When might Duke football coach David Cutcliffe retire? Here are his thoughts.
Retirement plans became all the rage this year among the high profile people in the Duke-UNC rivalry world.
First it was Duke athletics director Kevin White, who announced his departure in January.
UNC basketball coach Roy Williams followed by stepping aside in April.
Mike Krzyzewski announced in June this upcoming season will be his last in a legendary run as Duke’s basketball coach.
Through all that, David Cutcliffe toiled away, working to push his Duke football team to better places this season.
He’ll turn 67 on Sept. 16 and the Blue Devils went 2-9 last season, their worst record in Cutcliffe’s 13 seasons as their head coach.
Those two facts, combined with the ever-changing landscape of college athletics, could lead a coach to consider his end game, especially with so many others in his age group and business doing the same.
But, with Duke opening the season at Charlotte Friday night, Cutcliffe this week told the News & Observer in an exclusive interview he has no plans to step aside any time soon.
“I’m not slowing down and have no real feelings about retiring,” Cutcliffe said. “It’s not even on my radar.”
Did COVID pandemic affect season?
Coaching during the pandemic and through a trying season where the Blue Devils weren’t very competitive on the field offered ample opportunities for those feelings to enter Cutcliffe’s mind.
Renowned for his coaching of offense as a whole and quarterbacks in particular, Cutcliffe watched Duke quarterback Chase Brice throw 15 interceptions in 11 games last season. Leading the nation with 39 turnovers, the Blue Devils scored just 24.8 points per game while allowing 38.1 to lose nine of their 10 ACC contests.
The last part of the season was particularly brutal as Duke absorbed beatings from rival UNC, (56-24), Georgia Tech (56-33), Miami (48-0) and Florida State (56-35) to end the season on a four-game losing streak.
Cutcliffe is quick to say that, despite the obstacles the COVID-19 pandemic protocols presented, his job was to prepare his team to play well and that didn’t happen.
“For the first time in many years I felt like a rookie because I’d never faced the circumstances that we had,” Cutcliffe said.
He said the Blue Devils never practiced poorly and the players should be commended for picking themselves up to keep working during that tough stretch. But at a certain point, the team became “emotionally defeated.”
What do Duke administrators think?
Shortly after the season ended, with preparation already underway for offseason work aimed to produce a better record this season, Cutcliffe received public support from Duke’s administration.
White told the News & Observer last Dec. 15 that Cutcliffe’s job was not in danger, saying the coach had “more job security than you or I, and it isn’t even close.”
White looked at the complete picture of Cutcliffe’s tenure, one where he took the Blue Devils to six bowl games in seven seasons from 2012-18 after the school hadn’t posted a winning season or bowl appearance since 1994. He also cited the program’s academic achievements, which include perennially being among the top teams in the NCAA’s Graduation Success Rate report.
“The college football landscape,” White said, “especially for an elite private institution like Duke, is filled with ebbs and flows, and the complete 13-year body of work, which includes the rare combination of bowl game victories and NCAA graduation rate “championships”, under David’s guidance is held in the highest regard.”
The following month, White announced he would retire this summer following 14 years as Duke’s athletic director. Nina King, an associate athletic director at Duke throughout White’s tenure at the school, was selected as his replacement in May. She became the school’s athletic director on Wednesday.
Among the roles King held while working for White was sport administrator for Duke football.
King and Cutcliffe enjoy a close working relationship with mutual respect for each other and she shares White’s feelings about the state of the program.
Cutcliffe wants to coach ‘a lot longer’
But Cutcliffe, having been fired as head coach at Ole Miss in 2005, also knows more performances like last season could change things.
“I would like to coach a lot longer,” Cutcliffe said. “Sometimes other people decide for you, right? I’ve had that happen before so I’m not naive to that.”
But that doesn’t mean he’s making any contingency plans. Far from it.
Cutcliffe isn’t a believer in setting an exit plan. He relies more on gut instinct and an overall feeling.
Every time he makes the 13-mile drive from his south Durham home to Duke’s campus, he never thinks of it as going to work.
If he ever does, Cutcliffe said, that is when he knows it’s time for someone else to coach the Blue Devils.
“The day that I’m in the car and I’m headed in here,” Cutcliffe said, “and I think I’m actually going to work and I don’t want to go,I probably will pull the car over, call them and say `Here’s where the car is, y’all can come and get it. I’m done.’ I’ve not ever felt that way. Nor has my family. I don’t have anybody pulling me, hey, this, this or this. So that’s the honest answer to that.”
This story was originally published September 3, 2021 at 1:51 PM.