Ole Miss did him dirty. They panicked because he had a rough year after Eli left and pulled then trigger only to go get a complete incompetent in Eddie O. I wish we could have gotten him after Stallings retired. 1997-2000 could have gone very differently for us.
Cutcliffe's Achilles Heel was that he didn't recruit well. A lot of 2-stars and a few 3-stars.
He also was too tied to his UT offense to realize that you have to put players in position to be successful. Michael Spurlock went on to a few years in the NFL as a KR. Cutcliffe interjected him into the Manning drop-back offense that didn't suit his talents. He also tried to put another running QB(5-star from LA) Robert Lane into that offense with not much success.
He had one really good class (Eli Manning class) and kind of went to sleep on the rest of them.
Say what you want about Coach O, but the guy could recruit. Cutcliffe left a pretty empty cupboard. By the time Orgeron was run out of town, he had left behind a stocked depth chart. Houston Nutt was able to go to and win back-to-back Cotton Bowls.
Duke was a better fit for Cutcliffe. He didn't have to compete in the SEC West.