Duke football moves on from head coach David Cutcliffe

The Duke football team is searching for a new head coach as the school has parted ways with David Cutcliffe. 

In the biggest news of the day in the college football world, the Duke football program and head coach David Cutcliffe have mutually parted ways.

Cutcliffe’s first year in Durham was 2008, and he help build the Blue Devil football program from the ground up. But over the last two seasons, Duke has been quickly falling back to irrelevancy.

The head coach brought the Blue Devils to six bowl games in his tenure, as all six came in a seven-year span from 2012-2018.

This will be the third straight season Duke is not in the postseason after posting a 3-9 season this year, which was on the heels of a 2-9 campaign a season ago.

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Duke only won one ACC game over the last two seasons and was outscored 373-119 in conference games this season.

The Blue Devils allowed over 30 points in every ACC game this year and conceded more than 44 points in six of the eight conference games.

Cutcliffe also developed two first-round NFL draft picks in his time with the program, Laken Tomlinson in 2014 and Daniel Jones in 2019.

The former head coach at Ole Miss is best known for being the mentor and college coach for NFL legends Peyton and Eli Manning.

Potential candidates for Duke football program

Director of Athletics Nina King, who already had to find a replacement for men’s basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski, said in a statement that a national search for a new head coach will begin immediately.

The program announced that Trooper Taylor, an associate head coach, will serve as the interim head coach.

Two popular names that continue to surround the Blue Devils program are Notre Dame defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman and Georgia defensive coordinator Dan Lanning.

Duke could also look to ACC powerhouse Clemson and try to pry its offensive coordinator, Tony Elliot, to Durham.

It seems unlikely for the Blue Devils to take a swing for the fences and try to hire former Florida head coach Dan Mullen or former LSU head coach Ed Orgeron.