Bull City Coordinators – A Duke Football and Roman History Blog
The site dedicated to covering Duke Football and Classical Antiquity. Part of The College Huddle network.
For the younger fans out there who don’t remember, Ben Erdeljac was a WR at Duke during the end of the Goldsmith era and the start of the Franks era. I enjoyed watching him play at that time and am thrilled to have gotten an opportunity to talk with this former player. We discuss football, coaching, family and how Duke football changed from the 1990s to today. This was a great talk. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did! Listen here.
When Chris Hampton left Durham to return to Tulane at the end of the season, we knew that a new DB coach would be hired at some point. As time passed with no replacement, we weren’t real sure what was going on. It turns out that Coach Cutcliffe decided to do an internal overhaul in lieu of bringing in one new coach from outside of the family and keeping everything else the same. While he did bring in a new position coach, it was for the offensive side of the ball, not for the defensive unit.
The changes are as follows:
Magee is the only new hire. I’m excited about him coming on board because, as our friends at Duke FB Talk pointed out, he’s somewhat of a RB whisperer despite his TE bona fides. (If you haven’t listed to the latest Section 17 podcast, DO IT NOW. OMG, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?!?!) While I am worried about Boyette taking over the WRs (more on that below), I think the RBs will be in good hands. I hope that the WRs don’t suffer because Trooper Taylor had them moving in the right direction.
What are we to make of these changes? Here are my thoughts (not in order of importance):
Last but not least, I think these moves were the result of pressure put on Cut. Here is what he said about them at the press conference announcing the changes
Someone told Cut that the status quo isn’t good enough and changes were necessary. Maybe not big changes, maybe not drastic changes. But changes. Why do I say this?
With Kevin White retiring, Cut has to know that doesn’t necessarily bode well for him. When Tom Butters retired and Alleva took over in 1998, Coach Goldsmith ran out of time. (In retrospect, this was a giant mistake (and looking back on it, I don’t understand why he didn’t get one more season at the time. I’d like to do a podcast about that with some folks later, so I won’t get into that now)).
Cut has to know that a new AD will decide his fate. And that can’t be good. He doesn’t have a decade-plus relationship with that person to rely on. Instead, he’ll be working with a new person who will be given the task of replacing both Cut and K. Yikes. And given that the seasons since 2015 have been generally mediocre including two disastrous campaigns in 2019 and 2020, he has to put a good product on the field in 2021. Hence the staff shakeup.
Finally, I’m not certain that Cut is done making changes. I expect more to come if Duke falls into the 4 to 6 wins range next year. Why? Like I said, Cut has to prove he deserves to keep his job. His contract only runs until 2022, so he doesn’t have a lot of leverage. Expect Cut to get aggressive. It’s his job that hangs in the balance.
Go Duke!
All hands on deck for our interview with Duke kicker Ross Martin! Certainly the greatest Duke kicker I remember and the standard by which all future kickers will be judged, Ross was kind enough to sit down and talk about kicking, Duke football, his time in the NFL, what he’s doing now and a couple of big games from 2015. This was a fun talk with a Duke legend.
Listen to the interview here. Go Duke!
Late yesterday evening (thanks a lot, time zone differentials!), we had a great chat with Mandela Tobin.
Mandela is a young man from San Diego with some big plans for himself and for the Blue Devils. During our chat, we talked about going from San Diego to Durham, the recruiting process, what made him commit to Duke, as well as Mandela’s Nigerian heritage. And, since we were talking about Nigerians who have played football, Christian Okoye’s name came up (I may have mentioned Tecmo Bowl). This was a fun talk with an impressive young man.
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Listen to the interview here. Go Duke!
With 2020 coming to an end, I’d like to take a moment to say thanks to the folks involved in making this such a good season (from the perspective of my blog as opposed to the team’s win-loss record). First, I’d like to thank the readers and the folks who follow me on Twitter. We appreciate you being involved. Second, I’d like to thank the other folks who provide great Duke Football coverage, primarily Duke Maven and the guys from Section 17. I really enjoy the Section 17 podcast and you will too if you haven’t listened to it yet. They teased some off-season podcasts and I hope they follow through on it.
Third and final, I would like to thank the guests who came on and agreed to do interviews. Big thanks to Charlie Gelman, Carlos Wray and Lee Rodio. I’d also like to thank the other folks who have agreed to do interviews that we will get to in 2021. I’m not naming names yet, but I think you will enjoy them when we get to them. I hope we can get some more people associated with the program to come on. I’ve enjoyed the interview format much more than writing articles. You can listen to all our interviews here.
Happy New Year and Go Duke!
