Duke coach David Cutcliffe discussed the first day of practice, saying it was the most fun he's had since March, when the pandemic disrupted the Blue Devils' offseason.
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00:00 This is the most fun that I've had since March, trust me.
00:05 Lot of spirit on our field today,
00:10 starting with just the stretch to begin with.
00:15 I thought our habits looked good.
00:18 We did not go very long.
00:20 We're wanting to gauge where we are.
00:23 You worry about soft tissue injuries,
00:25 meaning muscle pulls and strains.
00:28 So we're gonna measure the needle
00:31 and start moving the needle.
00:33 We've got time.
00:34 We're 36 days out before we're gonna play a game.
00:37 So we're not worried about a game.
00:39 We're focused on Duke.
00:41 I thought a lot of spirit on defense,
00:45 a lot of spirit on offense.
00:46 I loved our kicking game work today.
00:49 And so we got a lot of young players
00:52 with some very good veteran players on this team.
00:55 So the energy was absolutely outstanding.
00:58 Yeah, there's no question
01:00 that you're kind of restarting everything.
01:03 We're fortunate that we do have a lot of veterans
01:05 at certain places.
01:07 So you're very comfortable with them.
01:10 The first thing I would tell you
01:11 is that we were really somewhat surprised
01:15 at how good a shape our team came back in
01:19 when they came back in July 12th.
01:22 That's a great sign.
01:23 It's important to them.
01:25 We'd heard different things around the country.
01:28 Some of them said it was 50-50, 40-60.
01:32 Really, right at 98% of ours
01:36 had done what we expected them to do.
01:38 That helps.
01:40 But we still have a lot of questions
01:41 that have to be answered.
01:43 I mean, I've never,
01:46 obviously I don't have a precedence for this.
01:48 So I have been really scratching my head,
01:52 making different types of practice schedules,
01:55 how we're doing this.
01:56 We use science.
01:57 We've got heart rate monitors.
01:59 We've got player load monitors.
02:03 I'm gonna study it,
02:04 and I'm gonna see how far we can actually
02:07 literally physically move that needle
02:10 without soft tissue injuries
02:12 or without overheating someone.
02:13 I had concern going in.
02:15 I told Hap,
02:16 these guys have not spent as much time outdoors.
02:20 And I know all of you all would agree with this.
02:21 When you're in a stay-home order,
02:24 you're in air conditioning a great percentage of the time,
02:27 much more than what they've done in the past.
02:29 So we've tried to acclimatize them
02:31 since July 12th to heat,
02:33 and they've done a good job with it,
02:35 but I'm gonna keep my eye on that as well.
02:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]