David Cutcliffe: Duke Has Left Eight Touchdowns on the Field This Year
The lack of live scrimmaging in the COVID-shortened preseason has impacted Duke in the first two games.
“I don’t tie anything into last year and this year,” coach David Cutcliffe said. “There’s really no connection, not with a lot of different players and a different circumstance. You have a difficult time knowing right where we are. We have had one scrimmage in fall camp. That was it. No scrimmages from spring, which obviously, we didn’t get a spring.”
The biggest problem is that certain plays are not game-ready.
“Trying to get a team game-ready—that’s one of the things I’ve critiqued myself as a playcaller,” he said. “When you see things and try things, you better know what’s game ready, and I’m not going to blame a player if it’s not executing just like it should have been if we haven’t put it in a circumstance where it’s game ready.”
Some of the turnovers have resulted from little problems that crop up when things aren’t quite game ready.
“Taking care of the football,” Cutcliffe said. “What I call staying belly down. I don’t want to see people carrying the ball with turning belly-up. Those are going to be fumbles. People have to finish catches and run. The quarterbacks have to be accountable where they put the ball. Receivers have to be accountable where they are on the field. If that sounds like coaching, it is, on my part. You have to coach all those little things—to take care of the football, put yourself in position to put touchdowns together. The reality is this: we’ve probably left eight touchdowns on the field in two games. We know we turned it over five times in the past ballgame. When you do that, you’re not going to win. Can you fix it? Yes. You’ve got to fix it out there on the practice field.”
