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Duke's Cutcliffe may ease up on practice intensity
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Published: October 8, 2008
Coach David Cutcliffe will take a hard, close look at Duke this week to examine several problems that came up in last Saturday's loss at Georgia Tech.
Duke has an open date this weekend, giving Cutcliffe extra time to make corrections after the 27-0 loss dropped his team to 3-2 overall and 1-1 in the ACC. He was most upset by the lack of a running game and the lack of aggressive play.
"It wasn't really anything special that Georgia Tech did," Cutcliffe said. "We just really failed to execute, which I haven't seen in practice and which concerns me. Something's not correlating, and we have to address it quickly."
It was the first time this season that Duke was shut out. The offense generated only nine first downs and 35 yards rushing, and Duke's backs averaged 1.8 yards on 20 carries. That put the offensive burden on quarterback Thaddeus Lewis and his receivers, but the passing game also struggled. Lewis completed 15 of 29 passes for only 97 yards and was sacked twice and intercepted once.
Cutcliffe is wondering if Duke is peaking too early in the week, because of the nature of its practices, instead of on game day. He thought that last Thursday's practice, before the team left for Atlanta, was one of the best of the season.
"Maybe we're pushing these guys beyond what they're capable at this point," Cutcliffe said. "I'm a driver. We drive this thing hard and fast. I'm a big believer in tempo and energy and effort.
"Can they handle that week after week after week? That's where I am a little bit right now. I've got to make sure that we're not leaving it on the practice field. Our practices are really intense."
Cutcliffe is confident that if Duke can run the ball even slightly better, it can be more aggressive on offense. He considers recent running efforts "anemic," and he's hoping that an old practice staple called the "inside drill" will strengthen the play of the line and the backs. The drill calls for the tight end, fullback, tailback and five interior linemen to go against the interior defensive line and the linebackers.
"It's just full-speed football between the tackles," Cutcliffe said. "It's just running the football. It's a pretty physical drill.
"We do it every week. We try and limit some of the contact in it as far as tackling with the ground, but I believe we need a little bit of some full-speed inside drill to gain a little confidence in running the football."
Cutcliffe will still have to be cautious in how much he uses the drill.
"You can always turn the heat up a little bit," he said. "We're going to need to do some of that. We can't do tons of it because we can't afford to beat up our team. We don't have a lot of numbers available to us."
Duke's last practice this week will be Thursday, then the players will have three days off before regrouping next Monday. Duke will start a normal week of practice next Tuesday to prepare for a home game against Miami on Oct. 18.
Cutcliffe is pleased with his team's records, and he has seen substantial progress since spring practice. He remains convinced that Duke can achieve more in its final seven games.
"Thank goodness we've got a week to kind of look at this and figure it out," Cutcliffe said. "It's hard to know what to fix when it's not showing up broken until you play in a ballgame.
"But it's going to get fixed, and it's going to get fixed quick. We will not make a decision by indecision. We'll make decisions on what we're going to do to get better quickly. We'll crank this thing up, go make a decision and go make it work."
■ Bill Cole can be reached at bcole@wsjournal.com.
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