Mike Elko to add Eastern Illinois head coach, Giants assistant to Duke football staff

Mike Elko added a special teams coach to his Duke football staff Tuesday and is on the verge of bringing Eastern Illinois head coach Adam Cushing and a New York Giants assistant coach to Durham.

On the same day Duke officially announced the hiring of Patrick Dougherty as its special teams coordinator and tight ends coach, Cushing resigned after three seasons at Eastern Illinois.

Sources close to the negotiations said he’s in deep discussions with Duke to become the Blue Devils offensive line coach, a move that’s close to being finalized.

Duke is also finalizing the hiring of Sean Spencer, the New York Giants’ defensive line coach who first worked with Elko at Hofstra 15 years ago. Spencer will coach Duke’s defensive linemen once the hiring process is completed.

Spencer’s expected hiring at Duke comes as the Giants fired head coach Joe Judge on Tuesday.

Before coaching defensive line with the Giants in the NFL the last two seasons, Spencer coached for 21 seasons at the college level. That included three seasons coaching defensive line at Vanderbilt from 2011-13 and six seasons at Penn State (2014-19)

Vanderbilt finished in the top 25 nationally in defense all three years Spencer coached the Commodores. While at Penn State, the Nittany Lions lead the nation in sacks in 2015 and 2018 and were No. 2 nationally in total defense in 2014 when they allowed just 287.7 yards per game.

Spencer and Elko coached together at Bowling Green in 2009 and 2010 when Elko was defensive coordinator and Spencer coached defensive line. They were also on the same staff at Hofstra in 2006.

Eastern Illinois announced Tuesday that Cushing, who was 3-26 in three seasons at the Football Championship Series level school, had resigned to “seek other professional opportunities.”

This was his first head coaching job. Before Eastern Illinois, Cushing coached 14 seasons at Northwestern as an assistant coach. He was Northwestern’s offensive line coach from 2009-18.

Cushing played college football at Division III University of Chicago.

Dougherty helped Ball State win the 2020 Mid-American Conference championship.

He spent the last eight seasons at Ball State, including the last two as assistant head coach, special teams coordinator and tight ends coach. Dougherty coached at Northwestern in 2013 as the Wildcats’ defensive quality control coach and was an offensive line graduate assistant coach at Ball State in 2011.

At Ball State, the Cardinals’ special teams units produced the league’s top kick return unit in 2017 while also finishing in the top three in the league in two other seasons.

In 2020, when Ball State went 7-1 and finished with the No. 23 ranking in the final Associated Press Top 25 poll, the Cardinals special teams had two all-conference players in return specialist Justin Hall and punter Nathan Snyder.

As a player at Division II Ohio Dominican from 2004-07, Dougherty was a three-time academic all-conference selection while starting two seasons.

Elko became Duke’s head coach on Dec. 10, replacing David Cutcliffe. After Duke played in six bowl games in seven seasons from 2012-2018, the Blue Devils suffered through three consecutive losing seasons.

Since joining the Blue Devils, Elko has hired Robb Smith as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach, Lyle Hemphill to coach safeties and Harland Bower as defensive ends coach.

On offense, Kevin Johns left Memphis to become Duke’s offensive coordinator where he’ll work with Dougherty. Trooper Taylor, a holdover from Cutcliffe’s staff, will also coach on offense.