When David Cutcliffe opened his first practice as a college head football coach, he didn't go easy on his team.
"First practice I had at Ole Miss, I had 19 [players] taking an IV after the practice," Cutcliffe said. "I'm not going to do that this time. I'm going to be a little smarter, but we're going to get after them and get to work."
Minus saline on the sidelines, Cutcliffe and the Blue Devils' work will begin in earnest this week as the team opens its spring practice period Wednesday with an early-morning workout without pads. The opening session will mark the first of 14 practice days spread out over a month, culminating in the team's spring game April 19 at Wallace Wade Stadium.
Duke's first day in full pads is March 24, and from there, the team will alternate between weeks of two and four practices over a four-week span. The Blue Devils will close out the period's final seven days with a pair of workouts April 16 and 18.
"With 77 players and a limited number of bodies, we'll get started, get pretty intense, have a couple of days to evaluate, meet and have a couple of practice days," Cutcliffe said. "[We'll] come back with another intense round, back off of them a bit and then finish strong with the spring game."
With Cutcliffe and his assistants admitting that their familiarity with many of the returning players is limited to jersey numbers learned through film study, the coaching staff's focus this spring is primarily to assess the skills and abilities of the team.
"I've always thought spring practice, for the most part, is about players and not plays," Cutcliffe said. "We're going to put five days of offensive insertion in, [and] we [will] put in more than we would need for a game-way more than enough. I want to see how they handle that. But after we get into and pass the first three, four and five days of inserting, we're going to settle in and find out who does what well."
One area of particular contrast between the spring practice plans of Cutcliffe and those of his predecessor Ted Roof are his plans for the team's spring game. In each of the past two spring games, Roof and his staff ran their team through an unconventional 35-play scrimmage in which both the offensive and defensive units could accumulate points on each snap. This spring, however, Cutcliffe has decided to revert to a more conventional format, with traditional scoring and 12-minute quarters in a live-game situation.
"We'll have a limited game," Cutcliffe said. "We'll limit the kicking situations in the game--most everyone does in spring practice-and we will put ourselves in a game-type mode. My plans right now are to divide the teams up into even teams and have a blue team and a white team. I'll divide the coaching staff up, and we'll see some people compete."
Cutcliffe is hoping for a strong turnout from Duke students and local residents for the Saturday afternoon game, and a concert will be held after the scrimmage to lend to a more fan-friendly environment. And with the team hoping to make major strides in the upcoming season, a productive spring practice capped off by a quality intrasquad game could serve as a foundation for future success.
"Spring is big," offensive coordinator Matt Luke said. "Just the excitement-you've been away from football for awhile, and now you're getting back into it. It's kind of fun for the fans to get back to the football a little bit, and it should be a springboard into the fall."
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