My look at Duke quarterbacks, past, present and future

Remember the name Maalik Murphy

“If you have two quarterbacks, you actually have none.”

John Madden said that.

“The backup quarterback is the most popular person on campus.”

Seems to have been around forever.

“Quarterbacks get too much credit when things are going well, too much blame when they aren’t.”

An oldie but goody.

“You quarterbacks get all the good-looking women.”

Brent Musburger said that and it got him in a lot of hot water.

You get my drift. Quarterbacks aren’t like you and me. Nobody ever said “if you have two tight ends, you actually don’t have any” or gave cornerbacks too much credit when things are going well or gave the keys to the figurative car to a wide receiver.

Like most football programs Duke has had a mixture of great quarterbacks to pretty good to average to I-don’t-remember-him-at-all.

Sonny Jurgensen is the greatest quarterback produced by Duke. Except his greatness wasn’t manifested until the NFL. Jurgensen threw all of 155 passes in three seasons at Duke. He completed 28 of 59 passes as a senior at Duke, with two touchdowns and six interceptions.

There were some injuries but mostly head coach Bill Murray was not a fan of throwing the ball. There was a saying in those days that three things could happen if you throw the ball and two of them are bad. Murray believed that to the bottom of his soul.

But friends in high places. Duke assistant Ace Parker made calls to the right people and Jurgensen got his chance.

Small sample size? Duke QB Jerry Barger was 1954 ACC Player of the Year. He completed 32 of 68 passes, three TDs, nine picks.

Sean Renfree completed 41 passes in a 2011 game against Boston College.

Murray grew to accept the forward pass after a nationally-televised 50-0 loss to North Carolina in 1959. Don Altman and lonesome end Tee Moorman keyed Duke to an 8-3 mark and Cotton Bowl win in the 1960 season and after that Murray always had a passing attack.

But it was Tom Harp who took it to the next level, giving Leo Hart something approaching a green light. In 1968 Hart became the first ACC quarterback to surpass 2,000 passing yards in a season. Fourteen years later Ben Bennett became the first ACC quarterback to go over 3,000 passing yards in a season. ACC POY Anthony Dilweg would have been the first to 4,000 yards if a 7-3-1 Duke team didn’t somehow miss the 1988 bowl season. Steve Slayden threw six TD passes against Georgia Tech in 1987. Mike Dunn, Spence Fisher, Billy Ray, Dave Brown.

Some tradition here. Of course there were some fallow years, too many to count. Maybe all those winless or one-win teams were because of lousy QB play. Or maybe the teams weren’t good enough to give Bobby Campbell, Adam Smith or Mike Schneider the tools they needed to succeed.

Which brings us to David Cutcliffe, the quarterback whisperer.