Why Duke’s Birmingham Bowl trip brought David Cutcliffe back to the Blue Devils

As the bus carrying Duke’s football team rolled to the parking lot at Hoover High School on Wednesday, a familiar face awaited the Blue Devils’ arrival.

Soon, they heard a voice carrying the messages that had brought many of the players to Duke in the first place.

For the first time in two years, since his tenure as Duke’s head coach abruptly ended, David Cutcliffe reunited with the Blue Devils.

“The guys were so geeked up when he walked out there,” Duke interim head coach Trooper Taylor said.

As the Blue Devils prepared for Saturday’s Birmingham Bowl game against Troy, fate brought them back together with their old coach.

When Duke parted ways with him after 14 seasons, Cutcliffe returned to his home state. He bought a home outside Birmingham, his hometown, and took a job with the Southeastern Conference.

The Blue Devils went 7-5 in the regular season and were assigned to the Birmingham Bowl, which meant they’d be housed in a suburban hotel in Hoover and practice at Hoover High.

That happens to be 10 minutes from Cutcliffe’s home.

“I believe everything happens for a reason,” said Taylor, who came to Duke in 2019 as a Cutcliffe assistant and stayed on staff when Mike Elko coached the Blue Devils the last two seasons.

Cutcliffe recruited three of Duke’s team captains — DeWayne Carter, Jacob Monk and Ja’Mion Franklin — and coached them at the school.

His presence at two practices this week and a speech to the team before Wednesday’s workout brought back years of good feelings for everyone.

His talk about the importance of being a good teammate brought back memories among players he recruited years ago.

“It was a reminder of the foundation and the regime that I came in under,” Carter said. “Coach Cut is that same guy who he was. The same guy who he is. He was reiterating the same messages that he had been since I’ve been 15 or 16 getting recruited by him way back when.”

Though he led Duke to six bowl appearances from 2012-18, including an ACC championship game appearance, Cutcliffe’s final seasons were tough as Duke went 5-17 over 2020 and 2021. The Blue Devils lost their final 13 ACC games under Cutcliffe.

Elko replaced him, leading Duke to a 16-9 overall record, including 9-7 in ACC play, over the last two seasons before leaving Nov. 27 to become Texas A&M’s coach.

That work impressed Cutcliffe, so what he saw at Duke’s practice didn’t surprise him.

“I saw exactly what I thought I would see from looking at him from a head coaching perspective,” Cutcliffe said. “The energy, the effort, the organization on the practice field, the buy-in of the players was all there. Success isn’t an accident. It becomes a matter of practice habits over a long period of time. And I saw those. I looked closely for them.”

When Duke Athletics Director Nina King decided against bringing Cutcliffe back for the 2022 season, Cutcliffe only had time for a quick five-minute meeting with the players to say he was no longer their coach.

Some players stayed in touch with Cutcliffe and his wife, Karen, over the past two years.

This month, Taylor initiated having Cutcliffe meet with the team while it was practicing so close to his home. Taylor made sure Duke’s athletics department was OK with it.

“I know good people and Coach Cut is an amazing person, amazing man, husband and father,” Taylor said, “I’ve called on that guy so many times for things that had nothing to do with football, just to help me through times that were tough.”

King was glad for it to happen. She and Cutcliffe spoke before the team traveled to Birmingham.

“It makes perfect sense,” King said. “We’re in Birmingham. He’s here. He knows most of the team. I just asked him to come and be around practice and the game if he was interested and available. We’re really glad he took us up on that.”

After taking over a Duke program in 2008 that had won just 10 games over the previous eight seasons, Cutcliffe resuscitated Blue Devils football. Elko said often that the job Cutcliffe did set the stage for success over the last two seasons.

Guys who played for both coaches concurred.

“I mean, I have the utmost respect for him,” Franklin said. “He gave me my opportunity to really change my life by coming to Duke. I owe a lot to him.”

As much as Cutcliffe enjoyed seeing everyone again, he said it was even “more fun to watch them practice football (so well). And that’s a tribute to Coach Elko and his staff and what they’ve done.”

Cutcliffe didn’t attend Saturday’s Birmingham Bowl, where Duke beat Troy, 17-10, because he’d previously planned an out-of-state trip to visit family.

Still, the last week has Duke and its former coach closer than they’ve been since they parted two years ago.

When Duke held a reunion of the 2013 ACC Coastal Division championship team, which posted a program-record 10 wins, at its Oct. 14 home game with N.C. State, Cutcliffe didn’t attend.

So perhaps the Birmingham Bowl trip that brought Cutcliffe and Duke back together will mean more collaborations in the future.

“It’s time for that statue to go up sometime soon,” Taylor said. “He definitely deserves it.”