David Cutcliffe wants to make sure everyone takes the right approach to restarting college football
Posted May 27, 2020 6:00 p.m. EDT
Updated May 27, 2020 6:36 p.m. EDT
Duke head coach David Cutcliffe is one of college football's most respected voices. He's been in a lot of meetings about the future of college football in 2020. And when he joined The OG on Wednesday, he wasn't joining the chorus of those who say the earlier, the better.
And as evidenced with geographical differences in terms of policy and rules, it's far from a certainty that everyone will play.
"I've been in a lot of meetings that were national meetings that involved NCAA medical people. I'm a board member with the American Football Coaches Association, the Football Oversight Committee," Cutcliffe said. "One of the things that's very obvious throughout all of this, every time you think you know something, that changes — to some level anyway, sometimes completely. States, universities — there's going to be a difference. I think that you could see potentially if there's enough of a majority, if all of that happens, that we will play.
"I think if we're reckless and we get in too big a hurry, we sometimes probably do more damage to having a season than if we're just a little bit patient. Hopefully then we are ready to move forward. But we've got all the plans in place."
Cutcliffe is coaching his team from afar still, and Duke is all virtual. He says that his coaches have their schemes ready. He's not yet sure what Duke University is going to do — Duke will be open in the fall, it announced, but it won't announce specific plans as to what that will look like or even how many students will be allowed back until later in June.
The NCAA voted to allow college football workouts to resume on campus as of June 1.
He's planning as if there will be a season because he has to be ready for all possibilities, though. And he wants to reinforce with his team that they need to do the right things when everything resumes too, because COVID-19 will still be here.
"I still think — this is just my opinion — the best chance for us to have a season is to bring them in July when we absolutely know a little bit more about what to do and what the circumstances are. I've spent three days doing nothing but preparation of protocol and how we're going to operate and what we're going to do to the facility and how we're managing that. We're going to probably use two different locker rooms. So what we're going to do is try to be seamless when we do start," Cutcliffe said.
"I'm just praying over this, to be honest with you. I don't know what's going to happen to high school football around the country. I tell our players all the time — the NBA stopped at one positive test. Remember, it was after warmups. One positive test shut that league down. So if our people aren't disciplined and we don't do the things we should do, who knows what's going to happen?"