When I heard reports on the 11:00 news last night that Duke’s head football coach David Cutcliffe was talking to the University of Tennessee about its vacant head coaching position I assumed it was simply a matter of dotting some I’s and crossing some T’s to lure Cutcliffe away. I was stunned when it was announced this morning that Cutcliffe was staying put.
Did I hear that right? The coach of the lowly Duke Blue Devils turned down the the mighty Volunteers? The same school where he served as an assistant and cut his college coaching teeth on for 18 years before. Cutcliffe was reportedly interested in the job but balked once the AD informed him that they wanted him to retain some of the coaches that did not go with Lane Kiffin to USC.
It does not make sense to me why they would dictate such a thing to a coach like Cutcliffe who already has a staff in place and has been around the block a few times. It is not as if this is Cutcliffe’s first head coaching gig and he should be able to hire the assistants he is comfortable and familiar working with. Given that you have already been turned down by your the first two coaches you spoke with in Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp and Air Force head coach Troy Calhoun why are trying to dictate to Cutcliffe who he needs to retain?
It was also reported that Cutcliffe gave the school a drop dead date of Friday to come up with an acceptable offer. He did not want to dilly dally around with national signing day a mere three weeks away.
Talk about kicking a program when it is down though. I mean one would think that any coach in America would jump at the chance to coach at a place like Tennessee over Duke. Granted, Cutcliffe seems to be turning the program around, but prior to this past season Duke had been the laughing stock of the ACC for over a decade now. Duke is, always has been, and probably always will be a basketball school first and a football school second. Football is king at Tennessee.
Tennessee has the fan base and is willing to spend money to do whatever it takes to maintain a successful football program. Duke, on the other hand, seems to have had the attitude in years past that they only field a football team because the conference makes them. Prior to conference expansion Duke probably would have ended its football program if it thought it could get away with it and not face banishment from the conference for doing so.
Volunteers fans have to be scratching their heads over this recent turn of events. This is supposed to be a fairly prestigious coaching job right? Why is it that they seem to having so much trouble finding the right successor to Phil Fullmer? It now sounds like they are looking at Louisiana coach Derek Dooley, son of the legendary Vince Dooley.
Dooley is not exactly the guy that jumps to mind when one thinks of the next head coach at a major college football program. Sure he has the pedigree given who his father is and he was an assistant under Nick Saban for a handful of years, but, his record and experience as a head coach is pretty limited.
He has three years of head coaching experience all with Louisiana Tech compiling a 17-20 record. He has just one winning season and bowl appearance to his credit and that came in his second season there meaning the team got better his second season and took a step back his third. Dooley has yet to prove he can build and sustain a winning program of any kind.
That is not to say Dooley will not end up being the guy to lead the Vols for the next 20 years, but, it is a bit of a roll of the dice going with someone so unproven as a head coach.
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