There wasn’t much that David Cutcliffe could say beyond what the rest of us already knew about Duke’s 48-7 loss to Florida State; the Seminoles are just a better team.

Going forward again is the key as Cutcliffe uttered a familiar phrase about moving past the game emotionally and learning from the

David Cutcliffe discussed Duke’s loss to Florida State and gave an update on the Blue Devil’s injuries.

mistakes. And learn they must do and quickly because Clemson awaits  them this coming Saturday. The Tigers are just one sport below Florida State in the polls and are nearly as good.

“We will put this behind us emotionally. We’ve got another huge challenge in front of us,” Cutcliffe said.  ”We’ve got to re-energize we’ve got to heal physically and emotionally and prepare better than we’ve prepared all season long.”

Healing has also been a common theme for Duke this season and the news on the injury front was mixed on Sunday after the Blue Devils lost quarterback Sean Renfree and Juwan Thompson during the Florida State game.

“Juwan’s (Thompson) work ups came back good. We got the final word on cat scan X-rays,” Cutcliffe said.  ”He is extremely beat up and sore and he’s also sick.”

“Sean Renfree was running a fever prior to the ball game. So the combination of the fever and the hit. He’s what Iwould call better but he is sick so it is hard to evaluate him,” Cutcliffe said. “I know they’ve done all the appropriate testing at this point, I’ve not heard any response from the doctors yet on him.”

Cutcliffe indicated that neither player was available to practice on Sunday night and their status going forward still remains uncertain especially since both are sick.

He indicated that he felt that the team just didn’t play very well in any phase of the game and hinted at the fact that his players may have been a bit awe struck by the trip to a big-time stadium like Doak Campbell were the pomp and circumstance of a game day can be a bit overwhelming.

“It was so different none of them had ever been to Tallahassee. I look out there and I’ll be honest It was irritating to me how many of them were standing there watching the horse,” Cutcliffe said.

Moving ahead to Clemson Cutcliffe indicated that Duke is going to have to play at a very high level to win. He felt that the players understood the plan against Florida State in theory but it didn’t translate on the field. Cutcliffe also knows that Clemson has a high number of athletes with a lot of NFL caliber talent all over the field.

“Everybody picked a bad game to not to have their best game,”Cutcliffe said ”Our young specialist didn’t play well. Anthony (Boone) didn’t play well. Nobody played well. Hopefully the lesson learned there is that we should know that against this calibre of opponent you’ve got to bring your A game.”

Heading into the game against the Seminoles it was going to take that level of A game and it was going to come down to if Duke could stop Florida State from making big plays but it clearly didn’t happen.

“I knew we’d have to win the battle of explosive plays to win that game and we miserably lost that,” Cutcliffe said.

Cutcliffe also  addressed the hits that resulted in injuries to Thompson and Renfree. Both hits drew flags but he didn’t feel that either play was dirty.

“There were flags on both of those plays. They weren’t ejection plays. They weren’t dirty plays. Just by the letter of the law they were hits that they are trying to remove from the game. I don’t think there was any malice in either of those plays.