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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 5, 2012David CutcliffeMIKE FINN: We now welcome Duke head football coach David Cutcliffe. We'll ask coach for an opening statement and then go to questions. COACH CUTCLIFFE: Week two, we're playing another team that we are familiar with, as we played Stanford here a year ago. They were extremely impressive then and are now on tape.  Very, very talented, well‑coached football team that just does so many things right. They're good in the kicking game. They're good on offense. Extremely physical offense with a lot of big‑play capability there, and a defense that's just relentless. It was a defense that gave us a very difficult time a year ago. We've got a big challenge. We've prepared well to this point. We've got to finish this week off strongly to play as good as we need to play out on the West Coast. With that I'll take your questions. Q. Coach, can you talk a little bit about what you've done to keep your team focused after beating FIU? COACH CUTCLIFFE: I think all you have to do is turn on the tape of last year's Stanford game. I don't think it was hard to regather. We have a lot of people that played a lot of football here, so they understand that Sunday you watch the previous game, you put it behind you, you're moving forward from that point on. I think we've done a solid job of doing that. The first week you have to practice like that, obviously after camp, then an opener. I think we've done a solid job of doing that. Q. Did you use any of that game to test off potential plays you might use against Stanford? COACH CUTCLIFFE: We run our offense, we run our defense, you game plan. But you have a defensive and offensive playbook. All of it comes from within that. So we'll try to do what we do best. Q. Coach, I wanted to ask you about the travel. Coach O'Brien was talking about the difficulty when you have to cross three time zones. Is that a problem and what do you do to alleviate it? COACH CUTCLIFFE: I've done it a lot. I think it can be a problem if you let it be one. I think the worst thing ‑ me personally ‑ is to go out and try to stay two days, get on their time zone, et cetera, et cetera. Your body really doesn't have that amount of time to change. We're going to make sure we hydrate. We're going to get on the plane Friday, fly out midday, get there in the afternoon their time. Going to stretch as soon as we get there. We'll have worked out that morning, but we'll get the kinks out. Take a while, get to the motel, eat, do our normal routine, meet, get their snacks, put them to bed. The only difference we're going to do is let them sleep in on Saturday morning, and by 'sleeping in' means sleeping in on eastern time. 18‑ to 23‑year‑olds have no trouble, no trouble sleeping in on a Saturday morning. Once we get up out there, we will be just in a normal 7:00, 7:30 kickoff mode, and nothing will be different than if we were here. Q. Unlike a lot of schools around here, you have recruited California fairly heavily. Can you talk about that. Is playing a game out there, showing the flag, important at all? COACH CUTCLIFFE: Yeah, sure. We're going to see Cooper Helfet, one of our more recent California products, that just finished by going to SanFrancisco. That's where he is from. All of our L.A. parents are driving up. We have Corbin McCarthy, Deion Williams, and Blair Hilliday from LosAngeles, Brandon Connette. We're represented well out there and we're going to continue to recruit well out there. I like playing in California. I like the opportunity for people to see what Duke football is all about. Q. Stanford score‑wise appeared to struggle in their first game. Won by three points. Obviously there's a transition from the Andrew Luck era into the next one. Can you tell a whole lot of difference? Are they making many adjustments on offense or are they just running pretty much the same system with a different guy? COACH CUTCLIFFE: They were a little simpler just because you're going to be. You went from the first player taken in the draft to a young man that had really relatively no experience. That's not easy for anyone. He's got a game under his belt. He'll be much better this week. Not that he was bad. Also, I knew this, because Mike McIntyre and I talked all summer, they played a good San Jose team. San Jose is going to have a really good season this year, in my opinion. In watching the tape, you saw two good football teams. Mike's defense is experienced and physical. Matched up to them pretty well. Kept them from making big plays. If an offense doesn't get a lot of explosives, it's hard to get a lot of yards. I thoughts that's what San Jose did best. On the other side, their defense at Stanford didn't disappoint at all. They held San Jose to 17 points and not very many yards. They were very impressive on defense and very impressive in the kicking game. They've had a change there. Their special teams coach left and they have a new special teams coach. I thought they played extremely well in that area. Don't get confused by scores. This is a really good Stanford football team. This is a No.18 team minimally in the country, so we have our hands full. Q. Did your team exceed your expectations in that opener? COACH CUTCLIFFE: No. I thought all along we had a good football team. A lot of guys that have played a lot of football here. We have more depth, some talented young people. The problem we knew going in, we had a lot of people out of the game. We had 12 scholarship‑position players out of the game. It frightens you. We had 21 people play their first college football, 10 true freshmen and 11 redshirt freshmen. I think the thing I was pleased about, I don't know that I was surprised, was that those guys played well. We'll need them to continue to do that. If we can do that and build our depth, we have a chance to have a solid football team. Q. I know you expected a lot from a fifth‑year senior guy. Can you evaluate Sean's first game. Did he live up to your expectations? COACH CUTCLIFFE: Yeah, obviously he threw the interception, backed up where he babied a ball, missed a couple throws he really didn't need to. It was interesting. I would want to see his response. I went up and said, Hey, it's been a shaky start. Don't let it set you back. Let's get this thing cranked up, which he did. I think he played better than he's played from that point on. His statistics were incredible. Not only that, he was accurate with the ball. He had two balls dropped after that, and it could have been a better night for him than 21 of 30. He could have been 23 of 30. If he would have had a better start, he would have had 350 yards passing. The one he missed to Jamison deep in the end zone, he could have had an incredible night. He just barely missed that deep post. I think he is well on his way to having a special year. I am excited to see him continue to compete and keep playing at the level he's playing. Q. My impression was he probably threw deep better than I've seen him throw before. Do you agree with that? COACH CUTCLIFFE: Yeah, without a doubt. That's not an accident. That's something they've worked on all summer. We've asked him to do. They're further along than where we've been. I think this team made a huge commitment in the summer on their own, which was really pleasing to me, and is a tribute to Sean Renfree, our upperclassmen that are hungry. It's never guaranteed. We play a tough schedule. Everybody is good. Everybody can beat us. We're going to throw our hat in the ring and see what happens. If you want to have a special year, you have to make a commitment to it. MIKE FINN: Coach, thanks for being with us. Good luck this weekend on that long trip out of California. COACH CUTCLIFFE: Thank you, Mike. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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