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The hiring of David Cutcliffe, the final major act of the Joe Alleva administration at Duke, has been the best development for Blue Devils football in at least 14 years. It registered on the national soundboard last December and has echoed since.

The second best development in recent Duke history won't make a sound. Phillip Fulmer was pushed off Rocky Top on Monday, and nobody seriously linked the Tennessee vacancy to Cutcliffe, the two-time offensive coordinator in Knoxville and mentor to two Manning brothers.

Kevin White became Duke's athletics director during the summer. Want to know what he's thinking right now? Let's just say few have prayed for silence this fervently since William Hung announced he had a record deal.

For the past two months in particular, Fulmer's long-term security at Tennessee has been considered tenuous at best. In that time, Cutcliffe has taken Duke from ineptitude to credibility and has done it far sooner than even the most optimistic sages hoped. The instantaneous -- if unspoken -- presumption was Cutcliffe's impending candidacy. Longtime Volunteers assistant spreads his wings, finds success, then heeds the call home. Why not?

Because you probably can't whack Fulmer, winner of a national championship and nearly 75 percent of his games, and extend your hand to the family again. The gesture wouldn't exactly sit well with a turncoat public. (Jeb Bush has had the good sense not to run for president in 2008, after all.)

It might not be a big hit with Cutcliffe, either. Fulmer is not a nameless, faceless guy whose demise can be brushed off and attributed to the cruelty of the business; he's a friend.

Furthermore, he's a friend whose record reads like this: eight or more wins in 12 consecutive full seasons, six of which resulted in top-10 final poll standings; one down year; two more good ones; a 3-6 start to 2008; and best wishes in a new career field. Eleven months after taking his team to the SEC championship game, Fulmer is on his way out, and it has nearly nothing to do with a recent spate of player arrests.

Does that sound like the sort of place you'd like to work?

"Our Tennessee family is united in its goals, but divided in how to get there," Fulmer said, reading from a prepared text Monday afternoon.

The Duke program lost 82 games in the first eight years of this decade. Now the Devils are 4-4, a hair away from 6-2, undeniably fun to watch and hoping to complete the turnaround.

History says that if you lose big, you keep losing. Nineteen ACC teams have dropped 10 or more games in a season, and 15 of the 19 have followed the misery with another sub-.500 year. Collectively, The Year After has produced a 53-146 record. Cutcliffe's Devils have a chance to break with their program's past.

If the Tennessee thing dies where it should, the Blue Devils will pretend not to notice but must secretly lift a glass in celebration. They can be spared the often-mindless chitchat that sprouts while the leaves are falling.

Much like Christmas shopping at your favorite neighborhood retail giant, the coaching-speculation season in college football has been lengthened, its unofficial kickoff set before the Halloween candy has gone bad. In the coming weeks, you may very well hear the names of several ACC coaches bandied about. Jim Grobe from Wake Forest to Tennessee? Bring it on. If not Grobe, then why not North Carolina's Butch Davis? Doesn't every coach worth his buyout clause yearn to battle it out in the SEC?

Sure they do. If they're insane.

In the ACC, mediocrity isn't merely tolerable; it's a way of life. Go 8-4 at most places in the ACC and they name streets after you. Do that in the SEC often enough and you'd better start looking for a good realtor.

The examples abound. In 2004, the University of Mississippi, better known for William Faulkner and a controversial flag than for football, canned a coach who had produced five straight winning seasons and then had the temerity to go 4-7. His name was David Cutcliffe.

Contact Rob Daniels at 373-7028 or rob.daniels@ news-record.com