David Cutcliffe on Evaluating Offense Vs. Defense

Cutcliffe explains how to measure performance when his players battle each other

Duke didn’t have much of a spring practice before the COVID-19 pandemic shut things down. However, coach David Cutcliffe got to see some of his offense playing against his defense.

Having his own players on both sides of the ball can make it hard to evaluate the team, since Duke obviously needs both units to perform well to have on-field success. Is an interception a sign that the defense will be good next season, or is it a bad sign for the Blue Devil offense.

“What I’m going to measure on the defense is where we took it away,” Cutcliffe explained, “exceptionally well took it away. I can measure all the offense. I can measure not only the interceptions but how you carry and care for the ball. We do a bunch of drills. We’ve started circuits. You can put it in their mind. You demand it every drill. You demand it every snap. So our defense will have a hard time taking the ball away from our offense. We’re not going to give gifts. If the defense is doing all of the things—stripping, if they’re pass rushing with intent—about 20 percent of the sacks in the NFL end up fumbles. So definitely, there’s an art to that. Offensively, there’s an art to that at quarterback. I’m the head coach, so I want to see both of them do well, but it’s hard to measure it. Except with my trained eye, I can tell when we’re going to be successful against an opponent.”