Getting to know Tyler Santucci
Can Duke's new defensive coordinator make Duke's defense even better?
It’s easy to see Tyler Santucci’s decision to leave Texas A&M for Duke as a head-scratcher. Santucci was co-defensive co-ordinator for the Aggies last season, sharing with D.J. Durkin the job made open when Mike Elko became head coach at Duke. Santucci left A&M for Duke on January 24 when Robb Smith resigned for personal reasons.
Texas A&M is a large, state-supported university in the SEC, the nation’s premier football conference. A&M has an undergraduate enrollment of almost 60,000. They play their home games at Kyle Field, with a listed capacity of 102,733. A&M alums are all over a state that produces as many top college players as any state. They were ranked fourth in the final AP poll as recently as 2020 and produced a Heisman Trophy winner--Johnny Manziel, of course--in 2012.
None of this describes Duke, a small academically-elite private school whose alumni are scattered all over the four winds and the seven seas, whose stadium holds about a third of A&M’s and hasn’t had a player receive even a single Heisman vote since Jay Wilkinson finished ninth in 1963.
The 34-year-old Santucci told the media Thursday that football wasn’t the only consideration in the move, maybe not even the most important.
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