State of the Program – Ted Roof isn’t an excuse

Of late, a lot of us have been talking about our frustration with Coach Cutcliffe. We all love and respect what he’s done, but the program is headed in the wrong direction. Those who want to keep Cut around and give him more time point to an excuse that I’m frankly (no pun intended) tired of hearing – “Duke was bad when Ted Roof was the coach.”

Look, Duke wasn’t good during the Roof era. After some initial promise and a win over North Carolina, Duke regressed and looked the same as they did when Carl Franks was the coach. Roof ended his time in Durham with a 6-45 record and only 3 conference wins. That’s bad. We know that. No one disputes it.

The question I have is why this keeps coming up. It isn’t 2007. It isn’t 2008. It isn’t 2012. It’s 2020. And where are we? Well, we keep hearing about how Cut turned Duke around and made it a relevant program, how he gave it a winning identity. Basically, we keep hearing about how Cut created a new standard at Duke after taking the Blue Devils to 4 straight bowl games from 2012 through 2015, 2 additional bowls in 2017 through 2018 and delivering 3 bowl wins in the process (2015, 2017 and 2018). But since Cut shocked the world in 2012 and did it again in 2013 when he took Duke to the ACC Championship and the Peach Bowl (sorry, but that’s what I’m calling it), the program has regressed. Just about every. Single. Year.

Since that time, Duke went 9-4, 8-5, 4-8 (Cut gets pass for a million injuries that year), 7-6, 8-5, 5-7 and now 0-4. If Cut created an expectation that Duke would be winning more games than they lose and getting to bowl games, we haven’t really seen that. Duke got hot late in 2017 and just made it to a bowl. They did it again in 2018 despite getting walloped by Wake to end the regular season. And then last season fell apart on a jump pass against North Carolina (which followed a 48-14 beating by UVA). Last season’s gems included a 49-6 loss to Syracuse. Syracuse. Say it again and let that sink in.

Since the 4-8 season, Duke has regularly been blown out by teams. Miami beat the Blue Devils 31-6 in 2017 and Virginia Tech beat Duke 24-3 that same year. In 2018, Wake demolished Duke 59-7. As for 2019, there was also a third blowout loss that year when the Blue Devils lost to Notre Dame 38-7. Since beating Virginia Tech in 2019, Duke is now 2-10.

Putting all that together, it sure seems like the Blue Devils are falling behind the rest of the ACC. Duke hasn’t had a winning conference record since 2014. Duke hasn’t been at .500 in conference since 2015. If that isn’t a decline, I don’t know what is.

If Cutcliffe raised the expectations in Durham, then he needs to be judged by those raised standards. He can’t be held to the standard that Ted Roof and Carl Franks set because the program surpassed that some years back. The question going forward isn’t whether Cut is the right man to reinvigorate the program given how poorly Duke had done since Steve Spurrier left. The question is whether Cut is the man who can continue to meet the expectations he set. The answer seems to be that he isn’t.