Pitt game day: Cutcliffe not a fan of 8:00 PM kickoffs. "I'd prefer 9 AM"

Team has routine for late games

Duke football faces Pitt Saturday night in an ACC Coastal Division showdown that will be televised on the ACC Network. Duke is 3-1, 1-0 in the league. Pitt is 3-2, 0-1 in the league.

There have been some shootouts in the series since Pitt joined the conference. The Panthers scored 56 on the Blue Devils in 2016, 48 in 2014 and 58 in 2013.

It has nothing to do with Pitt’s offensive schemes though. Coach David Cutcliffe said, “It’s just people. They’ve had some good people running the football and now they’ve got an excellent quarterback and big receivers.”

Cutcliffe doesn’t like the 8:00 kickoff.

“Us old people would rather be getting ready to go to bed at that time, because I get up so early,” he said.

Cutcliffe said the team has a system to prepare the team.

“Our itinerary is always going to be the same those days,” he said. “One thing I’ve learned, and young people do well with this, we let them sleep in. We don’t wake them up before 9:30.”

The team will eat and have meetings in the morning.

“We don’t ever have long meetings on gameday,” he said.

Then the team will go back to their rooms until three and a half hours before game time.

“I could kick off at 9:00 AM,” he said. “Pac-12 doesn’t like it, bring it here.”

Cutcliffe will lean on tight end Noah Gray, who was not recruited heavily in high school.

“We had him in camp and I was like, ‘What are people missing?’ To me he was a no brainer,” he said.