Scouting Report - Duke
If it seems like forever ago that David Cutcliffe was supposed to be on Charlie Weis’ Notre Dame coaching staff, it’s because it was. He never made it to the season and it would have been interesting to see what happened if he did. He’s clearly a heck of a coach and has proven that by turning Duke into a respectable program.
Although the rebuild didn’t happen overnight, Cutcliffe has taken the Blue Devils to six bowl games in the last eight seasons. Since 2012, he’s 57-44. At Notre Dame that gets a coach fired. By accomplishing that at Duke, Cutcliffe deserves a statue.
This doesn’t look like it will be a bowl team for Duke in 2020. The talent level is good enough to compete with most of the ACC, but not the top teams. Notre Dame is one of those top teams and they put it on Duke last season averaging 3.11 yards more per play when they faced off.
They’re ranked 71st in the SP+ preseason rankings. The only ACC teams ranked below them are Syracuse and Wake Forest. Notre Dame should head into the game as a three score favorite and the only way I see it being a tight game is if Duke’s defense has a lights out performance.
Injuries
There’s not a lot of injury news coming out for teams, but we did find out that starting center Jack Wohlabaugh is out for the season with an ACL injury. That’s a huge blow for them at a position where they were already at a disadvantage.
Backup cornerback Ken Torain is also out indefinitely, but he has barely played in his career.
LB Brandon Hill opted out. He started six games for them last season before an injury took him out of the lineup.
That’s all we know for now, but we could find out more closer to game time.
Offense
This is why it’s so difficult to see Duke beating Notre Dame. They are 115th in the preseason projections on offense. They don’t have the talent that is going to scare many defenses in the ACC.
Duke finished 125th in yards per play last season. Clearly change had to happen and some of that is coming with personnel and with Cutcliffe taking over play-calling duties.
Expected Strengths:
Welp, this section will be short.
There really isn’t one thing where I could point to and say Duke should be strong in this area.
Noah Gray is reliable tight end and Deon Jackson is a versatile option out of the backfield, but neither of them put up great numbers in 2019.
Potential Weaknesses:
With that section being short, you knew this section was going to be pretty long. Let’s start with how their offense performed against Notre Dame last season.
Their starting quarterback averaged 3.6 yards per attempt throwing and he ran for 10 yards on seven carries. Jackson had one run that went for 19 yards. His 13 other carries went for 33.
Despite relying on quick game and getting the ball out to the perimeter often, they gave up a sack and 11 pressures on 31 total drop backs. Notre Dame was extremely aggressive with their receivers and gave up only 25 yards after the catch (17 on first drive). They had no runs of 20 yards or longer and one pass of 20 or longer.
That performance pretty much summed up their season.
They didn’t have athletes at receiver who could create after the catch and they protected the offensive line by getting the ball out quickly. It was a disastrous recipe given the personnel.
They were 124th in plays of 20 yards or longer last year and were one of the least explosive offenses in the country. Their top two receivers averaged less than 10 yards per reception and they averaged only 3.6 yards per carry running the football.
They desperately need someone who can stretch the field to emerge and the one player to watch is junior Damond Philyaw-Johnson. He is very fast (ran a 10.66 100 meters in high school), but only caught two passes all of last season.
When they tried to run the ball in short yardage, they struggled to convert on 3rd or 4th down, finishing 97th in Power Success Rate. Despite so much quick game, Duke was 78th in Sack Rate and they don’t have good enough players up front to deal with the top pass rushers they’ll face. The offensive line should be an average group at best in the ACC.
Can they get Jackson involved in a way that can take advantage of his talents? Will they have better quarterback play to let them open up the playbook?
The answer might be no to those questions and it’s why they aren’t projected to be very good on offense in 2020.
Scheme:
Cutcliffe is taking over the play-calling and is expected to be more aggressive attacking down field. Last year they ran a lot of quick game and screens. Even with Daniel Jones at quarterback, they ran a lot of shorter routes to avoid pressure.
While I wouldn’t expect them to go away from that, they need to generate more big plays down the field. They only had 9 receptions of 30 yards or more last season.
They don’t have the personnel to play heavy. They typically like to spread teams out with one back or go empty the majority of the time, but if they are going to take more shots, they might need to keep a tight end in to help protect on those plays.
Last season they ran their quarterback a lot in short yardage situations, but with a new quarterback, I’m not sure if we’ll see that. They showed a Wing-T option look and we’ll see if Cutcliffe will bring that out at some point, but they used that for entire drives to help them run the ball. It’s something Clark Lea and the staff at least has to prepare for.
They run their fair share of RPOs and much of their running game is them running inside zone. It’s expected they are going to play more uptempo this season and they were already 38th in plays per game run last season.
Key Players:
RB Deon Jackson - He has shown in the past he can be a playmaker in space, but his yards per carry dropped from 5.26 to 3.73 in 2019. He only had one run longer than 30 yards and they need him to get back to previous production.
TE Noah Gray - He caught 51 balls last year and is a capable intermediate receiver. 26 of his catches came on 3rd or 4th down and I would expect Kyle Hamilton or Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah to be matched up with him often.
