Duke head coach David Cutcliffe has another piece of hardware to add to his trophy case.
At the American Football Coaches Association convention in Indianapolis Monday, Cutcliffe was named the 2013 National Coach of the Year – his fifth coach of the year award. Cutcliffe, who has been at Duke for six seasons, has also been honored by the Maxwell Football Club, the Walter Camp Foundation, Sporting News, and the Bobby Dodd Foundation.
Cutcliffe led the Blue Devils to a 10-4 record – one of the best seasons in the school’s 125-year history. The Blue Devils beat a ranked team and appeared in the Top 25 for the first time since 1994 and also reached the nine-win plateau for the first time since 1941. Ten wins is a school record and the Blue Devils also won the school’s first Coastal division title.
The Blue Devils squared off with Johnny Manziel and Texas A&M in the Chick-fil-A Bowl, but fell in a heartbreaker, 52-48. The bowl appearance marked the first time in program history that the Blue Devils played in a bowl game in back-to-back seasons.
In addition to Cutcliffe, the AFCA also honored four other coaches at other levels of the sport. North Dakota State’s Craig Bohl (who was hired by Wyoming in December) was named the FCS coach of the year, Northwest Missouri State’s Adam Dorrel won the Division-II coach of the year, Wisconsin-Whitewater’s Lance Leipold was honored at the Division III level and Grand View University’s Mike Woodley won NAIA coach of the year.
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