Say it ain't so! After winning the ACC last year, there is a belief that Duke may not even go bowling this season. While the Blue Devils have won nine games in back-to-back years under Manny Diaz, this team did lose a lot to the transfer portal. Even more concerning, Duke faces a challenging regular-season slate. Unfortunately, it did not allow for Steve Lassan of Athlon Sports to send Duke to a bowl.
He has the Blue Devils as one of nine FBS teams who just missed the cut of playing in a bowl game.
- Buffalo Bulls
- Duke Blue Devils
- Florida International Panthers
- Florida State Seminoles
- Kansas Jayhawks
- Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns
- Mississippi State Bulldogs
- Texas State Bobcats
- UConn Huskies
There are a lot of quality teams here, many of which are led by strong or promising head coaches. Sadly, Diaz finds himself in a group with the likes of Mike Norvell at Florida State, Lance Leipold at Kansas, and Jeff Lebby at Mississippi State on the outside looking in at a bowl. For Duke to miss out on a bowl after winning the ACC a year ago seems rather harsh. It might just be this program's floor...
If going 5-7 or so is Duke's reality for this season, then it will do major damage to Diaz's soaring stock.
Manny Diaz is not projected to lead Duke to another bowl game this year
Being in yet another conversation with Florida State is less than ideal for Diaz. Not only is Florida State a downtrodden program, but it just so happens to be Diaz's alma mater. If the Seminoles were to move on from Norvell for whatever reason in the next year or so, one would think that Diaz would be a serious candidate for the position. Then again, Duke hovering around .500 in 2026 may erase all of it.
The good news for Diaz is he does have a great boss in Nina King, who has afforded her coaches, to grow and learn at Duke. No matter what happens this season on the gridiron in Durham, Diaz should be able to get a fourth year on the job. Although he could conceivably leave for a bigger opportunity as Mike Elko did before him, a muted third season on the job could be Diaz's unfortunate roadblock.
Right now, Duke is one of the hardest teams to gauge in the ACC. The Blue Devils won the league a season ago, but that was with a 7-5 overall record and a 6-2 mark in conference play. At their best, Duke could hang with anyone in the ACC. At their worst, Duke could also drop a game to a sub-.500 team that was never sniffing a bowl game. If 9-3 is the ceiling for this team, maybe 5-7 is the floor?
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Ultimately, Diaz is too good a head coach to be kicked in the teeth like this by the national pundits. There are concerns about how well San Jose State transfer Walker Eget will do taking over for Miami-bound Darian Mensah under center. Then again, Mensah was a Group of Five player only two years ago. He had to replace a quality starter in the form of Maalik Murphy. People tend to forget about that.
At this time, Duke fans need to pump the brakes a bit on Diaz's rapid rise in the coaching profession.
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