When Charlie Weis became Notre Dame head coach in late-2004, he hired David Cutcliffe as his first offensive coordinator. Cutcliffe had just been fired by Ole Miss after his only losing season in Oxford, a mistake the Rebels would come to regret. However, Cutcliffe suffered a heart attack just before fall camp in 2005 and retired without ever coaching a game in South Bend.
After a year away from the sidelines, Cutcliffe returned to his old stomping ground at Tennessee before becoming the head coach at Duke in 2008. Prior to hiring Cutcliffe, the Blue Devils’ last three teams were a combined 2-33 and ranked dead last in SP+ among major conference teams in all three years. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more hopeless situation in college football save pre-Snyder Kansas State.
Fast forward to the present day where Duke is among the most reliable and solid programs in the country. After a 15-33 start, Cutcliffe is 56-43 in Durham with three bowl wins at what was previously a football wasteland. Annoyingly, that run also includes a win over Brian Kelly’s listless 2016 team in South Bend. On Saturday, the Irish will have a chance to scrub some of the residual bad feelings from that game.
#15 Notre Dame (-8) at Duke
Wallace Wade Stadium
Durham, North Carolina
Date: Saturday, November 9, 2019
Time: 7:30 PM ET
TV: ACC Network
Duke’s Offense
After losing the best sixth overall pick in NFL Draft history, the Blue Devil’s offense has cratered from 52nd last year to 95th. The raw stats for QB Quentin Harris are decent, but the right-hander has struggled mightily in the four games since the Blue Devil’s 45-10 win over Virginia Tech. Harris hasn’t exceeded 56% completion percentage in that timespan while averaging a measly 5.4 yards per attempt.
Defenses have adjusted to the Devils’ sometimes funky offense and clamped down on a stable of talented backs. Despite four returning starters on the offensive line, Harris and the rest of Duke’s running backs have found little running room. After distinguishing himself in the run game in the first four games with 76 yards per game at 6 yards a carry, Harris has since averaged just 26 yards at 2.2 yards a carry.
Notre Dame kicked the tires on Deon Jackson in recruiting who is Duke’s leading rusher and was an All-ACC performer last year. Jackson is averaging a full yard and a half less per attempt than last year and he certainly isn’t the greatest jump passer. The other backs have been equally inept with Mataeo Durant, Brittain Brown and Jaylen Coleman averaging 3.8 yards a carry combined.
Duke’s receivers are decent, but not at all explosive. Jalon Calhoun is the leading receiver with the same number of receptions as Chase Claypool, but nearly 300 less yards. The rest of the receiving corp is equally unimpressive, but it’s hard to tell whether that’s due to talent limitations or Harris’ recent struggles.
Duke’s Defense
Despite a suddenly hopeless offense, the Blue Devils have managed modest improvement on the defensive side of the ball. Duke is at 37th in defensive SP+ after ranking 46th last year and are poised to finish ahead of the offense for the sixth straight year. David Cutcliffe might be known as an offensive genius, but it’s been his defense which has fueled Duke’s success since 2013.
The Devils are paced by a strong secondary that was anchored by Safety Marquis Waters and CB Mark Gilbert before Gilbert suffered a season-ending injury. Nonetheless, Duke is only giving up about 200 yards passing per game at 54% completion percentage. That number becomes more impressive considering Tua and Alabama put almost 400 yards on them in the season opener.
Duke is also above average against the run in only giving up 3.8 yards a carry. Considering the state of the Irish offensive line, ND’s running backs would have a great day if they exceeded that number. Even the Crimson Tide struggled against this front, rushing for 145 yards at just 3.4 yards per attempt.
This is a solid defense that will give ND problems, especially in the running game. Even in losing three of the last four, the Blue Devils’ defense has played well enough to win only to be let down by their anemic offense.
Marquis Waters
Prediction
It’s been a strange, unexpected season so far and now Notre Dame has to play a strange, unpredictable opponent. In last week’s VT preview, Eric talked about how crappy the middle class of the ACC is and Duke is right in that middle of that blob of mediocrity.
A month ago, we thought Notre Dame might be peaking around the time of this game. Now, we have no idea what to expect in Durham tomorrow. A loss would mean more *big picture* conversations and we’d have to deal with the stain of two straight losses to Duke in football. Yet, it’s fair to say that Notre Dame should win this game and cover the spread on talent alone.
Three questions…
Will Duke be pesky at home for once?
Since 2012, the Blue Devils are just 4-15 at home against P5 teams that finished bowl-eligible. Among these clunkers include a 59-7 loss to 5-6 Wake Forest last year and a six turnover performance against Pitt in September.
In fact, most of Cutcliffe’s most memorable moments at Duke have happened in hostile stadiums, from beating ND in 2016 to upsetting Miami in Coral Gables last year. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a magic moment in him, but there is no evidence to suggest Duke is more difficult to beat at home than on the road.
