After posting five consecutive winning seasons and a trip to the Cotton Bowl at Ole Miss, David Cutcliffe was unceremoniously and inexplicably let go as coach after an injury-plagued team (minus Eli Manning) went 4-7 in 2004.
“I know three things,” Cutcliffe said at the time. “I don’t know where, but I’m going to be a head coach again. And when I get to be a head coach again, we’re going to win. And not only are we going to win, we’re going to do it the right way with the right kind of people.”
After two seasons (2006-07) back at Tennessee serving as offensive coordinator, the opportunity came in 2008 to take on the long struggling program at Duke. And how badly was the program struggling at Duke? This badly: In the eight seasons before Cutcliffe arrived, Duke’s combined record was 10-83. In ACC games, the Blue Devils were 3-61.
“Friends—now we’re talking about some people who really care about me—told me I was crazy to take this job,” said Cutcliffe. “But I had met the kids who were here. I saw how hungry they were. I knew what a great place Duke was. I just thought we had so much to sell. I knew we would win. It was just a matter of time.”
The building was slow and sometimes painful. Some years it felt like the program was getting better in baby steps. But it was getting better. In 2012 Duke finally got back to a bowl game for the first time since 1994.That was a huge milestone. But all it did was set the table for the breakthrough season of 2013, when the Blue Devils won 10 games in a season for the first time in school history and won the ACC’s Coastal Division.
During ceremonies Monday morning at the Atlanta Sheraton Hotel, Cutcliffe received what he called “one of the biggest honors of my professional life” as the winner of the 2013 Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award presented by the Chick-fil-A Bowl.
It was a very special presentation as a number of former winners of the Dodd Award were on hand including Bill Curry, Vince Dooley, Jim Grobe, and Ken Hatfield, Fisher DeBerry, Ralph Friedgen, Fred Goldsmith and Dick Sheridan.
The Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award Presented by the Chick-fil-A Bowl is unique among coaching awards because the selection committee not only measures success on the field, but the coaches’ performance in the three core values of leadership, scholarship and integrity.
The winner must adhere to the award’s guiding principle: “In recognition of a higher and more noble aspect of college coaching…a style that emphasizes something more than winning the game…a belief that the game of football should be kept in perspective with college life in general.”
Cutcliffe did not have to travel far to pick up the award. His Duke Blue Devils play Texas A&M on Tuesday night in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. Until Monday, his biggest claim to fame was as the tutor to both Peyton and Eli Manning. But what he has done at Duke, capped off by the Bobby Dodd Award, may prove to be his legacy.
“I’ve paid a lot of attention to this award over the years,” said Cutcliffe, a native of Birmingham, who attended the University of Alabama. “Growing up in the South I certainly knew of Coach Dodd. And when I got to Tennessee it was evident that he is held in great reverence there (Dodd played at Tennessee). My brother played for (former Tech assistant) Ray Graves and he and coach Dodd were close.
“The men who are this list of former winners are men that I wanted to emulate when I became a coach. We have tried to operate at the highest standards. We demand a lot from our men both socially and academically and as a result we’ve attracted more men like them. We have done it the way Bobby Dodd expected all of us to do. That is why this award means so much to me.”
Monday was also a big day in the life of the Bobby Dodd Award, which has been presented since 1976 when Vince Dooley was its first winner. The Chick-fil-A Bowl announced that it will take over the day-to-day management and marketing of the Dodd Award with the stated goal of making it the most prestigious coach of the year award in all of college football.
“Given what Coach Dodd stood for we really believe this award can be the Heisman Trophy for coaches,” said Gary Stokan, the President and CEO of the Chick-fil-A Bowl. “We’re honored that the Bobby Dodd Board chose us to help them grow the award and to tell the story of this great man.”
The award will be formally presented to Cutlcliffe during a banquet next year on the Duke campus.
Bobby Dodd was the head football coach at Georgia Tech from 1945-66. As an assistant coach, head coach, and director of athletics he served The Institute for 45 years. He is in the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach.
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