Duke's David Cutcliffe: "Thank Goodness We Won the Fourth Quarter"

After four weeks of tough losses, Duke earned its first win of the season with a 38-24 victory at Syracuse.

“Congratulations to our players,” coach David Cutcliffe said. “Congratulations to our coaches for the hard work, the continuation of hard work, through all this difficult time. Congratulations to our players that aren’t here. They’re back home feeling better.”

After a tough offseason and tough first month to the season, Cutcliffe and Duke finally got to celebrate a win.

“It’s an amazingly inspirational time for me to see so many people care for others,” he said. “That’s what you want to see in difficult times, and man, has it been tough. It’s a pandemic. Things don’t go well, but nobody jumped ship.”

Cutcliffe discussed what worked against the Orange.

“The difference today is thank goodness, we won the fourth quarter and second half for the first time,” he said. “We answered scores with our offense. We haven’t done that. We won third downs as a team in a big way, and we physically dominated the line of scrimmage. That gives us a chance to grow and build. We’ve got to take care of the ball better at quarterback and on offense in general. We have some playmakers. I’m really proud of those guys. If we continue to work well as a team and prepare, then we’ll have a shot. That’s all you can ask for is to try to have a shot week in and week out in what’s going to prove to be the toughest schedule any Duke team has ever had to play. Ten Power Five games, 10 ACC games. I hope our players realize each week it’s going to be the same type of effort and same challenge to play well.”

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