Duke's David Cutcliffe on Chase Brice: He Has Great Arm Talent

Coach impressed with Clemson transfer

While David Cutcliffe said that last year’s backup, Chris Katrenick, has been working with the first team, the spotlight at quarterback is on Clemson transfer Chase Brice.

“He got great arm talent,” Cutcliffe said of Brice. “He’s a natural thrower. His accuracy level is really high. Great football IQ. Understand he’s still obviously learning a system. It’s tough as a quarterback. He did get the benefit of some Zoom meetings, but it’s not what the other guys got all through spring, because he was still in the process of trying to graduate. So he’s catching up. What I would tell you is he gets more comfortable with what we’re doing, more comfortable with passing game every day, but he’s a really good football player, and it’s important to him.”

On the other side of the ball, Cutcliffe sees plenty of potential leaders in Duke’s secondary.

“It’s real easy to say all of them (are leaders),” he said. “They’re having fun. Mark Gilbert is back, full speed. He obviously is inspirational as a veteran player. Marquis Waters is just .. he and Michael Carter in a safety combination are pretty darn special. Lummie Young (IV), J’Marick Woods, that whole group—Leonard Johnson, Josh Blackwell. We’re getting Jeremiah Lewis back. He’s been out just a little while. A lot of young talent there. We’re excited about that. We’re not as deep at safety as we’d like to be, so there’s some young player opportunity there. As always, some of our young guys are sore hamstring, sore quad. We’ve got to get through that to continue evaluating. It’s a fun group to watch work in the secondary right now. What’s been good for us, they’ve taken our young receivers and challenged them. I’ve watched us get better at receiver because of the quality and talent we have in the secondary.”