David Cutcliffe’s lifetime in coaching enables him to speak with battle-tested authority about a formula for winning college football games. Some of his essential factors are universally-accepted standards such as minimizing turnovers and penalties.
Others are equally intuitive if not as frequently expressed, such as avoiding lost-yardage plays on offense and producing more explosives than the opponent.
Cutcliffe’s 2018 Duke team measured up on those metrics and more during the opening month of the season, but the maxim that best defined the Blue Devils in their four nonconference games is the one the coach often verbalizes in military lingo: “Close ranks and keep marching.