Wooten: Timing of a perfect tenure in Duke football never in question

Nov. 18—DURHAM — Synchronized like a receiver jetting down the sideline, hauling in a long throw.

That burst into an interior gap, a menacing linebacker stopping a runner in his tracks.

Timing in football means everything. David Cutcliffe was perfect timing for Duke, better than anything that could have been imagined in those woeful winless years.

He put long losing streaks to bed and guided the Blue Devils to the ACC championship game, a feat nobody thought possible. Bowls were the norm, six times in seven seasons the Blue Devils were there.

His time in Wallace Wade Stadium appears nearing an end. And that's a sad sentence to write. He's one of the ACC's best, what we like to call good people.

Duke football never has been big business. Not since the teams went to the air and quit traveling by train. Those 1930s and '40s squads are legend, near-mythical in accomplishment. Cutcliffe's era rekindled chapter after chapter of memories, particularly the 1960 Cotton Bowl champions of Bill Murray.

The Pinstripe Bowl win in Yankee Stadium following the 2015 season was the first since.

This university is more international than regional. And as such, alumni are scattered heavily into the Northeast and all around the world. Home games don't draw a lot of fans, or sell tickets with empty seats. When you don't have checks to hand to visiting programs, you're a different kind of Power 5 football program.

Cutcliffe guided Duke around that mountain just fine. Joe Alleva hired him, and Kevin White was the athletics director during most of his tenure until recently retiring. The Devils didn't go playing patsies; they played programs like Rice and Vanderbilt with similar challenges, others who were in the middle of their leagues, and got into a number of games considered 50-50 toss-ups.

They won some of those, knocked off ACC teams, and benefitted from a Coastal Division that never produced a kingpin the way Florida State and Clemson ruled the Atlantic. Duke never backed into anything under Cutcliffe.

The Blue Devils have risen from worse than mediocrity — just flat-out bad — to AP Top 25 rankings and contender for their division crown. Now they're falling again.

Thursday night, Duke was beaten 62-22 by Louisville in Wallace Wade Stadium. The Cardinals became bowl eligible, the Blue Devils lost for the eighth time in 11 outings, and the heat warmed on AD Nina King and university President Vincent Price.

Cutcliffe has always kept his seat hot. Meaning, he expects to compete for championships, calls it like it is after losses just as much as wins, and has said multiple times this year he needed to do a better job.

The college silly season of coaching carousel spins earlier these days. The early signing period before major bowl games is one part, but so too is the transfer portal. Neither existed when Cutcliffe got the right people around him and led Duke up out of the ashes.

He'll tell you the Blue Devils play the same playing fields as do their opposition. There are no excuses.

There's also not as many wins anymore. He's got 77 in 14 seasons, and that's 67 more than the program earned from 2000 to 2007 — 58 more than 1997 to 2007.

The 28 dates with 30,000 or more in Wallace Wade have faded. The place looks fantastic, the track having been taken out, permanent blue seats spanning goal line to goal line on both sides. They likely don't do that without a winning program. Cutcliffe has led them back to that.

But season win totals of five, two and three evoke painful memories at Duke. Those are barely above the seasons Cutcliffe walked in behind, determined to fix things and do it the right way.

Miami comes here next Saturday after we're done with the Thanksgiving turkey. Manny Diaz, his AD having already been fired, may not be with them. Cutcliffe could be in his finale with Duke.

Timing is crucial in football. Cutcliffe, national champion as an assistant at Tennessee, was perfect for Duke.

Is he still? Hard to find a soul, including this one, who would want him out. He's too fine a coach, accomplished great things, and he is an even better man.

He could make the decision for King and Price. If not, his time for the future is a valid ask.

What isn't in question is the perfect timing of his tenure.

Bladen Journal sports columnist Alan Wooten can be contacted at 910-247-9132 or awooten@bladenjournal.com.