m. team meeting.
They talk football but they also receive communication from the team’s sports medicine, nutrition and academic staffs.
It’s all a way to bring some normalcy to an abnormal period of world history.
“The Zoom meetings, we can see them and they can see us,” Cutcliffe said. “They were very upbeat Monday morning. Happy to see and be a part of that.”
Duke is scheduled to play a football game on Sept. 5 at Wallace Wade Stadium against Middle Tennessee State. That’s if live athletic events are allowed to resume by then.
“Structure is important at this time,” Cutcliffe said. “That’s why I’m not going to let them worry about what’s going to happen two or three months from now. We’re going to stay on that path. Why would any of us want to predict anything at this point? We don’t know. Worrying about the current circumstances is always a healthy way to live.”