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Should Duke and NC State Play More Often? Duke's Perspective

"Not really something you can do from an ACC standpoint" -- David Cutcliffe

Duke travels to NC State to play for the first time since 2009. It’s the first time they’ve played anywhere since 2013. State coach Dave Doeren said it’s “not fair” that the two neighbors play so infrequently.

Duke coach David Cutcliffe takes a bigger picture view of the scheduling challenges in the ACC.

“Well, I think that’s a great thing,” he said of the game, “but at the same time, it’s not really something you can do from an ACC standpoint, when you have 14 teams and divisions. They’re not going to let us. We have Wake every year (as Duke’s designated intra division rival). We have North Carolina, which is in our division. I don’t think they’re going to let us both not have a travel opportunity. The rest of the league would probably throw their hands up on that one.”

Cutcliffe holds out hope that it won’t be another seven years before the teams meet again, however.

“With the the mindset of what we’re in, we have no idea what next year is going to look like,” he said. “We may be playing nine or 10 conference games every year. That may what TV wants to see. In that environment, it would likely have better chance of happening.”

Cutcliffe discussed the pros and cons of playing the Wolfpack more often.

“Obviously, I think fans is probably where it falls,” he said. “Fans would love to see that old-fashioned rivalry. We’ve been around in the ACC forever. But football has changed. The cons would be the rest of the league would be pretty upset if we had proximity games we have we have—Virginia and Virginia Tech in our division. If you were playing NC State, Carolina and Wake, they would just view that as a negative if you’re in Louisville, Syracuse or Miami or any number of other teams in our league.”

NC State's Dave Doeren has a very different perspective on the game. Here are his thoughts.