CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Changes throughout college athletics, amplifying the importance of revenue driven largely from football, only served to further drive home the point that Duke football needed major changes.
The Blue Devils have lost 17 of their past 18 ACC games over the past two seasons, a big reason why David Cutcliffe and his staff were let go and Mike Elko was hired last December.
With the SEC and Big Ten growing into superconferences, adding schools that bolster their football brands while risking the future of other conferences, Duke athletics director Nina King knows the Blue Devils need to fare better in that sport.
“It’s critically important,” King told The News & Observer. “We need to do well, so that we can have a seat at the table and really be a part of meaningful conversations relative to the ACC. We’re investing more, as we should be. And we’ll continue to kind of monitor the landscape. It’s my job to make sure that Duke is positioned really well to take advantage of the shifting landscape.”
That’s in part why Elko spent last Thursday in Charlotte at the ACC Kickoff media event representing the Blue Devils. The former Texas A&M defensive coordinator, now a first-time head coach, sought out and won the chance to return Duke football to relevance.
King and her staff knew Duke football needed more resources. They followed through by boosting not only Elko’s salary compared to Cutcliffe’s, but the assistant coaching salary pool and the budget for the football staff overall.
A private school, Duke doesn’t disclose exact figures, but sources place the Blue Devils closer to the middle of the ACC now when they were at the bottom in previous years in those categories.
In King’s opinion, it’s money well spent, not just to aid football, but the school’s entire 27-sport department.
“We talk a lot about football and how important football is,” King said. “We need it to be good to drive revenue, so that we can put those resources into our 26 other sports. You know, it’s really to the benefit of all of our student athletes across all of our programs when football is good and generating the dollars. So we’re really proud of being able to provide broad based programming and have 27 sports, participating in so many ACC and national championships because of the dollars that we’re able to generate from football.”
Elko, thus far, is pleased with the progress. His football recruiting staff, for example, grew from three to 10 people this year. These aren’t coaches on the road recruiting. Rather, this allows Duke to boost its social media presence, for example, which is a fertile area for attracting and landing recruits.
More physical changes are being discussed with regards to facilities. During Cutcliffe’s tenure, which began in 2008, Duke was the first ACC school in the Triangle to open an indoor practice facility and the school also modernized its practice fields and Wallace Wade Stadium through massive renovations.
All that happened while Duke posted five winning seasons from 2013-18, became a perennial bowl team and won the school’s lone ACC Coastal Division championship.
“I know we made a big investment when we hired Coach Cut and all that investment paid off,” Elko said. “They went to six bowl games and seven years and played for an ACC title. I know we’re willing to do the same thing now and I think we’ll see the same results.”
King admits the football locker room in the Yoh Football Center needs a major overhaul. The school is also mulling other new facilities but has yet to make any firm decisions.
“We’re talking about everything right now and just kind of taking stock of what it is that needs to be done,” King said. “And then once we have that kind of a good inventory of what we want our physical plant to end up looking like then we’ll chart out on how we’ll get there.”
For Elko, that means one thing.
“Ultimately, just continuing to rephase our buildings and make sure that people walk around and feel that football is important at Duke University,” he said.
For Duke’s returning players, they sense a difference around the program this offseason. It’s not that the old staff didn’t want to win, of course. But the new staff is challenging the players in everything they do from strength and conditioning to how they went through drills during spring practice.
“There’s been a high placement on competition right now,” Duke offensive lineman Jacob Monk said. “There’s rewards for winning. There’s consequences for losing. We’re just learning how to love to win and hate to lose right now.”
Elko said the players, as a whole, are “quantitatively stronger, quantitatively faster” than he arrived. But it’s more than the physical changes.
“There’s some togetherness again,” Elko said. “One of the things that we tried to do is, obviously, when you’ve gone through some rough patches, you want to make sure that the kids feel invested. Again, I think one of the intentional pieces of trying to ratchet up what we were doing in the weight room was to unite them together through the hard work and through the things that they had to do together.”
With fall practice set to begin on Aug. 2, King likes the team’s vibe thus far
“I think you’re starting to see it,” King said. “Our student athletes are having fun. They’re getting bigger, faster, stronger. I mean, what they’ve done in the weight room, this spring, and summer has been incredible. And so you want to just see them get out there and compete and have fun while they’re doing it.”
Duke opens the season Sept. 2 against Temple at Wallace Wade Stadium. The Blue Devils have lost 13 consecutive ACC games dating back to 2020. They’ll look to end that streak in their first league game of the season on Oct. 1 against Virginia.
The Blue Devils must become competitive again before any wins will come, though.
“Of course, we care whether it’s a W or an L after the game, but we’re not putting all our eggs in one basket and saying you have to win X number of games,” King said. “It’s about progress. And are we building Duke football back up to what we know its potential is.”
