Luca Diamont Recovering From Elbow Procedure, Not Cleared to Throw

Duke’s spring battle for the starting quarterback job is not as crowded as expected. Returnees Chris Katrenick and Gunnar Holmberg are currently competing.

David Cutcliffe said that Katrenick, who backed up Quentin Harris last season, is the current number one, while Gunnar Holmberg, who missed last season with a knee injury, is the two.

Transfer Chase Brice will not participate in spring drills, because he’s still finishing up his degree at Clemson. That was an expected absence. The other absence was a bit of a surprise: True freshman Luca Diamont, who enrolled early to participate in spring, is recovering from an elbow procedure and not yet practicing.

"Well, I will tell you this and any football coach would tell you this, you're only as good as what your team is in spring ball,” David Cutcliffe said. “Their opportunity exists right now. Chris is running number one. Gunnar's running number two. Luca is not cleared yet to throw. He had some work done back in California but should be fine in the next half (of spring practice). He's throwing in the training room, but he had some elbow work done and he's going to be fine long term but just not live throwing yet. Robert Nelson’s getting some threes. But outside of that, the biggest portion of the work is fallen on Chris and Gunnar and now's the time.”

Cutcliffe gave some insight into how he chooses a quarterback.
"I was very intentional about the number of team snaps,” he said. “It's good for your football team, even better for your quarterbacks. There's no way to really evaluate quarterbacks unless you're in 11-on-11 mode. I'm running the meetings with the quarterbacks as well, that's part of what I'm committed to do. I'm real pleased from a meeting standpoint where we are. And again, I told them we're running everything against a good defensive football team. We got experience in the secondary, experience up front, experience at linebacker, a lot of speed, a lot of athleticism on defense. The best way to find out if a quarterback is going to be consistent is a bunch of 11-on-11 football. You know I'm going to do some different kind of scrimmaging all through the spring where we don't even go to the ground. We're going to get a bunch of snaps. We're going to see where we are at quarterback.
And Brice, a backup to Trevor Lawrence the last two years, is gone but not forgotten during spring.
"As far as Chase goes, obviously we're looking forward to getting him in here,” Cutcliffe said. “I think it'll be before summer, but it won't be until he's finished with his classes. He'll be around the players when he can and obviously get a lot of work in on his own there. But he knows this, he's got to come in here and compete. Nothing's handed to anyone."