Wallace Wade Stadium should (theoretically) be well-stocked with Irish fans, which will make it even less of a home-field advantage for the Devils. That leads me to suspect this game might be another weird road ACC environment for Notre Dame. Hopefully this will look more like 2018 Wake Forest or 2017 Boston College than 2013 Pitt.
Can the Irish defense avoid sleepwalking?
Duke’s offense is so bad that it might be the worst unit the Irish play this year outside of Bowling Green and New Mexico. That doesn’t mean Cutcliffe won’t have some tricks up his sleeve following the bye week. I mentioned that the Blue Devils have been experimenting with the triple option at times this year and we’re almost certain to seem them try something funky against us.
Clark Lea and the defense just have to do their jobs in a game where the Irish offense might be severely limited. Don’t let Quentin Harris get back to his early-season form and definitely do not give up explosive plays against this offense. If the Irish can weather the initial punch and adjustment period, I see no reason why the Blue Devils should exceed three scores.
Will Ian Book be efficient in the passing game?
There is a high likelihood that the Irish won’t be able to run the ball without Kraemer and Hainsey against a good defense. Therefore, Ian Book will once again have to bear the mantle of responsibility for keeping the offense on schedule. As Pete Sampson pointed out below, there might be emerging evidence that he’s capable of doing that!
Something to note on last week’s pass game.
Ian Book threw into Drop 8 looks 17 times against Virginia Tech, most of the winning drive, including 26-yarder to Claypool.
In the season’s first seven games he threw into Drop 8 just 12 times total.
— Pete Sampson (@PeteSampson_) November 6, 2019
The Devils are good in the secondary, but opponents have found enough holes in the back-end to score points. This will be the first game since Georgia where the Irish might just concede the run right off the bat and place the game on Book’s shoulders. If he has truly learned from last week, then ND will score enough points to win. And please please please don’t turn the ball over.
***
This game has “unimpressive slog” written all over it. The Irish are banged up and playing on the road against a team that has enough pieces to keep things close, but probably not enough to win. The spread seems about right considering how ND has struggled since the first half against USC.
Duke will ugly this game up, especially against the Irish offense. If Chip Long has any gadget run plays left in his playbook, now might be the time to use them. Any signs of life from Tony Jones and Jafar Armstrong would be much appreciated in a game where a couple of big runs could mean the difference between a blowout and a barnburner.
I just can’t imagine the Blue Devils winning this game unless Quentin Harris has a couple of explosive plays in him and the Irish offense is completely hopeless. Duke’s offense is so bad that I can see the ND defense holding them to single-digits and turning this into a 17-point win if Ian Book plays well.
Ultimately David Cutcliffe on a bye week and a solid Duke defense will test the Irish but Notre Dame should win, albeit in a manner that will be ascetically unpleasant to watch. It might be a good thing that this game will be on a network nobody seems to own.
Nice preview. FYI to anyone who might need it: you can get a free 14 day trial of YouTube TV on your Smart TV or Xbox One and that includes ACC Network. That’s how I’m watching since Comcast doesn’t yet offer the network. Also have several reminders next week to cancel prior to getting charged for it.
I have youtubeTV…..I would suggest looking into it if you find you’re paying excessive cable bills and you don’t watch exotic channels. I’m saving $60 a month and get every channel I want.
It would be kind of cool if there was 1 ND Men’s sporting event this week I could watch on anything other than ACC Network (or ACC NetX???). That being said, this seems like it will be one of those games where I would just be annoyed to be watching, even if we’re leading. I’d like to think we could score more than 22 against Duke, but I really think that’s pretty close to spot on. Maybe 24-16 or something like that. Yuck.
I am thinking I have no chance to find this game over on this side of the Atlantic. I have been using the excellent USTVNow but it doesn’t look like they show the ACC network. Accessing all that US stuff from overseas typically does not work. I will just toss this whine out to see if anyone has an idea.
It’s on AFN (tape delayed to Sunday 1500 CET) if you have an AFN receiver.
Hey you three — thanks very much, each of you. I’ll try all three — I do get AFN, but I have to leave about 1600 CET for Normandy, so, I’ll try the other two first. Much appreciated, all!
Go Irish
I’ve been told by pretty reliable sources that sportsurge dot net is excellent. No VPN required. The usual warnings apply.
I found with some semi-regularity you can at times find a game live on Youtube (not Youtube TV, just Youtube). Type in the teams, and then filter by live streams. The drawbacks are (1) it’s hit or miss if someone is streaming the game you want, (2) there’s always a possibility the stream gets taken down part way through, (3) you have to wade through all the “live streams” that just say “click the link in the description” – HINT: look for a live stream that has more than 3 or 4 people watching.
It’s definitely not a guarantee by any means, but I certainly have been able to watch whole games that way, and you don’t have to worry about exposing your computer to a sketchy website.