Duke made offensive lineman Jacob Monk, quarterback Riley Leonard, defensive tackle DeWayne Carter and defensive back Brandon Johnson available at Saturday’s football media day. I’m going to hold most of what they said back for some position previews I’ll be putting together later this week. But there were some tidbits that I would like to share before then.
Carter is one of the nation’s best defensive tackles. You probably knew that. But he’s also thoughtful and articulate and willing to go beyond cliches.
He got that chance when he was asked if he could have imagined where Duke would be now two years ago when the Blue Devils were coming off the two miserable seasons that ended David Cutcliffe’s coaching career.
“Honestly, no, not really. It was hard to keep hope. But you love the game and that’s why you keep playing. If you don’t love it, you probably shouldn’t keep playing.”
Read that again. Hard to keep hope., That was the environment Mike Elko inherited.
“I kind of made a promise that I would live in the moment [this season],” Carter added. “No miracle goals, no ‘I need X amount of sacks.’ It’s my last year and this place means the world to me, this team means the world to me, these guys mean the world to me. So, I would be doing them a disservice if I didn’t live in the moment, be present every day, every lift, every practice.”
Offensive coordinator Kevin Johns told the media that offensive lineman Jacob Monk was his favorite player because of how hard he worked. I asked Monk about that praise.
”It means the world to me. He tells me [that] every now and then. He told me when I hurt my knee just how similar we were’ we’re not right in the head. We’re both crazy for football.”
I tried to create some mischief by asking Riley Leonard if he had a favorite receiver.
He was not biting.
“Nah, nah, I don’t have a favorite receiver. It’s very specific to the route. If you say ‘who’s the best out-route runner versus man’ I would probably say Jalon Calhoun. If you needed a stutter, slant route, I would go with Sahmir Hagans. If you want a 50/50 ball that turns into a 70/30 ball, I would go with Jordan Moore. It’s very specific on certain plays.”
That’s called sharing the love.
I mentioned that Leonard hadn’t mentioned his tight ends, especially Nicky Dalmolin.
“Nicky’s special. Nicky can do it all. He’s a very smart player, so if there’s a blitz coming or anything like that, he’s great with the check sneaks. He came in as a receiver, put on 20 or 30 pounds and now he’s one of the most dynamic tight ends in the league.”
Brandon Johnson was the fourth player to meet with the media. He and Carter tied for the team league in sacks last season with 5.5. They call each other “sack man.”
Johnson gets those sacks on blitzes.
He says expect more of the same this season, maybe more.
“Coach is going to dial it up and it’s my job to go out there and get it done. Coach touche (Santucci) is a real intense guy. He brings energy and that’s something we try to translate that into the field, always having energy, high effort. The play calls, I definitely think they will be in the same manner. Intense and I think we’ll be on the attack for sure.”
More to come.
I have tremendous respect for the job David Cutcliffe did, returning Duke to competitive status after two decades of irrelevancy under four different coaches. But I think the disastrous play-call at the end of that game in Chapel Hill was the beginning of the end. I think he started to lose his team that day and never really got it back. The program also suffered from an inability or refusal to keep up with the going rate for competent assistant coaches. Asking an apparently racist cop to address the team furthered the disconnect. But I think he genuinely felt he could turn it around with more season. We all know that the sports world is littered with successful people who simply did not know when to say goodbye. I think as time goes by we'll remember Cut's tenure at Duke fondly, while acknowledging that it was time for it to end.
It kills me that David Cutcliffe complained about his being forced out from Duke, when you read a comment like Dewayne Carter that it was hard to keep hope. Was Cutcliffe that far out of touch that he couldn’t see that? IMO, this tarnishes everything that his legacy at Duke had built to in his first 5-6 years.