Duke football coaching search nears end. Favorites emerge, Jason Garrett among those on radar
Duke football’s coaching search has progressed to a final handful of candidates with the school’s goal of hiring its new head coach by the end of this week within reach.
After showing initial interest in current head coaches like East Carolina’s Mike Houston and Army’s Jeff Monken, Duke’s focus is trained on assistants, led by Clemson’s Tony Elliott and Texas A&M’s Mike Elko.
The school is looking for a new coach after parting ways with David Cutcliffe, Duke’s coach since 2008, on Nov. 28. While Elko and Elliott are among the final candidates being considered, the search process remains ongoing. A sitting head coach, like Monken or Air Force’s Troy Calhoun, remains attractive to the school.
Elliott is Clemson’s offensive coordinator while Elko coordinates Texas A&M’s defense. Both earn salaries in the $2 million range that put them among the highest paid assistant coaches in college football.
Though Duke is a private school that doesn’t release contract details, the IRS 990 form the school is required to annually file with the federal government showed Cutcliffe’s salary at $2,848,237. But with the changing landscape of college athletics finances, Duke will be certainly increasing that salary package for its next coach.
Their continued involvement, after in-person meetings with Duke officials, shows Elliott and Elko have not been deterred by any financial factors.
If hired, Elliott would become the first person of color to serve as Duke’s head football coach. The 42-year-old Elliott played football at Clemson, where he earned a degree in industrial engineering, from 1999-03. After joining the team as a walk-on, Elliott eventually started four games in 2003 when he was a team captain.
An Academic all-ACC selection, Elliott won the league’s Weaver-James-Corrigan postgraduate scholarship award as well.
Elliott began his coaching career in 2006 at S.C. State, where he coached two seasons. After three seasons at Furman, he returned to Clemson and joined its staff in 2011.
In 2017, Elliott won the Broyles Award as college football’s top assistant coach. He’s been courted for head coaching jobs before, including at Tennessee last year.
The 44-year-old Elko holds an Ivy League degree from Penn, where he played linebacker for the Quakers from 1995-98. His coaching stops include one year at Penn in 2000 and 12 seasons working for current Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson at Richmond, Fordham, Bowling Green and Wake Forest.
He left Wake Forest for Notre Dame, where he was defensive coordinator in 2017 before taking the defensive coordinator position at Texas A&M in 2018.
While Elliott and Elko remain in Duke’s sights, former Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett remains on the school’s radar as well. Though he’s never coached college football, Garrett played quarterback at Princeton before embarking on an NFL playing and coaching career.
He was the Cowboys’ head coach from 2010, when he was initially the interim head coach, until 2019, compiling an 85-67 record. Hired as the New York Giants offensive coordinator in 2020, he was fired from that position on Nov. 23.
After leading East Carolina to a Military Bowl appearance this season, Houston signed a contract extension last Thursday with the Pirates and thus was out of Duke’s search process as it was just beginning.
In addition to Monken and Calhoun, others who have been involved in the process include Indianapolis Colts running backs coach Scottie Montgomery, Dallas Cowboys senior defensive assistant George Edwards, Mississippi State wide receivers coach Steve Spurrier, Jr., and Duke interim head coach, Trooper Taylor.
Both Montgomery and Edwards are former Duke players who also coached at the school as assistants. Also a former Duke player who graduated from the school in 1994, Spurrier’s father coached at Duke from 1987-89.
This story was originally published December 7, 2021 at 2:04 PM.