There have been a number of studies recently linking college-football success with in-state recruiting success. This makes sense. If you can’t dominate your neighborhood, how can you expect to dominate the country, even your conference?

This kind of dominance is harder for private schools. Private schools are smaller, which dilutes the alumni pool and the so-called subway alumni. Private schools have a harder time filling stadiums than do state-supported schools. Academic standards generally are higher than those of state-supported counterparts, forcing academically elite private schools like Duke to cast a wider geographic net.

It should also be acknowledged that it’s hard for one state to control North Carolina.  The state boasts five BCS/D-1 schools, the Big Four schools from the ACC, along with East Carolina.  The state of Georgia, with a slightly larger population than that of North Carolina, has two schools in the highest classification.  Further complicating the situation is the fact that out-of-state schools like Clemson and Tennessee have a long history of successfully poaching the top North Carolina prospects.

So, there are valid excuses for the fact that in recent years Duke largely has ignored its home state in football recruiting.  But ignore it, it has.  Many years, the number of Duke recruits from North Carolina could be counted on one hand.  Ted Roof’s  last full class had three North Carolinians.  David Cutcliffe took over a program with nine recruited North Carolinians.

There have been some recent gems, to be sure.  Ray Farmer from Kernersville, Scottie Montgomery from Lawndale, Terrell Smith from Wingate,  and Chris Douglas from Sherrills Ford come to mind.    All made All-ACC.  But they have been the exception not the rule.

It’s been this way so long that it’s easy to assume that this relative neglect is the natural order of things, some kind of inevitable and fundamental incompatibility between Duke University and the state of North Carolina.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Duke football history has been written by North Carolinians.  Rocky Mount’s Bill Murray became the school’s first (unofficial) 1,000 yard rusher in 1930.  Waynesville’s Fred Crawford became the school’s first All-American in 1933; Crawford did prep in Tennessee.  Durham’s Dan Hill anchored the famous 1938 Iron Dukes, while fellow Durhamites Gordon Carver and Bob Gantt achieved star status in the 1940s, as did George Clark and the Davis brothers from Wilson.  Mount Airy’s Billy Cox was Duke’s first 1,000-yard season passer in 1950.

Murray came back to Duke in 1951 to replace Wallace Wade as head coach.  Duke became a charter member of the Atlantic Coast Conference two years later.

Duke’s first decade in the ACC was quite impressive, with at least a share of the title in 1953, 1954, 1955, 1960, 1961, and 1962; Second-place Duke was awarded the 1957 title because North Carolina State was on probation.

Murray inherited Oxford’s Ed Meadows, an All-American tackle and added numerous top North Carolinians.  Jerry Barger from Statesville was Duke’s first ACC Player of the Year in 1954. He was replaced at quarterback by Sonny Jurgensen from Wilmington, who would go on to become Duke’s greatest NFL player.   Charlotte’s Roy Hord was an All-American tackle,  Wallace’s Wray Carlton a star running back.  Elizabeth City’s Mike McGee won the Outland Trophy in 1959 and still remains the only Duke player to win a national honor at that level.

These guys weren’t alone.  Duke’s 1954 ACC champions had a whopping 29 players from North Carolina,. This was a team that beat Nebraska in the Orange Bowl, 34-7.  Duke’s last bowl team, the 1960 Cotton Bowl champions, had 25 players from North Carolina, including Dwight Bumgarner from Lexington, Jean Berry from Mooresville, and Mark Leggett from Asheboro.

Things began to change in the 1960s.  Duke decided to make the jump from outstanding regional university to outstanding national university.  This effort has been a resounding success, making Duke a recognized Ivy-League equivalent.

But it also opened up fissures between football and academics that would bedevil the football program for decades.  Some faculty were openly hostile to big-time football.  Academic standards were tightened at a time when the competition was relaxing them and the ACC was abandoning its conference-wide SAT minimum.  The ACC integrated and Duke, had trouble making inroads with top African American prospects.

Murray saw the handwriting on the wall and resigned following the 1965 season.  He was inexplicably replaced by Ivy League mediocrity Tom Harp, who had gone 19-23-3 at Cornell.

Harp wasn’t much better at Duke and his contract wasn’t renewed after five years.  Harp inherited Boone’s Bob Matheson and Erwin’s Al Woodall, among others and kept open the N.C., pipeline, bringing in Leo Hart (Kinston), Wes Chesson (Edenton), and Steve Jones (Stanford) to fuel his high-octane offense.   But his last Duke team in 1970 had only a half-dozen North Carolinians getting significant playing time.

Harp was replaced by local hero Mike McGee.  McGee concentrated on making Duke more of a national presence in recruiting but  knew North Carolina well enough to bring in Billy Bryan (Burlington), Troy Slade (Burlington), Tom Hall (Fayetteville), Chris Castor (Cary), Cedric Jones (Weldon),  Charles Bowser (Plymouth), and Dennis Tabron (Bunn).

McGee lasted eight seasons at Duke, most of them within shouting distance of .500, an accomplishment that is more impressive now than it seemed in the 1970s.

He was replaced by Red Wilson, a veteran of the North Carolina high-school ranks. Wilson used that knowledge to turn Elon into a small-college powerhouse.

It’s safe to say that Wilson knew the North Carolina high-school scene better than any Duke coach since Murray; perhaps ever.  Wilson produced Duke’s last sustained period of significant in-state recruiting success, bringing in Emmett Tilley (Durham),  Scott Russell (Winston-Salem), and Jimmy Tyson (Wingate).  By 1980 Duke had 27 in-state players, while Jones, Castor, Bowser, Tabron, Tilley, and Reynolds all made All-ACC at least once between 1980 and 1983.

Six North Carolinians making All-ACC in a four-year period represents a modern high-water mark for Duke. Steve Sloan, Steve Spurrier, Barry Wilson, and Fred Goldsmith brought in the occasional Clarkston Hines (Chapel Hill), Dave Colonna (Chapel Hill), or Corey Thomas (Wilson) but over time North Carolina became another state, not much different from Georgia or Texas.

By the beginning of this decade, Duke was barely relevant in North Carolina. A perfect storm of mediocre football teams, small crowds, and dwindling media respect made Duke less and less attractive to local prospects. For their part, Duke coaches maintained that most in-state prospects couldn’t meet the school’s rigorous academic standards.  Not only did Duke not bring in the top players from North Carolina, they rarely even bothered to compete.

Enter David Cutcliffe.  Cutcliffe’s coaching career has been spent at large, state-supported schools that did not concede any in-state recruit.  And he brought that attitude with him to Duke, stating early and often that Duke would contest its home state.

Cutcliffe and his staff have backed up that talk, admittedly with the help of an administration that has boosted assistant salaries and given slightly more wiggle room at the lower end of the academic scale.  The Duke coaches have reached out to the state’s high-school coaches, regularly showing up in places rarely if ever visited by Duke coaches.

The results have been stunning.  Duke brought in nine in-state recruits this season. But it’s not just the numbers.  Duke had to win real recruiting battles against real programs to bring in people like touted Durham running back Desmond Scott or Raleigh defensive back Zach Greene, whose father starred at N.C. State.

This season is even more impressive.  Eight of Duke’s twelve commitments so far are from North Carolina, a group with the kind of size, speed, and skill that should help return Duke to football relevance.

Of course, you can do that with recruits from New Jersey, Texas, or Illinois.  But local talent brings in more fans, generates local media attention, and adds to the buzz necessary to sustain a rebuilding program.  Best of all, it shows that Duke’s mojo is back and David Cutcliffe isn’t backing down from anyone.