Duke went into Atlanta with an extra bye week after the game against Wake Forest was canceled. At 2-5, you would hope this team would take the time to improve, kick some bad habits, make needed changes and get a win. Or at least play 60 minutes of solid football. Or generally not do what the Blue Devils have done all season.
But we’re talking about a David Cutcliffe coached team, so none of that happened. Duke got absolutely throttled by the Yellow Jackets, losing by a final score of 56-33. That’s two straight games where the Blue Devils have given up 50 plus. By any measure, that’s terrible.
What makes this worse is that despite dropped passes, penalties by “leaders” like Chris Rumph (his lack of discipline has been an issue all season) and turnovers, it was a two-point game at the half. Duke went into the locker room down 28-26 with possession to start the third quarter. Cutcliffe said that the team was getting ready to play its best half of football and, if he meant the upcoming half as opposed to at some point in next week’s game against Florida State, I’d hate to see what the worst half of football looks like. The turnovers continued, the dropped passes continued and Tech outscored the Blue Devils 28-7 (that’s not a typo) over the final thirty en route to an absolute whooping. When the final whistle blew, it put an end to a night in which Duke had turned the ball over five times over the course of two halves, four fumbles and one pick. That, I believe, is a total of 30 for the year.
What was particularly frustrating about this loss was that Cutcliffe promised personnel changes. He said things would be done differently. But when the game started, Brice stayed under center and the same sloppiness that has been the Duke trademark these last two years continued. DPJ looked confused on a kick return, may have liked an Instagram post during halftime, there were offside penalties and Gunnar Holmberg barely got to play. Despite what we were told to expect, we got more of the same. And, as expected, the result was another loss.
That doesn’t seem like accountability. In fact, the overall poor level of execution strongly suggests that Cutcliffe has lost control of the locker room. His stubborn and foolish loyalty to Chase Brice, who finished the night with multiple turnovers, sure makes it seem like Cutcliffe has lost his ability to assess player performance and make correct judgments. I don’t know what he sees from Brice that the rest of us don’t see. I would love to hear someone give a defense of Brice and a reason why he should keep playing this year. I’ve said multiple times that Gunnar may well not be the answer and that putting him in may not fix all the Blue Devils’ problems (and those problems are legion), but he can’t do any worse than Brice. And we need to know if he’s the guy to lead this team. And despite his one turnover, he did look good in the limited time he had. A long touchdown pass was negated by a, you guessed it, penalty.
But I’ve said enough about Holmberg and won’t continue to raise those concerns here. What is equally concerning is the continued lack of discipline, of focus and of good situational football. Between players like DPJ and Rumph getting penalty after penalty this season, it should worry all of us that older players with lots of game experience make inexcusable mistakes. Since 2018, Duke has repeatedly gotten blown out by teams (I’ve recounted those before and won’t do so again here). The fact that these continue this late in the season means that the coaches aren’t addressing them or the players don’t care. The change in score in the second half also suggests that Cutcliffe and his staff aren’t making adjustments. It also looks like the rest of the ACC has moved ahead of the program.
Perhaps all of the above is why veteran reporters are raising the issue of Cutcliffe retiring at the end of the year. I hope he does. Because if he doesn’t, it’s just going to get worse. Last night isn’t an aberration. It’s par for the course.
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