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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 20, 2013David CutcliffeCOACH CUTCLIFFE: I mentioned this yesterday in my press conference. I'm most pleased with our team's ability to go back to work. Have been very good about that. Our leadership, we went on the field Sunday of this week, I thought had our best Sunday, and we followed up with a good Tuesday, a good Wednesday. I like that. The thing we've got to do is obviously take what we're doing on the practice field and apply. It's Duke‑Wake Forest. It's big here and it's big in Winston‑Salem. A rival football game between two very good football programs that do things well. Always a war, and we expect nothing less this week. With that I'll take your questions. Q. Coach, you have a couple rivalry games coming up. Talk about rivalry games, how much more emphasis you put on those games. When you started your coaching career under Coach Bryant, did he treat the Iron Bowl as a big‑time rivalry? COACH CUTCLIFFE: No question, whether it was Alabama‑Tennessee, one of the first big ones obviously. Then ending the year with Alabama‑Auburn. You understood what it meant. I think you do have to take rival games and make them different. When I was at Ole Miss, certainly LSU and Mississippi State, there's always more than one. At Tennessee, we had Alabama, we had Florida. Certainly there you had Vanderbilt and Kentucky, so loaded with them. Here, with the proximity of the schools, the four ACC schools of North Carolina, it's just natural for us and Wake. We played very hard and lost all of them but one as we've played these guys. We know it's a war. We've got to go be the best Duke we can be. That's the bottom line. Q. What year were you a student assistant at Alabama? COACH CUTCLIFFE: I was there in '72, '73 and '74. Q. Wake Forest's offense, after three or four games when they were struggling on offense, they went to some very wide splits on the offensive line. For at least a couple games, it really seemed to give people problems. Is that something that was a surprise factor there or is that difficult to deal with? COACH CUTCLIFFE: I'm certain it surprised people. We've done it here. We did it here in 2009, looking for something to shake ourselves up. But they're in and out of it. They have the ability to do both. Certainly they've got a good program, smart coaches, smart young men, so they're able to execute some of these things, have veterans, veteran quarterback. It does cause you problems. We're preparing to play against a lot of different types of looks offensively going into it not knowing for sure what you're going to get. Q. On the other hand they haven't changed much on defense, or am I reading that wrong? COACH CUTCLIFFE: No, they don't change a lot. They're very good at what they do. Nikita Whitlock is one of the best defensive players in the ACC. They're good at what they do, but they're very multiple on defense. You're really not certain exactly. They do a really good job game planning an opponent both sides of the ball. They have what I call a blended game plan. What they're doing offensively and defensively kind of coexist to help what they believe are the best way for them to win a ballgame. They're a very versatile team on both sides of the ball. Q. Obviously some people were surprised you putting together another good season like last year. Do you go into the season thinking, We could have another decent team? Does your success this year surprise you at all? COACH CUTCLIFFE: No, not really. I thought we had a good football team coming out of spring practice. I told our team that quietly. I told our team quietly what some of our expectations were. I feel like we'll be good. This isn't a flash in the pan. We're going to be good next year if our team has the kind of work ethic that this team has. So it really didn't surprise me at all. Q. Did you think you had a coastal division championship team on your hands? COACH CUTCLIFFE: I thought we had a chance to compete. I don't care where you are. I've rarely looked at any team, and I've been around some really good football teams, and say, This is a championship football team. As you look at a team, you make an assessment, Can we compete for a championship? Are we capable of competing for a championship if we do the right things? It takes a little bit of luck from an injury standpoint, which we haven't been lucky at all in the past, but a little better off this year. All those things enter into it. When you start becoming a good program, you start looking at a team that you believe this team is capable of competing for its division championship, therefore capable of competing for a championship. That's been our goal here, is to reach that level. Q. Whitlock is so quick, can make one move and get around the center. Do you try to get a second body on him if you can? What's the best way to deal with a guy like that? COACH CUTCLIFFE: Yeah, that's ideal. But you can't run every blocking scheme that way. He's not only quick, he's extremely strong. He's got great hand quickness to go with the foot quickness. People don't really understand how critical that part of it is. He's not easy to deal with in any form or fashion. But their other players aren't either. Good linebackers, their two ends on the edge. You've got to block everybody. He creates a lot of havoc. I think they do a tremendous job coaching defense and a tremendous job with their scheme. But certainly any coach know schemes get better when you have guys like Nikita Whitlock. He is a disrupter in there. Q. Their offense has pretty much disappeared after Campanaro got hurt. Do you think with the bye week they had last week, that settled in on them, they'll have some things for you that possibly you haven't seen before? COACH CUTCLIFFE: Well, there's always that possibility after an open date. They've got other good players, believe me. They have been successful against us offensively in the past. We have our hands full just lining up and playing as well as we can play is what we need to focus on defensively. Defensively you got to defend, you got to tackle well. You can't give up big plays. Regardless of what Wake Forest runs, the emphasis has to be on Duke playing very, very good team defensive football. Q. You sound so matter‑of‑fact about the success you have had this year. I'm wondering if it's been all business from where you sit or if you've allowed yourself a little emotion, if it feels like a special season for you? COACH CUTCLIFFE: You know, I'm smiling more than I normally would at this time of year. I wouldn't lie to you about that. I'm wanting our players to enjoy this. I certainly want our staff to enjoy this. These years don't always fall in place no matter where you are. I think I've learned that as I've gotten older. I'm not going to go around getting grumpier. I've heard people describe coaches, The only thing worse with this coach when he's losing is this coach when he's winning. I don't want to be that guy, so I'm trying not to be that guy. But we are doing what we expect our team to do, no question about it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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