Cutcliffe: When You Face Tough Losses, There's Your Moment

Duke trying to bounce back from loss to Syracuse

Duke suffered a 49-6 loss to Syracuse at home last week, and afterward, some players said that the Blue Devils were outworked by the Orange.

“I mean those are some things that I said to our team,” Cutcliffe said. “I didn't use those exact words, but I didn't think our effort level throughout the game matched theirs. That's not typical of a Duke football team.”

Now Duke needs to bounce back from the disappointing loss and snap a four-game slump.

“Well the first thing is you can't pile things up,” Cutcliffe said. “We've got more than Syracuse. You can go back to the week before. You can go a lot of places with this particular team. All we can do and the only thing we can do is worry about the current week, this game. In football, I've often found it's harder to give up big victories and put them behind you than it is defeats. I mentioned that for 44 years only six losing seasons, but tough losses along the way you know. When you face those, there's your moment. Those are your chances to have a defining moment. You're not going to be defeated by them and you're not going to let yourself be defined by a loss, but you are inwardly going to know who you are.”

It sounds like a cliché, but Cutcliffe wants the team to dig deep.

“At your darkest moments, I'm not talking about team, I'm talking about individual, I learned that early in life there lies your best,” he said. “It's in there. All you have to do is seek it. It's in there. That's where effort lives. That's where every bit of this lives. It's not a cliché. It's real. I think when I said you run to it, not from it, that clearly defines all of these responses. Everybody has to make their own decision. My job is to evaluate everybody in that process. We're still in that process, if that makes sense.”