We hope you enjoy an interview with Lee Rodio, a former Duke Football walk-on. During our talk, we cover Lee’s musical interests, the intersection of politics and sports, church, his future plans and the legal profession. Turns out Lee is in law school and that became a significant portion of our discussion. And because Lee was at the Duke-Miami game in 2015 as a high school student, we talked about that. Again. Thanks to Lee for his time and for his contribution to the program. We hope you enjoy.
You can listen to the interview here on Anchor.
We hope you enjoy a long talk about Duke football with Blue Devil Alum Carlos Wray! Wray was part of a special class that went to four bowl games from 2012-2015 which culminated in a Pinstripe Bowl victory over Indiana in 2015. We discuss how he got to Duke, his time as a Blue Devil, the current state of the program and the 2015 Miami game. Consider this a warning if you’re not emotionally ready for that last part of it.
Listen to the interview here on Anchor.
As the end of this season approached, it struck me as a bit coincidental that I was in the process of finishing up The History of Rome podcast. If you haven’t listened to it, you should. The podcast clocks in at around 180 episodes and is narrated by Mike Duncan, the best podcaster out there (other than the guys from Section 17).
Why am I bringing this up? The History of Rome details the rise to glory of a small Italian settlement populated by misfits and castaways. From extraordinarily humble origins, the descendants of the first Romans built a proud empire that conquered so much of the known world that it lives on in our collective memory more than 1500 years after the Western part of its empire collapsed.
While Duke hasn’t accomplished anything close to what Ancient Rome accomplished, David Cutcliffe has achieved great things in Durham. There is no denying that. He took over a program in complete shambles, much like Rome was after it was first sacked by the Gauls. And, like the Romans, Cutcliffe, the staff and players slowly rebuilt the mess that years of neglect created. The results speak for themselves – an ACC Coastal Championship, playing the ACC Championship game, the Peach Bowl (that’s its name, sorry), the Sun Bowl and then wins in the Pinstripe, Quick Lane and Independence Bowls. The Blue Devils also beat North Carolina, NC State, Notre Dame and actually had a lead against Clemson in 2018. Duke even played Alabama tough in 2019 before the Blue Devils fell apart as that season progressed.
Unfortunately, Duke’s expansion and domination hasn’t continued. Whereas Rome defeated the Carthage in the Punic Wars and the Italians in the Social War, Duke is losing to teams it once consistently beat. Whereas Rome overcame its internal and external enemies, the Blue Devils have faltered in a series of embarrassing blowouts.
There is no disputing that the program is in a state of decline. When Rome faced a similar crisis, The Crisis of the Third Century, it found leaders like Aurelian, Diocletian and Constantine. These men used a combination of tactical and political genius to right the ship of the Empire. They stabilized it and allowed it to continue (the Eastern Empire survived until the 1450s) The question for us is whether Cutcliffe can do the same thing. We know that he’s done it before. What is uncertain is whether he can do it again.
The biggest challenge facing the team heading into next season is the loss of so many talented defensive players and having to start a fourth quarterback in four seasons. On top of that, the recruiting situation looks a little murky. While I said on Twitter that I would do a deep dive on the incoming class, Duke Maven covered it pretty well. They pointed out that the quality of incoming players may be slipping and that other ACC programs are winning the recruiting battle.
Next year will be a critical year for Duke. It will tell us whether the football program is headed for the resurgence that Rome experienced once Diocletian came into power and ended The Crisis or whether, like Rome, the Blue Devils have been surrounded by Visigoths and Vandals. And not to give away the ending, but when those guys show up, you get sacked.
Let’s hope for the former. Go Duke!
In what is a first for Bull City Coordinators, Charlie Gelman, analytics guru for Duke Football and Wrestling, joins Ben for an interview about his work, his background and, of course, football. Big thanks to Charlie for agreeing to participate in the interview. If you want to learn more about Charlie and what he does, listen to this podcast interview. You can also follow him on Twitter. Thanks, Charlie, for doing this, and Go Duke!
Listen to the interview here.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, Drew Jordan announced he’s entering the transfer portal. While he’s a senior and, but for COVID-19 and the NCAA’s free year rule, he’d be leaving no matter what, it still hurts to see guys choose not to come back for another season. While Jordan often got overlooked thanks to being on the line with Victor Dimukeje and Chris Rumph, he is very, very good. He was a stalwart on the line and always seemed to be right around the ball. He either made a big play or helped someone else make one.
As if replacing Dimukeje and Derrick Tangelo weren’t enough, we’re down another member of the defensive line. We are now real thin at that position. Duke has done remarkably well of late at finding talent on defense and having it ready to play. Think about how we lost Jeremy Cash and never missed a beat. Ben Albert, the DL coach, may be Coach Cutcliffe’s best hire.
Coach Albert and the rest of the staff have their work cut out for them. Let’s hope they succeed. Go Duke!
Bull City Coordinators - A Duke Football and Roman History Blog 