Ask Anything: 10 questions with Duke Football Coach David Cutcliffe

I believe deeply in when changing a program you earn your way through change. Everything starts with conditioning. Everything starts with commitment. If there ever was a true statement in football it would be winning is an all the time thing. Until we can reach a conditioning level and a commitment level in our program it is not the scheme, it is not the planning or anything else, it is all about the hard work.

There is a chance that one of them or both of them might come in if they are open and we have a game. Obviously, their commitment is mostly to Tennessee and Ole Miss. They certainly would have a good opportunity to come in during spring practice or come in the winter, but not during the season otherwise because they are pretty busy in the fall.

Wallace Wade, as stated by our Director of Athletics Dr. Kevin White, needs a lot of work. I think that in its future you will have club level and suite seating, but the biggest thing I would like to see is some quality premium seats and some chairback seats, the facade of the stadium completely changed. I am not interested in it ever being 100,000, we are a different sized university, but I want it to be the nicest, highest-quality stadium from the restrooms right down to the playing field is my goal. When a young man comes here and says, "Wow, that is the best looking stadium I have ever seen." I think we all have to have that commitment.

There is always competition at quarterback. Thaddeus Lewis is going into fall practice as our No. 1 quarterback. That is the way it will start. Zack Asack is talented and committed so there will always be competition. There is always a chance you will see Zack in the game some or both of them in the game at the same time.

This is a great question, and physically, we look for kids who can run. If you don’t have good feet and can’t move your feet then you can’t run, you can’t play offense, you can’t play defense and you can’t play in the kicking game. The biggest thing we start with is a very coachable young man with character. If a youngster does not have character then it is very hard for them to take critiquing and the intensity level of coaching at this level. We think about our own children and some of them take correcting better than others. We are looking for young men with great character and great coachability.

I like that, a boisterous, small group of young men. I like the attitude of coming and being boisterous and loud. I think sometimes it is OK to be a little obnoxious. It could be that instead of the Durham Bulls we have the Duke Bulls. It kind of sounds like these guys are bulls. I don’t think it has to be named after me, Cut’s whatever, that doesn’t necessarily ring a bell with me. You guys will figure out something and I am glad you are coming and having fun at ballgames. I hope you have more fun.

Offensively, the similarities of the Tennessee offense in my past to now will be very similar. We will be very aggressive in our playcalling and hopefully very disciplined offensively where we have a great ratio in pass attempts to interceptions ratio, sack ratio and attempt to touchdown ratio. That is what we are looking for, producing points. We have a goal. We go into every game thinking we can score 30 points or more. We are going to approach that Duke the same way we have through all the years.

Certainly for young quarterbacks it is about getting to camps. We love to have quarterbacks in camp here who are 15 or 16 years old and get a great evaluation of him. Certainly his high school coach when he becomes a starter if he will send out tape and fill out the cards we send for prospects to fill out. I have no way of knowing if he is a prospect or not, but if you really want to find out if he is good enough to play at this level you need to get him into camp.

We have a hard time taking somebody on game day who is not with us. Our quote “waterboy” is our equipment staff. We have full-time Duke students who serve in that role in the training room. We may do something on occasion and have a guest or two but we will get back to you about that. We just really appreciate that you are intense and fans and that these guys are fans at 11 and 14 years old. They are approaching the age when it is safe to be on the sideline but the first thing is safety. We will have to see if that is something we can look at down the road.

First of all in recruiting there is not much people can do anymore with contact with prospects. What you can absolutely do on game day is we are trying to make the Blue Devil walk work. We need people to get here early enough and train people what real tailgating is. You can park, you have these coolers now that roll, you can come to the quad or come to a lot of lawn areas on campus. You can particularly set it up along the pathway of the Blue Devil walk to energize our team from that point on. Another thing I would like all real fans to do is to get in the stadium early. There is nothing better than the crowd starting to create an atmosphere during pregame warmup. Pregame warmup can either be an emotional letdown for a team or it is a time to get excited. I mean you are ready and have worked hard all week long. I am going to put a call out there amongst all the Duke faithful to get in the stadium early and I would really like our students to get there early. Get in the stadium and we will try to play some good music and make it fun.