Two Players Gone?

This morning, the Blue Devils announced that Chris Katrenick is opting out of the rest of the season for personal reasons.

Chris Katrenick, watching Chase Brice turn the ball over in pre-game warmups, wonders why he doesn’t get more of a chance to play.

The announcement is here.

In addition, linebacker Brandon Hill is entering the transfer portal. He opted out this season and, given the good play from Duke’s current LBs, this isn’t a surprise. The fact that he’s in the portal doesn’t mean he will leave, it just means that he might leave. We’ll keep an eye on it, but I would bet that he’s gone.

Turning back to Katrenick, my first thought is that I hope he’s OK. This is a scary time and you hope he doesn’t have any health issues. My second thought is that I’m frustrated that he didn’t play more. During the last two seasons he got almost zero playing time while he watched Harris and now Brice hand the ball to the other team on practically every drive. I know that Katrenick wasn’t a big time recruit, but there’s no reason for him not to have been given an opportunity to show what he can do. The fact that he can run makes him a better quarterback for Cutcliffe’s system than Brice. And, since he’s been around for a while, why not give him a quarter or a half to see if he can make something happen? He couldn’t do much worse than 1-5 and he has to know the system pretty well. (I’m not getting into the Gunnar issue in this post. That’s for another day.)

But bold changes aren’t Cutcliffe’s SOP. Hence why the Blue Devils are 1-5 at the moment. Loyalty is admirable, but the dogged stubbornness of Cutcliffe in sticking with Harris and Brice ought to be condemned.