From his first day as Duke’s head football coach, David Cutcliffe has emphasized the need to attract elite, speedy athletes in order for the Blue Devils to become competitive in the ACC.
After the signing of 19 high school recruits Wednesday—10 of whom run the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds or lower, Cutcliffe said—it appears that more help is quickly on the way.
“Absolutely, Duke Football got better today,” Cutcliffe said. “We helped ourselves with a lot of defensive speed, a lot of edge speed and speed at linebacker. Then, if you look at what we got offensively, we got a nice little mix with a lot of playmakers. Speed and playmakers would be the theme overall.”
Cutcliffe’s newest recruiting class also bore the fruit of a second strategy: a heavy focus on the state of North Carolina. Nine recruits hail from in-state high schools, scattered from metropolitan Charlotte to small towns like Smithfield. Cutcliffe has worked tirelessly to raise Duke’s profile among North Carolina coaches and recruits, speaking at countless high school coaching conferences and vowing to evaluate every North Carolina prospect forwarded to his staff by coaches. With five of Duke’s eight three-star recruits coming from in-state high schools, the Blue Devils’ Tar Heel-state haul was one of quality as well as quantity.
“I’m thankful for the coaches in the state of North Carolina and what they’ve done working with us,” Cutcliffe said. “Looking across this state for the next few years, you’re going to see more and more players at Duke from the state of North Carolina.”
In terms of individual prospects, two of the highest rated will add depth to the offensive line, where Cutcliffe said his team must become more “physical.” The top-ranked Blue Devil recruit is offensive lineman Laken Tomlinson of Chicago, Ill., a 6-foot-5, 295-lb. guard ranked 23rd in the nation at his position according to Scout.com. Tomlinson committed to Duke after receiving offers from 24 programs, including national powerhouse Ohio State. Joining Tomlinson along the offensive line in the 2010 recruiting class is 6-foot-6, 300 lb. Takoby Cofield, a three-star offensive tackle from Tarboro, N.C. Tomlinson and Cofield will add some size and bulk to a Duke offensive line unit that has ranked among the smallest in the ACC in recent seasons.
“We have some good young linemen that aren’t extremely big [already at Duke], but we went seeking out just some 300-pounders that can play and that can move,” Cutcliffe said. “We got four, two on the defensive line and two on the offensive line, so I’m pleased with that.”
The two interior defensive linemen Cutcliffe cited, Will Bryant and Jamal Bruce, could be pressed into early duty due to a recent spate of departures at defensive tackle. Senior Vince Oghobaase graduated in the Fall, while projected starter John Drew was dismissed from the team Jan. 17 for his involvement in the discharge of a firearm on East Campus.
On offense, two of Duke’s standout signees were prep teammates for Charlotte’s Providence High School. Receivers Brandon Braxton and Braxton Deaver combined to score 22 touchdowns this season for Providence, fueling the Panthers to eight wins and a state playoff berth. The Blue Devils also added a pair of quarterbacks, including one who has already enrolled early to participate in spring practice. Brandon Connette, a three-star quarterback from Corona, Calif. has been on campus since the start of the spring semester and will compete for a backup role behind expected starter Sean Renfree and sophomore Sean Schroeder.
Although Duke’s recruiting class overall is not highly regarded by national recruiting services—Scout.com has the Blue Devils’ class tied at 69th in the country—Cutcliffe said that the ranking process for high school recruits can often be arbitrary and reflects more on a player’s ability to perform in combine settings or on the reputation of the program that signs a player than anything else. As a result, he puts little weight in such metrics.
“You don’t always know what’s in here,” Cutcliffe said as he pointed to his chest. “I don’t begrudge it, I just don’t think it’s a science at all. Think about how many bad draft choices people make, and they can do anything they want to that guy to find out if they want them. Think about this: There was an argument, supposedly, on whether to take Peyton Manning or Ryan Leaf, for the longest time. How hard is that decision, really?”
So with little attention on the rankings and the ink still wet on 19 National Letters of Intent, the focus of Cutcliffe and his staff has already shifted to next February.
“We spent our morning, instead of just staring at the fax machine, by the fax machine evaluating 2011 and 2012 prospects on tape,” Cutcliffe said. “We did about five hours of that this morning, so we feel really good about our recruiting—and I’m not talking about the 2010 recruiting, I’m talking about the 2011 recruiting.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.