Friday, November 13, 2009
Rumor-mongering a recruiting staple
Duke’s Cutlcliffe has seen it all
Doug Doughty
Doug Doughty's College Notebook Plus is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Fridays.
Find his College Notebook from The Roanoke Times in Thursday's college sports section
Miss the Insider column? Check out the Insiders blog
Recent columns
For an abbreviated Notebook Plus before setting out for Tony Bennett’s debut as Virginia men’s basketball coach, we again turn to the mid-week ACC coaches’ teleconference and Duke football coach David Cutcliffe.
Cutcliffe was questioned this week by Georgia-based free-lance reporter Ray Glier, who referenced the situation at the University of Georgia, where ninth-year coach Mark Richt has come under some fire.
Presumably, Glier viewed Cutcliffe as an authority on the subject because Cutcliffe was fired by Mississippi despite a six-year record of 44-29 while competing in what is commonly viewed as the nation’s top college football league, the Southeastern Conference.
In his next-to-last season at Ole Miss, Cutcliffe was named SEC coach of the year in 2003 after taking the Rebels to a 10-3 record and a Sugar Bowl victory over Oklahoma State.
Glier’s frame of reference was Richt, but Cutcliffe’s answer also could have applied to the situation at Virginia, which is likely to make a change with coach Al Groh facing a third losing season in four years.
“Can a coach stop that negative momentum?” Glier asked.
“I don’t know if you can stop it any other way than winning,” Cutcliffe said. “The difficulty is not that you’re being talked about, not that your feelings are hurt. Even your families are pretty accustomed to criticism.
“I think the challenge is not letting it not letting it affect your players. You have to remain effective with your players and your players have to be very confident in you as a coach. You like it when your players are hanging on every word that you’re saying.
“You like it when your staff has great confidence in their leader, so I think the biggest challenge is maintaining that quality leadership role and the only way I know is to be who you are and continue to do those things you deeply believe in. Don’t push the panic button.”
Obviously, keeping recruits in the fold is a huge problem when rival coaches are there to pass along every rumor about the insecurity of a rival.
“They’re going to be saying that,” Cutcliffe said. “That might be lighter than some of the other things they say occasionally. You’re really dealing with something negative all the time.
“Good gosh, if you have a negative newspaper article, it gets sent to them. If you have a player get in trouble, it gets sent to them. It’s a constant barrage.
“I think you say, ‘Listen. I expect them to be saying that. Here’s my contract terms. We believe we’re going to be right here and have no reason to believe otherwise.’
“That’s how I would approach it, but sometimes it gets out of your control.”
