Two years after rock bottom, Duke and Manny Diaz unite to keep rising
The Blue Devils' future is an evolution of their past, and Diaz is the right man to keep things rolling in Durham.
Note: rankings for this series are set by the final 2023 rankings from TERSE, a D1 college football metric designed to imitate human rankings.
I think we’re far enough out from 2021 at this point to say it: the Miami Hurricanes had one of the funniest seasons in college football history that year.
Going into the season, Manny Diaz had gotten off to a solid start in his first two years leading the Canes—a respectable 6-7 debut, followed by an 8-1 start in 2020 that had Miami hovering around the top ten for most of the year. Blowout losses to NY6-bound Clemson (42-17) and North Carolina (62-26) made it clear that they probably weren’t that great, but finishing #22 still marked just their fourth end-of-season ranking in the last fifteen years. The future seemed relatively bright, if uncertain; Miami opened the next season in the top fifteen, facing off with #1 Alabama in a monumental neutral-site showdown that could mark a new high in their ascendance.
Instead, it proved the start of their downfall. The Hurricanes lost that game 44-13, barely eked out a win over Appalachian State the next week, and didn’t win another FBS game in the entire first half of the season, starting a miserable 2-4 while allowing 36 points a game to FBS opponents. Diaz’s seat got hot very quickly, and he probably could’ve been fired at this point, but Miami decided not to pull the trigger, seemingly giving him a chance to recover.
He took that opportunity and ran with it, riding a hot streak by promising young QB Tyler Van Dyke to a miraculous turnaround, leading Miami to a 5-1 finish sparked by back-to-back ranked wins. An eight-year bowl eligibility streak that seemed in jeopardy was extended to nine, and with Van Dyke set to return in 2022, the future suddenly looked even brighter for the Canes. And that’s when Miami fired Manny Diaz…so they could hire Mario Cristobal, whose Oregon team had just lost to Utah by 4+ touchdowns for the second time in three weeks.
This did not make a whole lot of sense at the time, but it makes even less sense in retrospect. Cristobal’s first season saw him immediately snap that bowl streak, losing to Middle Tennessee en route to a disastrous 5-7 campaign; his second was a mild improvement to 7-6, albeit one marred by possibly the worst on-field coaching decision in program history1. Suffice it to say, it’s difficult to see what Miami has gained from this coaching move, beyond putting a perfectly respectable HC out of a job for the transparent purpose of hiring an alum in his place.
I felt more than a little annoyed on Diaz’s behalf when the Canes made that swap, in part because Cristobal was simply an uninspiring, boring hire, but also because I was interested in what Miami was building before they decided to start from scratch for no good reason. I like it when programs make good, sensible coaching decisions—this series is evidence of that fact—and firing Diaz never struck me as a particularly wise decision. In light of that, I was curious to see if he’d end up taking another job, perhaps somewhere he would have a bit more time to work without having to worry about the high (and arguably unrealistic) expectations at Miami.
Oddly enough, the job Diaz would end up at was actually open at the time of his firing, as another ACC team had parted ways with its longtime head coach just over a week prior. Duke moved on from David Cutcliffe at the end of 2021, a decision that came three full seasons after their last bowl appearance, winning season, and top-25 ranking under the longest-tenured HC in program history. But at the time, both Diaz and the Blue Devils went in different directions; the coach departed to serve as Penn State’s defensive coordinator, while the team poached a DC of their own by hiring Mike Elko away from Texas A&M.
It’s safe to say both moves were resounding successes. Diaz’s career was revitalized by his performance at PSU, as he took over an already-excellent defense (seventh in PPG allowed in 2021) and made it even better (third in 2023, allowing no more than 24 points in a single regular-season game). Meanwhile, Elko immediately proved that the peaks Cutcliffe reached at Duke were reproducible, guiding them to a stunning 9-4 record in his first season2 that would ultimately send him back to A&M as the Aggies’ new coach a year later. And when the Devils’ door was open as a result of that move, Diaz was in the perfect position to walk right in.
The backstory on how this program and this hire got to this point is complex enough that there’s not much room here for actual analysis…but then, what more is there to say? You’ve gotta respect Duke for living up to their university’s esteemed reputation in the athletic department; unlike the minor fiasco that unfolded at Miami, this is one smart, well-reasoned hire following on the heels of another that proved a rousing success. I like this move a lot, not just for giving us another chance to see what Diaz is capable of building in the ACC, but also because it’s quite simply a good decision for everybody involved. Duke gets a coach who’s perfectly equipped to continue the principles that led to great results under Elko, and Diaz gets an opportunity with a decently long leash and quietly high potential. What’s not to like about that?
The Last Five Years
Before Elko’s arrival, Duke had spent three consecutive years on a general downward trend in the twilight of Cutcliffe’s long tenure. It’s a testament to Elko’s excellence that he turned things around so quickly despite taking over a roster that had been left thoroughly destitute after that protracted decline; the group he leaves behind isn’t much better on paper, but it won quite a lot of games. In particular, he wrangled a defense that lacked for blue-chip talent into one of the nation’s best—one of many reasons Diaz, a great defensive coach in his own right, is an ideal successor to keep building on Elko’s recent performance here.
The Blue Devils get middling returns across the board, including on that defense, but the talent they lose comes in a very uneven positional split. Virtually the entire defensive line will need to be overhauled, but the bulk of Duke’s second-level core is back, which should set a solid baseline for the unit even if it regresses amid the coaching transition. 2024 might be a battle for bowl eligibility, but if Diaz’s early recruiting results are any indication (two blue-chip transfers this year, a top-five class in the ACC for 2025), the Devils should be able to rebound quickly should they take a step back this season.
The Next Five Years
As is often the case when I’m particularly enthusiastic about a hire, it’s important to remember that there is no such thing as a perfect candidate in college football. The vast majority of coaches don’t work out, and there’s no such thing as a foolproof way to find the exceptions. Diaz is more likely than not to be gone by the end of the next five years, and it’s more likely than not to happen because Duke decides to move on. That’s the business.
What you can do is make the best hire available, and given the job and the options at hand, Diaz is pretty close to the perfect pick. The Devils’ best bet was an experienced guy with local ties and a defensive-minded approach that would establish some continuity with the aborted Elko era, and the choice they made checks every box. Even if you’re not wild about what Diaz showed at Miami, it’s easy to appreciate that the particular profile he brings to this job is ideal for what Duke needs right now.
I don’t tend to make particularly rigorous predictions in this series, for the reasons described above. The best way to be right about most hires is inevitably to project that they’ll fail, and that’s as boring as it is unhelpful. But I certainly think Diaz is more likely to pan out well here than most of the hires made this offseason, and probably more than just about anybody else on the Blue Devils’ radar. Of all the follow-ups Duke could’ve gone with in the wake of Elko’s departure, few could be better suited to build on the foundation he laid than Manny Diaz.
It was also capped by a bowl loss to Rutgers, which probably isn’t all that bad, but…I mean, it’s Miami losing to Rutgers. It’s still pretty bad.
On the topic of funny college football seasons, 2022 Duke is quite a bizarre one, too. Usually when a traditional non-power succeeds to the extent that team did, it’s because of good close-game luck…but every loss the Blue Devils took was by a single score, and they were just 20 total points across the season from going undefeated.