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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 31, 2011

David Cutcliffe

THE MODERATOR: Joining us now is Duke head football coach David Cutcliffe. We'll bring on coach, ask for a brief opening statement, then go to questions.
COACH CUTCLIFFE: As I said earlier this week, I'm excited about seeing this team for two main reasons. One, we do have some players back that have played well for us, certainly well at times, and some of them very consistently well. So I am excited about that. Seven team starters returning, a few more on offense.
I think I'm probably more in anticipation of we should play 16 to 17 guys that are also going to play vital roles in the ballgame that have never played a college football game before, either redshirt freshmen or true freshmen. I'm excited to see how they'll perform.
We've had a good camp. That's not always a guarantee. We're playing a really good Richmond team. They're always good. They've come down here and had success. We'll have to play well to win.
With that, I'll take your questions.

Q. Coach, tell me a little bit about the way your running game has developed in pre-season camp.
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Well, we had a better spring in that regard and knew we needed to badly. Obviously hadn't run the ball great since we've been here. At times better at the tail end of last year. We're better up front on offense. No question Matt Luke has done a tremendous job. We return some veterans backs. All of our backs that have returned have played. That should be a good combination.
That's one of those things until you go out there and prove it, then you haven't got it. That's going to be one of the bigger challenges we face, is not talk about being better, but be better. Certainly an area that we have challenged our offensive team to continue to grow there. We can throw the football and we're going to throw it well. If we can effectively run the football, we should have a good offensive football team.

Q. How much would a much-improved running game be a benefit to Sean Renfree in the passing game?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: No question, it's the quarterback's best friend. You don't have to run it to win. But you better be able to run it. When you lose the ability to run the ball, the quarterback tends to force and make mistakes. Certainly defensively it's much better to defend you.
Balance is always something we've strived for with our offensive system. We've worked very hard. It was our major emphasis for the spring, and it certainly has been in camp. We've kind of beat our runningbacks up. We had more live carries, more live run game work in spring and fall camp than I've ever had in my career.
Besides just beating our runningbacks up, I hope it accomplishes something else.

Q. When you look at Richmond on film, what jumps out at you? Is it the quarterback?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: All things. I mean, he's a fine player. Obviously was a great player in high school, a big-time national recruit. He looks to be that.
But to me, over and over, every Richmond team that I've looked at is their ability to be physical. They've got a physical front on offense, a physical front on defense. That's what they have done as their mainstay.
Yes, they have had good runningbacks, will continue to do that. Good quarterbacks. When we played them two years ago, outstanding quarterback, receivers.
They're just a physical football team. They were much more physical than we anticipated in 2009. We got enough of our kids around that they remember that. That's been the comment of our players, that Richmond, they're a physical team.

Q. I'm working on a story about place kicking in the ACC. Last year was unbelievable, the league as a whole completed 80%. Can you talk about the standard of place kicking changing over the years. Is it just a cycle or are things changing in the place-kicking world?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: I think they're changing there just like they're changing athletically most everywhere. Defensive backs are bigger and faster. So are linebackers, so are defensive linemen. Flip it around, there's just a high number. There's always been some big, fast guys that play football. There's just a huge volume of those guys now, and the game has changed. It's no different for those guys. They've got tremendous legs.
Expertise about the kicking game has increased. These kids go all over the country now, the great ones do, and learn from the gurus. They come to you pretty well-coached.
The footballs themselves are balanced and made better. All of that stuff is part of this long-term trend. We addressed it a few years ago in NCAA rules that when we narrowed the goalposts, made them start kicking off the ground. They've tried like crazy to lower the percentage, to keep it similar to what they thought it was supposed to be. The kids just keep adapting.
Very interesting thing. You know the quality of the one we've got. But he's certainly lot alone in this league. There's some big, accurate legs in this league. Who knows, down the road you may see another narrowing of the goalposts. We still have wider hashmarks than the NFL. The guys in the NFL are kicking within the uprights all the time because of the hashmarks. The college kids are kicking at a far greater angle. So it's a pretty interesting deal.

Q. I was interested in the debate coaches have about recruiting kickers, going through walk-ons and finding a guy. Duke went through several highly recruited guys that didn't succeed. I know you're recruiting a kid that is a kicker. Can you talk about that dynamic. Is it worth wasting something on a high school kicker that you're guessing at or bring in kids and let them earn the scholarship?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: I think probably the difficulty is two things that you have to evaluate well when we have recruited kickers, and we've been fortunate enough to have a few walk-ons. We found most of our walk-ons.
Two things, high school kids kick off a block. You don't know if they're going to transition to kicking off the ground. The second thing is our operation time is a lot faster. We're 1.25 seconds. We don't want to be anything off of that. We expect that or a tad quicker, not any later. Those kids are kicking the 1.3, 1.35, 1.38. We measure that. If the kid is a slow operator, we drop him from our list.
Another fortunate thing is we're able to get kids to campus for camps now. I can see, evaluate, speed them up, do all those things. Generally if they're pretty solid people, you think they're going to be good players. I think there's a trick to being able to evaluate a kicker. I think a lot of people do a poor job of doing that, to be honest with you.

Q. Your opposing number for the opener is a guy who has been a head coach for less than two weeks when he faces you. Can you imagine what that must be like?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: It's challenging. I actually was at Tennessee when Coach Majors became ill during camp and had to take a leave of absence, had open-heart surgery. We essentially as a staff felt (indiscernible) was an interim, went to work.
He's got his hands full. He's a very capable coach. He has a great history and rÃ©sumÃ©. I'm sure he'll do it fine.
Fortunately their system is in place. They have a very veteran defensive coordinator. Very veteran offensive coordinator. Veteran coaches that know their system. He's got a veteran doing his special teams. That helps a great deal.
But I'm sure his heart's thumping as he goes near game time. I know my first experience as a head coach, certainly I felt that. But he'll get a big adrenaline rush, there's no question about that. But once that ball kicks off, you're doing what you've always done. It kind of consumes you.
Afterwards he'll be tired regardless of outcome. There's a lot of emotion spent. But he's a fine football coach and I'm sure will do really well for them.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, we're out of time. Thanks for being with us today and good luck this weekend.
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Thank you.

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