David Cutcliffe: Turning Down Michigan?

David Cutcliffe is still the coach of the Duke Blue Devils. Bet you weren’t expecting that to be news, right? Well, evidently there was a chance that it would be. The Duke football coach, Ole Miss all-time winningest coach, Eli and Peyton Manning mentor, had just finished the best two year run of football that Duke has had in decades. He should be on coaching short lists.

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According to reports by Gil Brandt of NFL.com, Michigan offered him its coaching vacancy. He turned them down.

David Cutcliffe Happy Here

Why would Cutcliffe turn down one of the best football jobs in the country if this report is true? The answer is easier than most of us are willing to imagine. Cutcliffe is happy at Duke. He is sixty years old and already has had survived a major health scare before he took the Duke job. The Duke football job is low stress with low expectations. He is comfortable doing what he is doing. No media firestorms, and the being in the shadow of Duke basketball are just fine.

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Any Michigan coach would be expected to return the program to glory and not slowly. There would be little patience with any coach. The media would be keeping constant tabs on every little thing about the program. Given the depressed nature of the Big Ten, results would be expected sooner rather than later. All these things might push a head coach toward another health scare.

Michigan’s Next Step

So let the Wolverines hire someone else. Their dream candidate would be current 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh. Of course he will not be available until January at the earliest. The Wolverine.com reports that the Michigan search firm has reached out to the real number one option, LSU coach Les Miles. Miles remains an intriguing option, as LSU continues to struggle offensively and the Big Ten would be defensively weaker than the SEC.

Or they could panic and hire West Virginia’s Dana Holgorsen, an old Michigan tactic.

For Duke, they face off against the Arizona State Sun Devils in the Sun Bowl. Hope Coach Cut continues to be happy at Duke.