Cutcliffe: Duke Has 11 Turnovers In Two ACC Losses

David Cutcliffe needs Duke to improve its ball security in this week's game against the Tar Heels.

In his introductory comments to the media, Cutcliffe said:

"As you might imagine we've had a lot of work to do starting Sunday. The interesting thing for us, I mean, the obvious is the obvious. But we have 16 turnovers as an offense for the season and 11 of them coming from our two conference losses. When you turn the ball over at that rate, you really have no chance to win in a conference to where every team you play is gifted. Every team you play is well coached. I can go back to my early time in the Southeastern Conference when it wasn't as big, but I don't know if people understand this when you have a conference game. You have to be better than you normally are. And if you don't grasp that and you don't understand that as a team and a staff, it will bite you.

"You have to give Virginia some credit, but also just the little things. If they're a little bit off, if the care of the ball is not the most important thing on every play offensively, you're going to struggle. The other thing we have is we've got to be better on possession downs. You have to convert, and you have to stop people. We've played well on first and second down defensively only to give up first downs. And when you give up first downs particularly consecutively on third downs it usually leads to scores. There's no magic. You have to play at a level to be consistent in all of those areas and certainly can't turn it over on our side of the field like we did.

"As we move toward North Carolina, North Carolina is an example of another really good Coastal Division team. They've got lots of good players. They're got lots of athletes. they're well-coached. We’re absolutely going to face this down the stretch. It's always the biggest one when it's the next one, but certainly this is Duke-North Carolina. So, it's always going to have a lot at stake, and this one certainly does with both of us still battling to try to maintain the ability to stay in the Coastal Division race."

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