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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 22, 2010

David Cutcliffe

THE MODERATOR: We now welcome Duke head football coach David Cutcliffe. We'll ask for a brief opening statement, then go to questions.
Coach.
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Yes, the play at Army gives us a chance to celebrate a military appreciation day. That should be the first thing that I mention, being able to honor our troops wherever they are in this world. Certainly we'll have a lot of military here in attendance. Also these young men from West Point, the commitment they've made to their country is pretty special.
They have a good football team. They're playing well. They have a winning record. They are a balanced team. Played exceptionally well on defense, exceptionally well on offense. I think they do a tremendous job in the kicking game.
If you didn't have to play them, it's fun to watch these guys. A big challenge for us coming off a game where we haven't played well at all. Alabama had something to do with that, but Duke had more to do with it most of the time.
A lot of work to do. We've got to go and find a way to get better, not only this week, but on Saturday of this week.

Q. David, Jim Grobe brought up something about coaching at schools where the academic standards are pretty high. He said given that, there's a little bit of a danger of throwing too much at kids. Sometimes it's easy as a coach to think that the kids will absorb absolutely everything you tell them and you can have complicated schemes. He said there is a tipping point for these kids. Have you experienced that balancing act at Duke where no matter how smart you think they are, there comes a point where enough is enough or enough is too much?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: I don't think there's any question that anywhere you are, that's a danger as a coach. You can only teach and count on what they can functionally do.
I'll tell you what the difference is to me. We have smart kids. They do handle some things extremely well. But their time commitment academically is far greater here than anyplace I've been. I have to respect that. Occasionally I've wondered if guys ever went to class because they were always over at the complex watching tape or around all the time.
Our guys are carrying laptops and working and doing. My concern is their sleep because they do so much work academically. Since we've been here, I've talked to our coaches about being smart about what we expect from them as far as their ability to learn and do or function in offense, defense and in kicking because of that.

Q. Conversely, have you had kids who might have been borderline in the classroom but had an awful lot of football intelligence and could pretty much handle anything you gave them?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Absolutely. That guy exists everywhere. We use the term 'gym rat.' It's just natural. You know, you see a little less of that probably, to be honest with you, because you can't become a gym rat with a video game. You got to be a player. I don't think there's any question that that guy exists a lot of places that you're talking about. Not as many as there used to be, but you love those kind of players on your squad.

Q. Josh McNary, anything in particular you have to do to approach this guy? Is he different from different teams that you'll see this year?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Do we get a weapon to play against him? He is tremendous. Watched him now these two years. He plays every down. He has got a tremendous repertoire as far as pass-rush. From a schematic standpoint, the coaching staff does a tremendous job of putting him in positions to be successful.
You know, you better know where he is on the field at all times. No magic formula. They create a lot of one-on-one circumstance in their pass-rush scheme. So no magic formula is going to help you in regards to Josh. So you just better tighten your chin strap and be prepared for a long 60-minute fight because that's what he'll bring.

Q. Speaking of their defense, they have an unusual name, double eagle flex. Beyond the name, what they do on defense, is it a different look on that side of the ball just as triple option is on offense?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: No question. I think the good thing they do on both sides of the ball they make you prepare for something you don't see very often. So your practice preparation for the week never feels like enough.
I think that's a great idea. But there are not a lot of people that know that defense to me left out there. Coach Ellerson has a history with it. They've done a great job with it. You have to know how to manage it, and they do. Everybody would run some semblance of it.
They're well-taught. They're disciplined, as we all know. Boy, they play hard. That helps the scheme also.

Q. David, how are Johnny Williams and Brett Huffman doing with their recoveries this week?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Well, Johnny is a little better, Brett is a little better. We're still on a day-to-day. If I'm going to put a tag on it, it would probably be questionable at this stage still. You don't ever count it out. We're working like crazy to try to get as many people to whatever level of health we can get them to.
It's just kind of this time of year. You sometimes never know how quickly guys may or may not respond. They're not ready yet.

