David Cutcliffe on Changes to Redshirt Rule, Scholarship Limits, Split Titles

Duke coach speaks on issues facing football

The sport of college football is creating a muddled situation with player eligibility going forward, since several major conferences have cancelled a fall season and there are no guarantees that the ones still moving forward will play all their scheduled games.

Duke coach David Cutcliffe thinks the sport will have to implement some changes to eligibility as a result of the pandemic’s impact.

“I have a preference, if you ended up losing a season, we would certainly want to look at going above 85 (scholarships per team),” he said, “in the event you have seniors who may or may not return. It’s a complex issue. A new thing. The simplest approach to begin with: we’ve asked a couple times for the oversight committee to take the four-gae redshirt rule to six, which would handle some of those circumstances. I say this all the time: it’s 2020. Who knows? It’s so different, what’s going to come out of this. I know we’re going to do what we can, no question, here and across the board to help student-athletes through this difficult time.”

With the Big Ten and Pac-12 not playing until possibly spring, the issue of a national champion is also clouded.

“I guess you could have multiple national champions,” he said. “We’ve seen that in past. There has to be a carrot. If this is going to continue as is, there’s got to be a carrot for a team to play. It’s not that much different than when I was young. We had AP, UPI, all these different national champion teams. Maybe that’s ok. So probably, we just need to play and declare a champion, whoever is playing.”