DURHAM, N.C. — Inside Manny Diaz’s new office here at Duke University, there’s a commemorative football decorated with scores from football games.
Duke 45.
Miami 21.
On October 22, 2022, 10 months after the Miami Hurricanes fired Diaz as coach, the Duke Blue Devils scored a shocking victory at Hard Rock Stadium. Diaz was not involved in either program at the time. In fact, he was on the staff of Penn State University.
Still, the football is in his new office.
It makes little sense until the backstory is revealed. Duke’s current strength coach, David Feeley, was part of the staff that beat the Hurricanes in 2022. He gave Diaz a football with a meaning that was probably understood.
Almost exactly two years later, Diaz is five games into his second chance as a head coach and is yet to lose.
The Blue Devils are 5-0 for the first time in 30 years and are two wins away from a school record-tying nine-game winning streak, but somehow they are not ranked in the top 25.
That’s only half of it. Diaz’s team did not receive a single vote in the poll.
“It doesn’t matter,” Diaz said in an interview with Yahoo Sports on Tuesday. “No one remembers who was ranked after Week 5 a year ago. We couldn’t go 5-0 by focusing on that.”
There’s a reason they’re off the rankings. Few people would have expected it to be here.
The fact that Duke is one of 19 undefeated teams remaining in the Football Bowl Division means that one month into the college football season, it ranks behind undefeated Army, Navy, UNLV, and Indiana. , along with Rutgers, is one of the shocking teams in the sport.
After all, Duke has a new coach (Diaz), a nearly new staff, a new quarterback (former Texas backup Malik Murphy) and a nearly completely rebuilt defense. Perhaps most surprising is that this team practiced with five healthy offensive linemen in the spring, had eight linemen transfer this offseason, and is a unit that has emerged as a bright spot.
Of course, getting here wasn’t easy. The Blue Devils trailed in the fourth quarter in three of those five wins. Northwestern needed a tying field goal in the final breath to send it to overtime. They fell behind by four points to University Con before a 56-yard touchdown drive for a lead. And most recently, they came back from a 20-0 deficit to defeat rival North Carolina 21-20.
Comeback kids? Similar to “sewer rat”.
The program’s motto, “Drag your opponent into the sewer,” comes from Feely’s conditioning program in the offseason, where he fights to the end with grit and sometimes gets mean and forces opponents into the fourth quarter. Ta. This season, Duke University outscored its opponents 40-6 in the fourth quarter.
“Guys, I believe we will get stronger as the game progresses,” Diaz said. “I have that kind of belief.”
Also, Diaz, 50, got his dream job (Miami in 2019), was unceremoniously fired from that dream job (after three seasons), came back as defensive coordinator (at Penn State), and is now I’m back in the big chair.
Duke athletic director Nina King hired Diaz after Mike Elko left for Texas A&M.
“I talked to a lot of people in Miami,” King said. “I felt like I had a good understanding of what was going on there. I thought, ‘Let’s give him a chance.'”
So what exactly happened in Miami?
Diaz finished 21-15, never lost in conference play, and had the Hurricanes played their traditional schedule without any changes due to the coronavirus, he would have led the team to eight points in 2020. I believe we would have won 11 games instead of a game. slate.
The ending was shown publicly. In his final season, the Hurricanes won five of their final six games and ended the year with a 47-10 victory over Duke University. The late-season appearance did nothing to quell speculation about Diaz’s position or the school’s intentions to pursue Oregon State coach and former Miami lineman Mario Cristobal.
After the final game against Duke, Diaz and his staff began recruiting. Speculation continued throughout the week as they visited with players, and the school, which did not have an athletic director at the time, issued no public statement in support of the coach.
His message to his staff at the time was, “We’re not getting out of this until they say so.”
“We have to keep moving forward,” he said.
It wasn’t easy.
“There was some instability,” said Feeley, who served as Diaz’s strength coach at the University of Massachusetts before transferring to Duke to join Elko in 2022. They knew something was wrong. Everyone knew it. It was quite difficult. ”
Diaz’s performance at the end of the season encouraged him. His team didn’t give up. The locker room started to bond. Things were moving towards one thing.
He’s been searching for that feeling ever since he was laid off.
“When things aren’t resolved, there’s a fervor to get it back,” Diaz said.
Sufficiently hurt by the firing, Diaz moved to Pennsylvania to join Penn State as defensive coordinator, calling the move “geographically far from Miami, but as far away as possible in every way and in every way possible.” It’s remote,” he explains.
He called his time with coach James Franklin a “reset” and “recharge,” giving him the ability to “choose” when the head coaching job came along. He turned down several job interests, including one returning to his home state (South Florida).
It’s too early to go back there, he thought, and there are probably better options. “I never doubted it,” he said.
But why Duke?
The connection began with Feely, whom King turned to for advice. After all, he spent all three seasons with Diaz in Miami. He knew him well.
Separately, Diaz’s own son, Manny III, applied to Duke University well in advance of the interview process. A week after Diaz was hired, Manny III was hired and is now a freshman.
But for Manny Diaz, there was more to this decision. In the evolving landscape of college athletics, will Duke invest enough to win and be a part of whatever iteration of college football will be in the future?
“I asked President (Vincent) Price candid questions in a one-on-one interview,” Diaz said. “What if something like this happens…Is Duke committed to remaining at the highest level of college athletics?” He looked me in the eye and said, “Duke is committed to competing at the highest level of college athletics.” “We are absolutely working on this,” he said.
King admits that, too.
“We don’t want to be left behind. We feel like we’re investing in resources, people, equipment, things like that,” King said. “We want to make sure our program is included in the next iteration, whatever it is. We’re in a good position right now. We didn’t do that five to 10 years ago. I don’t know if we can say that. We’re going to be attractive to whoever that next group is.”
But that doesn’t mean Dr. King isn’t worried about the future.
Tuition at Duke University, one of the nation’s elite private schools, is four times higher than competing public schools. This is a financial disadvantage for athletic departments, which are responsible for funding the majority of scholarships.
A full scholarship to Duke University is about $90,000, King said. For comparison, in-state tuition at Clemson University is approximately $16,000.
Like most administrators, King and his administrative staff have a working model for athlete hiring and athlete revenue sharing possibilities. These concepts could soon become reality.
So what? Many schools, with revenue from ticket sales, donations and television rights, don’t have enough money to fund extensive athletic departments.
“It gives me anxiety,” she said. “What if football, men’s basketball, and a few other sports were our only sports? We’ve cried over and over again at the NCAA, but the financial challenges really hit a breaking point quickly. I think so.”
Meanwhile, on the field, the Blue Devils continue to prove they belong. Duke is aiming for its second consecutive championship since 1960-62.
That could come closer to Saturday when Diaz and the Blue Devils play Georgia Tech (3-2) in Atlanta. Games against Florida State and SMU will follow, followed by a game in Miami on Nov. 2. The Hurricanes, like the Blue Devils, are undefeated, but unlike the Blue Devils, they are ranked No. 7 in the nation.
That’s true. Diaz’s old team and Diaz’s new team could face off as undefeated in Diaz’s hometown almost exactly two years after that memorable football day, and they will rest in Diaz’s new office.
Perhaps it’s too perfect.