Duke began its 2023 football season last Friday. The formal practice part, at least/
This is a huge season, of course, with Clemson, Notre Dame, Florida State, Pitt, NC State and UNC, among others, on a schedule that might be the toughest ever for Duke.
But they’re all going to be huge from here on out, with the seemingly constant conference musical chairs just churning along. Football doesn’t just move the needle the most; sometimes it seems like it is the primal moving force in college sports in ways that it never was when the likes of Ted Roof and Carl Franks were patrolling the sideline.
In a way, of course, this isn’t the beginning of the season as much as its a continuation of a season that began with spring practice and continued with summer workouts, weight-lifting and other conditioning, additions and subtractions from the roster, NIL negotiations, a transfer portal in overdrive. Duke even welcomed back Jeremiah Lewis to the roster last week. He’s a defensive back who left for Northwestern and came back to Duke, motivated at least in part by the unsavory culture at Evans, one would presume.
Like it or not college sports is pretty darn close to a year-round endeavor for today’s student-athletes. There’s fall baseball, fall tennis, fall golf, fall softball, spring soccer, in addition to spring football. The Duke social media folks keep sending out videos of basketball players working out in the summer preparatory to a season that won’t end until March at the earliest and hopefully run into April.
A season really is a lifetime.
But as much as the beginning of fall practice seems like more of the same, it is different. I talked with Tyler Santucci a few weeks ago. He’s Duke’s new defensive coordinator, the only major addition to Mike Elko’s support staff. I asked him to identify his defense’s strengths and weaknesses and he demurred.
“I think we have 25 practices to get through that, you know, I'm not ready to say we're strong here and here, we're weak here and here. I think after these 25 practices, we'll have a really good idea of like who we are and what we're gonna become over these next three or four weeks.”
Fair enough. Santucci is Duke’s new defensive coordinator/linebackers coach. But he’s the only new coach on staff. Duke has key returnees at every position but also needs to integrate transfers, redshirt freshmen, true freshmen, guys who have been injured, guys who are just figuring it out and oh, yes, classes are going to be starting soon.
In other words, we have unanswered questions galore and we’re just at the beginning to find answers stage. Every football program in the country starts off by saying things like “I’m excited to see where we go this year” (Jaylen Coleman) or “our standard is our standard” Ja’Mion Franklin.
Franklin said Duke is bigger, stronger and faster than last year and we’ll find out soon enough. I’ll start getting into the weeds as Duke gets deeper into fall practice and closer to that season-opener against Clemson.
Is there a distraction looming? Duke’s offensive line coach Adam Cushing spent 15 seasons at Northwestern, a school recently in the news for all the wrong reasons. Cushing hasn’t been sued--as far as I know--but he was mentioned in a suit filed by Ramon Diaz, an offensive linemen in the first decade of this century. Diaz claims that Cushing knew or should have known about ethnic-based hazing endured by Diaz.
Trust me, I don’t usually cover the legal beat and part of me wants this to just go away., with as little fuss as possible. But when Mike Elko met the media Friday, his first words were a defense of Cushing.
“He’s a great husband. He’s a great father. He’s a great football coach. Obviously, I can’t comment on anything that happened in the past. I won’t comment on anything in the past but certainly since he’s been with us, I couldn’t be happier with the job that he’s done.”
Note that offensive coordinator Kevin Johns also coached at Northwestern. But as far as I know he hasn’t been mentioned in any lawsuits.
Again, with the disclaimer noted above, this seems like something that’s going to play out in courtrooms far from Durham. I expect it to stay on the back-burner. But food on the back-burner can still be simmering and the fact that Mike Elko devoted the opening portion of his first fall press conference to a defense of Adam Cushing suggests that it’s simmering.
More football coming soon. Hopefully, with no legal proceedings.
I’m looking forward to lots more football coverage.
Now that's what I'm talking about. Football news. Great article, Jim and I know the succeeding ones will be too. You and I can remember when Duke Football was right there with Duke Basketball. Jay Wilkinson, Mike Curtis, Ernie Jackson, etc. Oh, I bet Bob Green remembers also.
GoDuke!