Rising Stars
New Coordinator the Perfect Fit to Keep Defense on Upward Trajectory
Jim Sumner, GoDuke The Magazine
This story originally appeared in the 2023 Duke Football Yearbook
A year ago Mike Elko was getting ready for his first season at Duke. Elko had retained only Trooper Taylor from the previous coaching staff, meaning there was a lot of getting-to-know-you in the program. Players and coaches getting to know each other to be sure, but also terminology, routines, establishing goals and figuring out how best to reach them — all of the things that constitute “culture.”
Now that’s all in the past, and Elko says that Duke is ready to reap the benefits of staff continuity in year two.
“I think the right way to word it is we can be more targeted in what we’re asking kids to do,” Elko said over the summer. “Because we hadn’t played a game with anyone in our locker room last year. And you go in and it’s constantly evolving throughout the year. OK, I’m starting to get a feel for how Brandon Johnson can impact the game. I’m starting to get a feel for what Jaylen Stinson can do. I’m starting to get a feel for how Ja’Mion Franklin functions. And you didn’t have a great pulse on any of that (last year). So now you’re starting to build your structure and scheme from a much greater knowledge of who these kids are and what they can do.”
Duke returns a sizeable number of its key players from last season, including presumptive stars like quarterback Riley Leonard, offensive linemen Graham Barton and Jacob Monk, defensive tackles DeWayne Carter and Ja’Mion Franklin and safety Brandon Johnson. Duke also returns all of last season’s assistant coaches, the men in the trenches who helped turn the program around.
Except one.
Defensive coordinator Robb Smith announced in January that he needed to be closer to family in Minnesota and would not be returning to Duke.
It didn’t take Elko long to find a replacement. Elko and Tyler Santucci had worked together at Notre Dame, Wake Forest and Texas A&M, and Santucci was hired to replace Smith after an interval of only a few days.
“I've known Tyler for quite a while and I'm confident he'll be a great fit for us here in Durham,” Elko said in a press release. “His work ethic, leadership, passion and understanding of the sport made him an easy choice for this opportunity. I am eager to see our defense reach new heights under his direction.”
Santucci was co-defensive coordinator at Texas A&M last season, He also was the linebackers coach, a role he will reprise at Duke.
Texas A&M was 25th in the NCAA last season in points allowed, at 21.2 per game, playing in the brutal SEC.
Santucci is 35 years old and played linebacker at Stony Brook, where he began his coaching career as a grad assistant. He was named 2009 Big South Defensive Player of the Year after notching 93 tackles and leading Stony Brook to a share of the conference title with Liberty; Stony Brook left the Big South for the Colonial Athletic Association in 2013.
Santucci has put together a coaching resume that includes stops at his alma mater, Wake Forest, Texas State, Notre Dame, Texas A&M, Wake Forest again, A&M for a second time and then Duke, always working on the defensive side of the ball.
He’s considered a rising star in the profession. Late in spring practice, after going against Santucci’s defense for weeks, Duke offensive coordinator Kevin Johns called Santucci “elite. I think he’s big-time. I think he’s got his defense playing hard. They’ve bought into his message. They’ve been downhill, aggressive. Mike Elko and now Tyler Santucci, there aren’t two better defensive minds in the country and now those two guys are working together.”
"His work ethic, leadership, passion and understanding of the sport made him an easy choice for this opportunity."head coach Mike Elko
Referencing his new-born daughter, Santucci says he left A&M for Duke because Duke “represents a lot of the things I want to represent in my life. Coach Elko represents a lot of things I want to represent in my life. It was the right time for me to be the full-time defensive coordinator. I felt like this was the right place for the right reasons and probably most importantly with the right people for me to make a move. It matched up with my core values as a man.”
He says he’s not worried about being behind.
“I don't feel like I'm playing catch-up because I feel like maybe the program and the people have continuity, but nobody has more continuity with Coach Elko than I do.” Santucci says his core philosophy starts not with Xs and Os but more with people and relationships.
“Trying to build meaningful relationships with the players is number one. I've tried to do that to the best of my abilities. That goes with the staff also. And then I think that building confidence in the players and making sure that no matter what I say, or what we throw up on the board, it's gonna come down to those guys executing and feeling fully confident in what they're doing. And how they're doing it. I've just been in a race trying to create trust within staff members, or the team, offense, defense. I try to pride myself on not only being a defensive guy, but getting to know the offensive line, the wide receivers, quarterbacks, running backs and really sharing this experience. At the end of the day, I call the plays and the players bring the plays to life.”
What do his players think? Words like “swagger” and “intense” pop up with regularity.
“He’s got a lot of swagger,” Franklin said this spring. “He’s a young and active guy. He interacts with everybody. He’s passionate, he’s a motivator, he has a lot of energy and he keeps us on our toes. I think you’ll see an aggressive and free defense. We’ll be out there playing with confidence.”
Safety Jaylen Stinson agrees.
“You can tell he comes with a little swagger, with some aggressiveness, and we’ll play with that on our defense. We’re blitzing, making tackles, getting the ball out, running from sideline to sideline.”
If this sounds a bit like style over substance, think again. Santucci’s defense will start with a mastery of the basics, combined with flexibility.
“You want to have a core foundational value-box that you work every day. And then outside of that, I don't think that we ever want to confine our guys thinking, ‘Hey, this is all we do. This is the only way we're gonna do it.’ Our job as coaches is to put them in advantageous positions and oftentimes, you got to change, maybe a slight technique or leverage, but at its foundation it's still what we've practiced thousands and thousands of times. We do believe in what we do and how we do it. And we tirelessly work our foundational tools each and every day.”
There’s an adage that champions are made in the offseason and Santucci likes what he saw from his group over the summer — players, coaches, support personnel, everyone.
“I think the workouts that you put in matter, and especially in this game, there's a lot of moving pieces. There's a lot of people that have to do their job to make sure that you're successful on that certain play. And oftentimes, you have to get lucky in certain scenarios. I do believe you create your own luck in this game and that comes through work, that comes through experience, that comes through great coaching that puts you in scenarios that may come up. We're exploring those scenarios and we work to exhaustion trying to figure out the situation that's going to come up that's going to help us win or lose the game, and I think that that's what our head coach does better than anybody else in the country.”
"Coach Santucci's got a lot of swagger. He interacts with everybody. He's passionate, he's a motivator, he has a lot of energy and he keeps us on our toes."graduate student defensive tackle Ja'Mion Franklin
Santucci and company are going to be tested by a schedule that includes Clemson, Florida State and Notre Dame. When asked if his experience in the SEC would help prepare him for this gauntlet, Santucci deferred.
“I don't know that I've ever treated it any differently whether I was at Stony Brook or at Wake Forest or at Texas A&M. Each week you engulf yourself into a single place to go try to get a single win when wins are hard to come by. You've got to take it week by week and I know that that's a cliche and that's what most people will say. But in this profession, you learn from experience and each week really has to be its own separate schedule and season. You can never look forward.”
Santucci adds that he’ll know a lot more about his defense after preseason practices are over — a prudent approach for the only newcomer on Duke’s coaching staff.
But a newcomer with a big role in helping Mike Elko continue to build Duke football.
Dedicated to sharing the stories of Duke student-athletes, present and past, GoDuke The Magazine is published for Duke Athletics by LEARFIELD with editorial offices at 3100 Tower Blvd., Suite 404, Durham, NC 27707. To subscribe, join the Iron Dukes or call 336-831-0767.