Coach Cut: Secondary Recruits: "May Be the Best Tackling Group We've Signed"

Duke coach David Cutcliffe is excited about Duke’s class of 2020.

“We got better this morning,” Cutcliffe announced to start his Signing Day press conference.

Cutcliffe announced the Blue Devils’ 16-player class.

“I think diversity would be the way I would describe this class,” Cutcliffe said. “It was not enormously large in number.”

The Blue Devils signed three offensive linemen—Graham Barton, Calib Perez and Gary Smith III—and two defensive linemen—Michael Reese and Aeneas Peebles.

“On the offensive line and defensive line, we helped ourselves,” Cutcliffe said, saying the new Blue Devils have “size, strength and explosiveness.”

“If you’ve seen their highlights, I think the highlights are very indicitvie of what those linemen have been throughout their career,” he said.

Cutcliffe then ran through the defensive recruits by position group.

Linebackers (Dorian Mausi, Christian Hood, Ryan Smith): “I really love that group. Point A to Point B, what they do getting one place to other may be the quickest I’ve seen. The versatility, speed and explosiveness at that position is really special.”

Secondary (Jaylen Stinson, Isaiah Fisher-Smith, Da’Quan Johnson): “They’re fun to watch. The competitiveness and spirit of those guys is one of the things I noticed early on as we were recruiting them. Goodness gracious, they’re really special people. I know they can cover, but what I love about the guys we’re going to be playing with in the secondary is they are proven tacklers, which you can’t substitute for. One of the things years ago a really great defensive coordinator told me, ‘If a guy’s not a really great tackler, don’t sign him.’ The longer I stay in the business, to think you can teach someone to be a good tackler, generally you can’t. This may be the best tackling group we’ve signed.”

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