Q. Has Johnny returned to contact drills yet?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: No, no, no.

Q. This morning on your radio interview I heard you talk about Kelby Brown getting maybe as 50% of the snaps this week. Can you talk about what he brings, what you saw when you looked at the film of his 19 snaps against Alabama?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: There are a couple things there. One, you use the term with linebackers particularly in the secondary of being able to 'diagnose' plays. Then you got off the spot, which means a quick observation and then you got to go, pull the trigger. Kelby does that really well. What that does is give you a chance to be a play-maker. Kelby certainly looks like a play-maker. 19 snaps, recovers a fumble, has a sack and four tackles. We're looking for that right now, productivity.
I think he diagnoses things extremely well. He's got a little knack for it. He got beat up in camp. Now he's healthy. If we're going to play him, we're going to play him. You will see him on Saturday.

Q. I wanted to ask you the difference between Army's offense this year and last year. Seems they're a bit more dynamic. Does that come through on tape?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Yeah, they have increased their system, their capabilities to do different things. We have studied Cal Poly tape going back about three years over these two years preparing for them, so you know there's more even yet to come. They've got a nice system. Their players are all back for the most part. They understand what to do. When you give them this problem, they know right what to go to, and their players are starting to understand that.
They're a little harder to defend. I think they're getting a little faster, getting some speed on the field, increasing in that regard as well also.

Q. Can you talk about the growth of Sean Renfree since that time he stepped on the field last year in a substitute role.
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Well, Sean, being in his third year in the offense, kind of the same thing I just mentioned with Army players in their second year in the offense. Sean has much greater command of our offense. He's letting us go full tilt with what we do, which we hadn't done probably since Eli, to be full tilt with everything we're capable of doing in the passing game and continuing to grow. He's very bright. He's a more than willing worker and a more gifted, stronger, quicker athlete than he was a year ago.
He's improved his arm strength quite a bit.

Q. Is McNary one of the best pass-rushers you'll see all year, no doubt?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Yeah, I don't think there's any question. He has got a great knack for it. Great speed and quickness. I told somebody earlier today, I think he must major in hand-to-hand combat and be an A plus student. He's tremendous. I have great respect for that young man.

Q. With the game you're coming off, can you talk a little bit about how you draw, what you draw from that game in a positive nature? I'm sure you got the kids' attention this week.
COACH CUTCLIFFE: The thing I've said all along, and this holds true, when you have character, times of pain, suffering and adversity are your greatest opportunity to grow. That's basically the end of the story. There's nothing pleasant about what happened. Nobody can sugarcoat it, but we do have great character, absolute great character amongst our young men. They have gone back to work. I expected them to. They understand how to do that. Wouldn't expect anything less from them.
So when you draw, like I said, from that pain and suffering, no doubt we'll be stronger people from what we've gone through. If we don't start playing better football in certain areas, then we're going to have some more pain and suffering. So we also have to be realists and address what the problems are. We've worked very hard in that regard.

Q. A team that comes off that type of loss, the opponent is usually never happy to see that in whatever sport it is. Is Army maybe in a worse position than it might have been than if you guys had lost to a much closer game?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: I don't think that Army finds itself in any circumstance of disadvantage. I think the challenge is to get your team back up after getting your rear-end whipped like we did.
Had we some way, somehow beaten Alabama, it would have taken a long time to get our people back to ground level, players, fans, everybody. That could have been its own challenge, and maybe the biggest challenge we could have faced. I would have loved to have tried that. But we went far, far from that. I don't think it has any bearing on our ability to say we're mad and go win a football game. We played hard against Alabama. We just didn't play well.
What we have to do to have a chance against Army is we have to play well. I'm kind of tired of not playing well, I will tell you that. So I expect us to play better, and hopefully we will.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for being with us. Good luck this weekend. We'll talk to you next Wednesday.
COACH CUTCLIFFE: All right. Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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