USA TODAY International Edition
Transfer Cash personifies Duke’s rise
With former Ohio State player setting tone, Blue Devils establish themselves as winners
PINEHURST, N. C. In December 2011, Jeremy Cash set off on a trip that began in Columbus, Ohio, and ended in Durham, N. C., a good 18 hours away by bus.
Before stepping on board, however, Cash needed a ticket. So as he packed up his dorm room at Ohio State, Cash split his belongings into two piles: one pile for necessities — including, admittedly, a nice television — and the other for possessions he could live without. The first group went into cardboard boxes, clearly marked with his name. The second group was sold, which raised enough money for the ticket.
When he arrived in Durham, the travel portion of Cash’s leap of faith had concluded. He never had been to the university. He never had considered the Blue Devils as a four- star safety out of Plantation High School near Miami, a ballyhooed recruit with dozens of offers, all from schools with greater football pedigrees.
He didn’t know the coaches. Had no idea about the roster. What he did know was what we all knew: Duke was Duke, annually one of the weakest football programs in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
“It really taught me a lesson about adversity,” Cash said of his travels. “There’s a silver lining to everything.”
Less than four years later, Duke is no longer Duke, in the sense of the phrase. The Blue Devils are in the midst of the greatest three- season run in modern program history, a stretch that, in no coincidence, aligns with Cash’s time on campus.
Before 2012, Duke hadn’t reached a bowl nor posted a winning season since 1994; this period included as many winless seasons ( four) as seasons with four or more wins. During the past three years, however, the Blue Devils have reached three bowls, notched the program’s first season with double- digit wins and captured an Atlantic Coast Conference divisional title.
“When I transferred, it was basically on a leap of faith,” Cash said. “And I honestly believe it was all part of my plan, to end up at Duke University, to have the success I’ve had.”
That Cash is at Duke, that he joined the program on the advice of a disgraced former coach, that he’s poised to become the first three- time All- America pick in program history, that he’s three classes shy of his master’s degree, that he’s a Blue Devil set to marry aNorth Carolina graduate — each fact helps to paint Cash as perhaps the most uncommon player in college football.
Cash signed with the Buckeyes for one reason: Jim Tressel. Within a week of his enrollment in January 2011, however, Ohio State discovered email exchanges between Tressel and Chris Cicero, a local lawyer who shared information about impermissible benefits being given to players.
Tressel admitted to being aware of the NCAA violations and was suspended for the first two games of 2011 and later the season’s first five games. He tendered his resignation at the end of May.
Tressel’s resignation was a catalyst for Cash’s eventual departure, but his transfer was sped up by what he perceived as a wholesale shift in Ohio State’s approach to its football program — a process heightened by the arrival of Urban Meyer that November.
“I went there because I believed in everything Coach Tressel stood for, and once he was gone they didn’t share those principles outside of football, about life after football,” Cash said. “( Meyer) and I just definitely didn’t see eye to eye. Essentially, that turned into what is metaphorically just a factory. Churning players in and out, in and out, in and out. And once you’re done playing football, that’s all they want to do with you.”
Tressel’s parting gift for Cash was a suggestion: Go to Duke, he said, praising David Cutcliffe even if the former Tennessee assistant had yet to win more than five games in any of his first four seasons with the Blue Devils.
After sitting out the 2012 season as a transfer, Cash earned AllAmerica honors as a first- year starter in 2013, finishing second on the team with 121 tackles, and repeated those honors a year ago. Fittingly, he occupies a distinct role in the Blue Devils defense: part safety, part linebacker, part wrecking ball.
His influence extends far beyond Saturdays, however. Cash sets the tone from the locker room to the equipment room, Cutcliffe said. When Cash talks, people listen.
“He’s doing everything you want a leader to do,” Cutcliffe said. “Jeremy sets the standard for how your team manages themselves. It sounds like an unimportant thing, but that’s huge. Those are all learned behaviors. That’s what really good leaders do.”
O n the field and off, he has become the linchpin of new Duke, a team that expects a bowl berth and more. The Blue Devils anticipate not more of the same in the coming seasons but rather another substantial step forward in the very near future.
“Coach Cutcliffe always talks about leaving a place better than when you found it,” Cash said. “I believe that I’m going to do just that.”
The Blue Devils don’t recruit with the nation’s elite, but a recent uptick speaks to the program’s overall growth. The current class, with 16 known verbal commitments, is ranked 17th in the nation by Rivals. com. At some point, perhaps, the Blue Devils roster won’t contain one Jeremy Cash but dozens.
“We’re pretty close to that right now,” Cutcliffe said. “That’s what I’ve said all along. We’ve tried hard from the very beginning to build a program and not just have a good football team.”
Those changes are coming, true, but that doesn’t detract from a simple truth: There will only be one Jeremy Cash.