OT Devery Hamilton - The Stanford transfer is expected to start at left tackle. He wasn’t a great player on the Farm, but did have experience playing at several different positions.
QB Chase Brice - The Clemson transfer is the projected starter. He mostly played in garbage time at Clemson, but did help the Tigers in a comeback victory over Syracuse in 2018 when Trevor Lawrence went down with an injury.
Key Matchup for Notre Dame:
Gray vs Hamilton - Hamilton did a fantastic job matching up with tight ends at the end of last season and Gray is going to be the go-to guy for Duke. On 3rd downs, I’d expect to see them competing against each other a lot.
Defense
Cutcliffe might be considered a quarterback whisperer because of his work with the Manning brothers and Jones, but this current Duke team is only going to go as far as the defense takes it.
They are projected 34th in SP+ and though they lose a couple of key contributors, they have a handful of future NFL players starting and they play very fast. This is going to be a good early test for Tommy Rees and the Notre Dame offense.
Expected Strengths:
The main reason why this defense is good has to do with pressure. They can generate it with only four rushers and last year they finished 20th in Sack Rate. The pass rush gave Notre Dame a challenge last season, with defensive end Chris Rumph II in particular being a problem. He’s an outstanding player who they line up all over the place and he is fantastic rushing from the interior. Aaron Banks and Trevor Ruhland gave up a combined seven pressures with Rumph producing most of those.
They have two more good ends in Victor Dimukeje and Drew Jordan who help make Duke more than a one-man show.
Safety Michael Carter II is swiss army knife for them who can play man to man in the nickel or play deep. He leads a solid secondary that compliments the pass rush. They should be a fast and disciplined group that is really good when they get teams in longer yardage situations.
Potential Weaknesses:
Book ran for 147 yards against them last season (taking out a loss of eight yards on a broken play). Notre Dame attacked their interior and ran inside the tackles 20 times for 207 yards. They generally weren’t great at stopping the run last season and I’m not sure they’ll be much better in 2020.
They finished 74th in yards per carry and were 114th in giving up runs of 30 yards or longer.
This year they’ll be missing sideline to sideline presence of Koby Quansah at linebacker (105 tackles) and safety Dylan Singleton (87). Those two helped them shut down a lot of perimeter runs and screens. Without them, they may be vulnerable this season.
It’s an undersized group and I’m not sure they can match up with Notre Dame physically when it comes to stopping the run.
Scheme:
It’s a multiple defense with a 4-2-5 as the base. That means they can move people around quite a bit in terms of pressure if they want, but for the most part, they are a four man rush team who plays a lot of zone behind it.
When they do pressure, it’s still going to be mostly zone behind it on 3rd down. I don’t think we’ll see a lot of five man pressure from them, but some fire zones with ends dropping into coverage appear more likely.
If cornerback Mark Gilbert is back to the player he was, he missed the last two seasons with a hip injury, we may see more man coverage from them.
When they drop eight, they can get pressure with three, but often have a fourth rusher on passing downs who lines up as a stand up linebacker shifting before the snap. That will be Dimujeke occasionally, but mostly it will be Rumph.
Think of what Notre Dame has done with Daelin Hayes and what they did with Jamir Jones last season. It will look similar to that.
That is what Notre Dame runs in sub-packages, but it sounds like we may see more of that in Duke’s regular defense. So it may actually be more of a 3-3-5 with Rumph moving all around the line of scrimmage.
Key Players:
DE Victor Dimukeje - Undersized, but a high-motor kid who makes a tackle work on every snap. He can bend around the corner. Led the team with 8.5 sacks.
DE Chris Rumph II - He moves really well laterally and is fantastic rushing from any spot. He’s going to be tough for Notre Dame’s guards to handle when he’s in the stand up role. He’s a pressure machine who had the highest pass rush win rate in the country according to PFF.
CB Mark Gilbert - A first team All-ACC player before a hip injury, he 23 Havoc plays in 2017, which includes six interceptions. The key to their defense jumping up a level.
S Michael Carter II - A versatile player who plays a lot bigger than 5’10”.
Key Matchup for Notre Dame:
Rumph II vs Kraemer and Banks - This isn’t just about him getting after Ian Book. It’s also about him disrupting the running game with penetration. He had 13.5 tackles for loss in 2019 and he’s smaller (225) and quicker than most players they’ll have to block.
Special teams
They finished 23rd in the SP+ special rankings last year. kicker AJ Reed is back. He was very good last season (15 of 18). His three misses did come beyond 40 yards, though, so it’s something to make note of.
Reed transferred to Arkansas so the new kicker is expected to be Charlie Ham who handled kickoffs last year. They have to replace one of the best punters in the country so we’ll see if there is a drop off there for them.
The return game has a chance to be very dangerous with Philyaw-Johnson a threat to score as a returner. He took two kickoffs to the house last season. Notre Dame should probably have Jon Doerer kick it out of the end zone every time in this game to not give Philyaw-Johnson a shot to make a play.