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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 10, 2010

David Cutcliffe

THE MODERATOR: We now welcome Duke head football coach David Cutcliffe. We'll bring on coach, ask for a brief opening statement, then go to questions.
Coach.
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Thank you.
You know, Boston College is coming in here playing I think probably their best football by far. Typical physical Boston College team with a leading rusher in the league, a young quarterback that just is playing better and better and better, with weapons around him. Defensively, like they always are, they're as good as anybody there is in the country. They know what they're doing, how to do it, and they do it with good players. Very physical defensively. We have our work cut out for us for us to match up with this physical Boston College team.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Cutcliffe.

Q. Building depth on the offensive line has been one of the things you've been working for since you got there. Can you talk about how well you think you've succeeded to have a David Harding in place to play when Brandon Harper can't play, to have other options there? I know it's not where you want it to be, but can you talk about the progress you made there.
COACH CUTCLIFFE: I think we've brought in quality players. They're young. We're starting a sophomore and two freshmen along with a senior and a junior. We're redshirting some players that I think are going to be excellent offensive linemen that could probably be helping us now. That bodes well for the future.
The problem we have is currently we're just a little light in numbers in that area. People forget that we lost Mitchell Lederman to start the season, who was a returning starter. Never was able to make it to practice because of an off-season surgery and had to give up his playing career.
There's challenges there. But thank goodness we have some good young players. I'm real proud of Perry Simmons, Dave Harding, John Coleman and Joey Finison, a lot of those guys that are giving us quality snaps as young players. They've been very encouraging.

Q. You talk about a couple guys who you're redshirting. You did that last year. You had the same kind of situation. You bit the bullet and redshirted Harding, Simmons, Coleman. David Harding said he felt like he should have played last year. Now that he looks back at it, he's happy he wasn't ready. But he thinks he's better prepared now. Can you talk about it, is it sometimes tough on biting the bullet to play Laken Tomlinson or Takoby Cofield?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Yeah, it's hit us on both sides of the ball. But we're not in this for a short fix. We're building a program. It was in the best interest of the program, as well as those youngsters. Dave Harding is exactly right, he wasn't ready. He would not have been able to hold up in there a year ago.
We'll certainly play a freshman when they're ready or they're by far the best we've got at any position. But those guys, they do much better generally up front when they have a little time to soak, so to speak.
It is difficult. It's been tempting this year. But I think it's in our best interest as a program to continue to try to do this where we can.

Q. In terms of your last few weeks here, what has been the biggest difference in your offense in terms of where you've seen some improvement?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Well, we're executing and not turning the ball over. We had executed at times all year long. We've had some poor games offensively where we really shot ourselves in the foot turning the ball over. We'd have a different record right now if we didn't do anything different but take care of the ball. We wouldn't have any more yards or any more anything. So protecting the ball is the biggest thing.
When you got a lot of young players out there, sometimes it takes a little experience to understand that. Hopefully that will be a trend we continue. We've never turned the ball over - knock on wood - at a high rate. Florida just kind of came out of nowhere. Hopefully that's past and we're beyond that.

Q. How much more of a challenge will it be from when you watched the BC defense on film to put up points this week?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Well, they're very good. Every week in the ACC is a new battle, a new circumstance. You have to just try to find matchups. You're hunting matchups every week. Unfortunately, with a team like BC, they're not easy to come by. You just pick and choose the right places. The most important thing we can do, again, is take care of the ball, try to be opportunistic when it presents itself, because it's not going to present itself all that often with a team as sound as BC is.

Q. When you recruited Brandon Connette, did you envision using him in the manner that you're using him or is that something that sort of evolved as things have gone along?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Well, football's changing a little bit offensively. So with all of our young quarterbacks, we've kind of gauged their ability to run, even Sean Renfree. His athleticism was high. He's a good all-around quarterback. It's just this year, at this point in time, he's been very beneficial to use him that way, plus it's a great way to get him experience.
When you came back to the 2010 season, we had one quarterback on our team that had ever played any college football. It was going to be necessary to get somebody experience. Much like University of Florida did with Tim Tebow, it's a very good way to get a young quarterback some experience in situational football. It just kind of has happened.
But we did know that we were signing an excellent athlete and runner as well as an excellent quarterback.

Q. When you game plan, do you look to get him a certain number of snaps in a game or is it usually developing into a situational type thing?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: It's more situational. It's not going in saying we're going to play him this many snaps or anything else. It will be situational.
Also some of it is based on what a defense is doing to deploy against us, the kind of success we're having in other areas. It's always there. We have grown that offense, grown that system, and continue to do that. It's something we're going to do. So we're kind of liking where we're headed with it.

Q. How has he adjusted to the way defenses are adjusting to when he's in the game?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Well, he realizes the line of scrimmage is getting a little crowded up there. He's like most quarterbacks, he wants to throw the football, and he can and will. He was very successful all the time in practice. We got to give him some chances to make plays in that regard.
You give a quarterback that opportunity, they're going to take it, I guarantee you. He's like any of them, and I'm glad he is. He believes he can beat you throwing the football.

Q. What is the most important thing you hope to accomplish defensively in the next couple of weeks?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Well, we've been beat up defensively, pushed around a bit off and on all year long. You know, the thing you want to do is we've had chances to make some big plays, and dropped an interception. What I want to see is to be a little bit more opportunistic. We have to create some turnovers, continue that as a trend, always looking to tackle better.
If I had to pick one thing, it would probably be our ability to play blocks, get off blocks. That's how you have to win. Hard to tackle people if you get stuck on blocks. That's one of the things we're working very hard at. We basically have gone live defensively the last two days in practice up front trying to improve our skill in that regard because we know that Boston College is going to be a huge challenge when it comes to stopping the run.

Q. The game-winning play last week, was that intended really just to get about 5 to 10 yards and facilitate a field goal or did you think it could break?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Oh, no, you don't ever know. We were calling it to improve our field position. We were out of timeouts. But it's part of that two-minute package because it's a sideline run. You're always hoping to go. But they got caught in a substitution situation. We teach them, we're going to snap the football. When you get the ball outside, which is what we did, it's a toss, when you get the ball outside, a lot of good things can happen.
Our left tackle flipped a safety off his feet and opened it up. It was a sprint to the end zone. But we wouldn't have been unhappy had it gained 15 yards and set us up in field goal range.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for being with us. Good luck this weekend. We'll talk to you next week.
COACH CUTCLIFFE: All right.

End of FastScripts

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