Duke moved to an up-tempo offense against Virginia Tech. David Cutcliffe explains the importance of first down in using that offense
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00:00It stays on my mind all the time.
00:03Certainly, you prefer to make first downs to stay on the field.
00:08One of the things that I felt like was key in this game today was
00:12the very thing you said was to win the battle of first downs.
00:17Our offense, if we win first down, then you've got a great opportunity to convert
00:22and stay on the field.
00:23Defensively, it's vice versa, obviously.
00:27And we didn't do that well enough.
00:30When we get going offensively, I think tempo can help us take it down the field
00:36and score, but you're exactly right.
00:40And I checked during the game a couple times with folks upstairs,
00:45kind of the number of snaps, thinking about that the entire time.
00:50So that's just one of the processes that we have to continue to look at.
00:55If you're a high tempo offensive team, you gotta be a good first down team, and
00:59you have to find a way to stay on the field and keep your defense off the field.
01:04Well, again, if you're gonna be up tempo, you gotta play well on first down.
01:10You can't have penalties, you can't have long guarded situations.
01:15That repairs keeping the offense on the field.
01:19If we can't stay on the field,
01:21then you have to look at other methods as far as running clock.
01:24But the concerns I have, period, for our team.
01:30We have not got as many players available as what we've had in years past.
01:36These players hadn't had the same circumstance in years past.
01:41So do I think fatigue and conditioning can play a role?
01:45Absolutely.
01:47I think it's affected us in the kicking game.
01:50I think it's affected us on both sides of the ball.
01:54What we do is we try to practice at a level to where you're conditioning
01:59every drill and everything and every minute we're on that practice field.
02:03So hopefully that continues.
02:06But yeah, that's a concern.
02:08It's not an easy one to repair other than getting better on offense to stay on
02:14the field and understand you can't turn it over and you gotta make first downs.
02:18And the best way to make first downs are avoid penalties and lost yardage plays.
02:24And we had way too many of those tonight.
02:27You can't give up sacks because sacks are a loss of down and yards.
02:32So the formula is there to win games, but you have to build
02:38that momentum into that kind of team that gets that accomplished.