Last night I decided to enjoy the Bowl Season by tweeting during the Cincy-Duke bowl game. Since I hate Duke (and I really hate Duke) my natural inclination was to talk a little smack against Duke and the ACC.
I didn't go overboard - I didn't use profanity or vulgarisms. What I did was point out that Duke was undeserving of a bowl bid and that David Cuttcliffe, Duke's head football coach, was overrated and in reality not a very good coach.
The blowback from the Duke and ACC was almost immediate and it was, for the most part, profane, vulgar and often downright stupid.
Duke's fans showed a fundamental gap in their football knowledge. One Duke fan, who apparently has no idea that WVU has won more BCS bowl games than the entire (ACC), sent me a hateful little message asking what would happen if WVU played Clemson.
He did not seem to know that WVU played Clemson in the Orange Bowl last year and won 70-33.
What happened to sports being fun? What happened to lively repartee and the back-and-forth smack of fan bases? I try to be funny and factual. Duke fans, and ACC fans in general, responded with profanity.
No once cared to make a factual argument or attempted to have fun with it.
They went straight to the "motherf$%#$s" and tired jokes about West Virginia.
They went straight to the "motherf$%#$s" and tired jokes about West Virginia.
No one wanted to debate Cuttcliffe's anointment as a great coach. No one seemed to care he has never had a winning record at Duke and actually regressed in 2010 and 2011. Five years at Duke and he's produced 9 conference wins and a 21-40 record.
Good coaches turn around programs in 3 or 4 years and sometimes less. David Cuttcliffe is not a good coach. Charlie Strong stepped in at Louisville, took over for Steve Kragthrope, and turned around Louisville in only 2 years. Dana Holgorsen seems to have regressed WVU this year but the WVU program he inherited from Bill Stewart was in bad shape ( numbers wise recruits) and lacked depth at nearly every position. He's turning around the culture of the WVU program.
What has Cutcliffe done? He hasn't won at Duke. He hasn't produced a single winning season at Duke. Cuttcliffe's earth-shattering 6 win season that won him the ACC coach of the year award is a mirage.
Cuttcliffe took a bad Duke team and beat Florida International (3-9), North Carolina Central (6-5), and Memphis (4-8). He won a total of 3 ACC games against Wake (5-7 - 3-5 ACC), UVA (4-8 - 2-7 ACC) and UNC (8-5 - 5-3 ACC).
Duke had only 2 wins against schools with winning records and 1 of those was against MEAC member NC Central. Duke's only claim to be bowl worthy was a win over UNC and if that's the brightest spot on your football resume you deserve to stay at home for the bowl season.
Bill Stewart went 28-12 in his 3 seasons as head coach at WVU with wins in the Fiesta and Car Care bowls. He was fired.
David Cutcliffe is 21-40 at Duke. He followed up his 5-7 2009 campaign by going 3-9 in both 2010 and 2011 and engineered a 6 win season by adding Memphis, NC Central and Florida International to the schedule and people proclaim him a great coach.
Just answer me this one question: would Cutcliffe be considered a great coach anywhere but Duke?
Not a single ACC apologist or Duke fan even cared to ask honest questions about Cuttcliffe's coaching resume. Instead they went on the attack and showed their ignorance and hostility towards anyone not willing to worship at the alter of a 6-7 coach with a career record of 65-69.
Sports are supposed to be fun. Banter and back-and-forth are supposed to be fun and far too many of us have lost perspective and forgotten how to be civil.
Duke and the ACC showed us exactly why the ACC is doomed last night. A football coach at a basketball school goes 6-7 and wins coach of the year over Jimbo Fisher, Dabo Swinney, Paul Johnson and Al Golden.
Outstanding post. The only problem is you are using facts and intelligence, which these Dork and ACC fans don't comprehend.
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DeleteI was once told by a wise old man after using an expletive that use of vulgarity evidences a lack of intelligence. One should be able to make one's point without vulgar terms. Great post, Dude.
ReplyDeleteDude of WV. I understand where your coming from but do you realize that it had been 18 years since Duke had been to a bowl game?????????????? Do you realize that Duke had won a combined 10 wins in the 7 seasons before Cutcliffe. Including 2 22 game losing streaks. Duke was the shithole of the country. The worst Division 1 football team. In Cutcliffe's first season Duke won more games that year than the 3 previous years combined. I see improvement. 21 wins in 5 years is serious improvement for a team that had 21 wins in 13 seasons before Cutcliffe came. I never thought Duke would go to a bowl game in my lifetime again. Duke is not my alma mater. My affiliation relies with GT, but I have seen their sorry ass football the last 18 years and I now see a team that is fun to watch. For Cutcliffe to take that shitty porgram to a bowl he was very deserving of ACC coach of the year. Dont be a troll. That's all you're being. You sound very butthurt over Duke and are jealous that they are finally achieving some kind of success and getting national attention.
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