Michigan is searching for a new coach after firing Brady Hoke last week, and it appears Wolverines officials already have missed on one candidate.
Cutcliffe, 60, is in his seventh season at Duke and is 40-47 with the Blue Devils. Duke is 9-3 this season and headed to the Sun Bowl to play Arizona State; Duke was 10-4 last season, the first 10-win season in school history. Duke has won nine games in a season just six times, and two of those occurrences have come in the past two season.
Duke sports information director Art Chase told newsobserver.com Wednesday that neither Cutcliffe nor Duke AD Kevin White had been contacted by anyone at Michigan or any third parties representing Michigan.
"David has long committed himself to Duke, a journey that began, in complete earnest, back in December of 2007," White said. "Of course, David has enormous, perhaps unqualified, programmatic expectations for Duke football. However, at the very core of Coach Cutcliffe, is an elite teacher, who literally thrives on the serious prospect of developing all dimensions of the young men under his tutelage. Within that respective framework, David operates, unequivocally, with the highest degree of integrity and honor!
"That said, Duke University is terribly fortunate to have David's seasoned leadership, as the program continues to embark on it's very next set of both remarkable and historical accomplishments!"
Cutcliffe also has been coach at Mississippi (1999-2004), where he coached Eli Manning, and is a former offensive coordinator at Tennessee (1993-98, 2006-07), where he oversaw an offense run by Peyton Manning.
LSU coach Les Miles, 61, a former football teammate of Wolverines interim AD Jim Hackett while both attended Michigan, could be a viable target. GoBlueWolverine.com, a Michigan-centric website, reported that Michigan has reached out to Miles' agent. Miles is known as a top-level recruit -- he's considered better in that area than Cutcliffe -- and he could put together a staff that quickly would ramp up Michigan's talent level. Whether Miles wants to go "home" to coach considering the success he has had at LSU is a question that remains to be answered.
Mike Huguenin can be reached at mike.huguenin@nfl.com. You also can follow him on Twitter @MikeHuguenin.
