Coach Cutcliffe Wants Duke To Sustain Success With Tougher Non-Conference Schedule
By Chris Brown
The past few years for Duke Football of been some of the best in school history under head coach David Cutcliffe, as the team has finished back-to-back seasons with 9+ wins and three consecutive bowl games for the first time ever. Cutcliffe, however, is not satisfied with the program staying where it is now that Duke is beginning to establish itself as a winning program. He hopes to be able to compete against some of the best competition by scheduling harder non-conference opponents for the Blue Devils in the near future.
Duke Blue Devils
The last two seasons Duke has gone 8-0 in non-conference regular season games, but those are coming against FCS teams NC Central and Elon as well as weaker Division I programs Troy (twice), Memphis, Navy, Kansas, and Tulane, with the Navy Midshipmen as the only FBS team finishing with a winning record by the end of the season (9-4 in 2013). In fact, the Blue Devils haven’t played a ranked non-ACC team since losing at Stanford early in 2012 and have been undefeated in out of conference games since then. Duke’s schedule will get a little tougher in the next few years, with a match-up against Northwestern from the Big Ten this season until 2018 as well as other future games scheduled against independent Notre Dame (2016, 2019-20, 2023), Big 12 member Baylor (2017-18), and Big Ten foe Illinois (2025-26).
In 2017, the ACC will join the SEC (2016) in requiring all of their football programs to play at least one Power 5 non-conference team each year in the regular season. David Cutcliffe believes that a tougher non-conference schedule will help Duke Football continue to improve on the field as well as gain more national exposure by playing against more high-profile teams:
"“We’re in the process of looking at opportunities. I would like to challenge our program. Certainly we’ve put ourselves in that position. Now you just have to execute it. Hopefully the scheduling Gods, which include a lot of people working in television, can work it out.” – David Cutcliffe"
Despite a visit from Northwestern this year, the Blue Devils will still have a pretty easy schedule which has also been noted by several different media outlets (Bleacher Report, College Spun). This season Duke also has Tulane, NC Central, and Army in their non-conference games and it also doesn’t help that they will be matched up with Boston College and Wake Forest in their conference cross-divisional contests. The combined record from last of all the Duke’s opponents is 69-82 with the only winning teams coming from the ACC Coastal Division.
Earlier in David Cutcliffe’s tenure, the Blue Devils have had tougher schedules competing against (and routed by) the likes of Stanford (twice) and Alabama from 2010-2012. Duke’s recent success has considerably raised the expectations for the program, and hopefully tougher non-conference schedules will help Duke Football take the next step to being a conference and national contender in the NCAA each year.