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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 14, 2011

David Cutcliffe

MIKE FINN: We now welcome Duke head football coach David Cutcliffe. Coach, a brief opening statement, then we'll go to questions.
COACH CUTCLIFFE: We're excited about the opportunity to open up conference play. We played Boston College in November, late in the season. Now we're turning around early and playing up there. Most of our players have not been to Boston before, so this will be a little unique for them, a new environment.
Also our first road trip. We've opened up with two games at home. We have a lot of young players on our squad that have never played in a road game or an ACC game. As always, we expect with Boston College a physical, intense team with some of the finest players that we've seen certainly defensively to this point as well as some play-makers on offense. Looking forward to the challenge.
MIKE FINN: We'll open it up for questions.

Q. Take us back to the Stanford game there. Going into halftime, what was the morale in the locker room like, especially with Duke having the opportunity to take a lead, a game that was very much winnable at that point?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Well, I think obviously the mood was positive. We had just blown an opportunity offensively and gave up a late touchdown, then missed a field goal. So it wasn't quite as positive as I had wanted for only being down 10 points.
I think, again, maybe the frustration from week one with our offense carried over into not having scored and offensive touchdown first half, and missed two field goals. I think that frustration was surprisingly a little bit more than what I anticipated.
We got it settled down, I thought, but obviously didn't come out and play very well the third quarter.

Q. How do you prevent a letdown against Boston College?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: You don't have letdowns, certainly don't let one loss turn into two. I think last year maybe the Army game after Alabama, we let Alabama beat us twice. Outside of that, one thing our team has done is competed well each week. Certainly haven't had any indication in practice that they're not ready to focus, work hard, expect them to get done what we expect them to get done on the field.

Q. Coach, there's been a lot of money spent on facilities, improvements all over college football in the last 10 years or so. How important are the bricks and mortar facilities to a football program? Outside of wins and losses is there a way to weigh the returns on the investment?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Obviously facilities become an issue in recruiting. We are all very aware of that. So certainly it pays dividends as you grow and build to give you the opportunity to recruit better players. Once you recruit better players, obviously it goes back to what you said, the winning and losing.
I think the biggest issue that's really hard and difficult to measure is what it does in the development of your players once they're there. Most of these facilities in some form or fashion are shared by other sports and in certain cases like ours, we just built the indoor facility, our regular students will have the opportunity in the evening hours to use the facilities.
I think if you're smart and you're building them, there's a lot of different ways it's going to enhance the entire university.

Q. Coach, this is a broad question. What do you see so far in the first two games that Sean Renfree is not doing that he was doing the second half of last year when he was having so much success?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: I think he's a little hesitant. I think Sean played very fast a year ago, made his decisions, got rid of the football. Right now he's gotten himself in a mode, he's very knowledgeable, he's worked very hard. I think he has two concerns. One, he has a lot running through his mind and you forget to play quarterback. Two, I think he is so trying to please everyone and not let his teammates down with a mistake that it's limiting his ability just to go out there and compete and have fun.
We've talked to him about that. He's a tremendous youngster with great character, great talents and skills. Hopefully he will find that balance between those two. You got to work hard. You got to prepare. You have to use your mind. You just got to cut loose and go play as well. That's something he's got to find himself.

Q. Pretty much what you're saying is this is all in the head. You're not looking in him doing mechanically anything.
COACH CUTCLIFFE: No, he's physically fine. He's active with the football. It's just a matter of, as I said, he possesses so much knowledge, sometimes you can think like a coach too much. What we want players to do is think like players. I want him to know everything I know, but then everything they know is functional. You've got a function. You just can't think too much playing quarterback. There's got to be reaction involved.

Q. In the first half against Stanford, you really had a tremendous advantage in field position. How did you create that with your defensive line in particular and what can you glean from that game tape as you prepare for Boston College?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Well, we're a team that plays the kicking game well. We are really competing hard on both sides of the ball. But our defense is competing extremely hard. We have a good return game. We have an offense that can move and work from any position on the field, but certainly all offenses are better when you get the field a little shorter.
Hopefully it's by design that we've become and continue to be that kind of football team. You have to play all three phases and play opportunistic football.
Turnovers play a part of it. We haven't created a lot of turnovers at this point in time. That's certainly a part of that, as well.

Q. Matt Daniels bats down six passes against Richmond, which is two off an NCAA record. Do you think by sheer numerical chance you're due to get the lucky bounce of an interception at some point?
COACH CUTCLIFFE: That sounds like a good suggestion to me (laughter). I'd be happy to see it. Of course, we had one. Johnny Williams patted a ball away in man a man coverage, went in the air, and Lee Butler was Johnny on the Spot, picked it off and turned it into a touchdown last game. I got through watching or defensive tape with our defensive staff. One of the things I told them I like is we're competing. We got our hands on a lot of balls and were competing exceptionally well. We need to take that next step and that next step for us is to intercept some passes. I think we're awful close to doing that. Hopefully that starts falling our way, as you said.
MIKE FINN: Coach, thanks for being with us today. Good luck this weekend.
COACH CUTCLIFFE: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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