FanHouse David Cutcliffe

When Thaddeus Lewis arrived at Duke as a freshman quarterback in 2006, he had already given thought to his legacy with the Blue Devils. Lewis wanted to be recognized and remembered as the quarterback that started a new trend at Duke. It is called winning, a novel approach for a football program that last experienced a winning season in 1994.

Lewis hasn't accomplished his goal just yet, but he has certainly helped make Duke football fun again. The Blue Devils won four games in 2008, as many as they had won in the previous four years combined, and won their first Atlantic Coast Conference game since 2004.

Will Brinson is Easton-bound and down for the Gatorade Replay of America's most important high school rivalry.

Peyton Manning was kind enough to spend time this past weekend playing the role of "Honorary Coach" for Easton High School during the Gatorade Replay game in Pennsylvania. And he was even kinder to take time out of his always busy schedule to answer a few questions that FanHouse had to ask. Namely: What's it like to "coach" 30-something-year-old high school students, what does he think of the Colts drafint Donald Brown, are there any games he'd like to replay, and will David Cutcliffe ever win an ACC Championship at Duke? The full interview is after the jump.

First, the Green Bay Packers expressed interest in Greg Paulus, the former Duke University point guard and high school All-American quarterback. Then, University of Michigan head coach Rich Rodriguez had a meet-and-greet with Paulus about the possibility of playing in Ann Arbor this fall.

And today, there's this: Duke also wants in on the Paulus action. But unlike the Wolverines -- who could envision him as a quarterback in their spread offense -- Blue Devils football coach David Cutcliffe has no such plans. Nope, he'd like to kick the tires on Paulus, college wide receiver.

Erik Ainge says goodbye, too.

After the Florida game Phil Fulmer looked as fired as a coach can be, but unlike Bill Callahan he managed to pull the Vols out of their tailspin and drive them into the SEC Championship Game. Job: secure. Coaching staff? Not so much. David Cutcliffe, renowned far and wide as an offensive architect par excellence, took the Duke job.

Okay, well there's still Trooper Taylor, Cutcliffe's right hand man at UT and reportedly a demon recruiter.
Except now there isn't:

Trooper Taylor told the News Sentinel on Wednesday he is leaving Tennessee to take a co-offensive coordinator position at Oklahoma State.

This is displeasing to Rocky Top Talk, which put together an impressive case for the internal hire. Evidently UT has higher hopes for Cutcliffe's replacement.

What's the deal with "co-offensive coordinators"? That seems guaranteed to end in disaster, though admittely not as guaranteed as doing anything whatsoever at Baylor, another place he was considering the OC job at.
That would undoubtedly see him unemployed four years from now and trying to scrabble his way to a place at SMU or something. Kind of like Cutcliffe's probable future.

Now that the World Series is finally upon us, you'll no doubt find yourself getting a little too familiar with the 25 players on each remaining team. No, this isn't another guide to World Series hyperbole; I'm not as creative or witty as my man Pat Lackey. But I did share with you some information about Matt Holliday earlier in the season, and I would like to take the time to expand upon that story.

Back in high school, Matt Holliday broke several of Troy Aikman's state passing records as a quarterback. Holliday was a hot recruit, and had even signed a letter of intent to play at Oklahoma State. National powerhouses like Notre Dame, Florida State, Florida, and Tennessee were courting the MVP candidate. Had Holliday chosen to play ball at Tennessee, he could've followed in the footsteps of first baseman Todd Helton.

As has been made well-known for quite some time, Todd Helton played quarterback at Tennessee in college, where he backed up Peyton Manning. To put an interesting twist on that story, right fielder Seth Smith, who was a September callup for the Rockies, played quarterback at Ole Miss, where he backed up Eli Manning. As if that's not enough, Smith's coach at Ole Miss was David Cutcliffe, who served as Helton's quarterbacks coach. Now, if the Rockies could just find some receivers and lineman, they'd be set.

Oh, and did I mention? They're all pretty good at that whole baseball thing, too.