Led by Manny Diaz, undefeated Duke may be this college football season’s biggest surprise

DURHAM, N.C. — Within Manny Diaz’s new office here at Duke University, a commemorative football sits emblazoned with the score of a football game:

Duke 45.

Miami 21.

On Oct. 22, 2022, 10 months after the Miami Hurricanes fired Diaz as coach, the Duke Blue Devils beat them in a stunner at Hard Rock Stadium. Diaz wasn’t a part of either program then. In fact, he was on the staff at Penn State.

And, yet, that football sits in his new office.

It makes little sense until the backstory is revealed. Duke’s current strength coach, David Feeley, was on the staff that beat the Hurricanes in 2022. He gifted the football to Diaz with, perhaps, an understood meaning: We won that one for you.

Almost exactly two years later, Diaz is five games into his second chance as a head coach and hasn’t yet lost.

The Blue Devils are 5-0 for the first time in 30 years, are two wins shy of a school record-tying nine-game win streak and are — somehow — not ranked in the Top 25.

That’s only the half of it. Diaz’s team did not receive a single vote in the poll.

“It doesn’t matter,” Diaz said Tuesday in an interview with Yahoo Sports. “Nobody remembers who was ranked after Week 5 a year ago. We didn’t get to be 5-0 by valuing that.”

Manny Diaz’s Duke Blue Devils are 5-0 heading into their Week 6 matchup with Georgia Tech. (Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

Their absence from the rankings is with reason. Few, if anyone, expected them here.

The fact that Duke is one of the 19 remaining undefeated teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision is one of the sport’s stunners a month into the college football season, right up there with unbeatens Army, Navy, UNLV, Indiana and Rutgers.

After all, Duke has a new coach (Diaz), a mostly new staff, a new quarterback (former Texas backup Maalik Murphy) and an almost completely rebuilt defensive…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/led-by-manny-diaz-undefeated-duke-may-be-this-college-football-seasons-biggest-surprise-130029812.html

Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-10-02 12:46:29

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