Manny Diaz always has a way of looking at the big picture. It's what has helped him find consistent success as Duke's head coach. After back-to-back nine-win seasons in 2024 and 2025, culminating in an ACC Championship last year, Diaz has the Blue Devils at 4-1 heading into this weekend's matchup against North Carolina.
Diaz is also a realist. He sees what's coming down the path in college football if things don't change. Quickly.
Joining the Andy & Ari show with Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman earlier this week, Diaz was asked a question that allowed him to go off on a tangent about the state of college football and college athletics in general.
"What is bothering you?"
“There are very few unregulated economic models in sports," Diaz said. "One of them is playing their championship series right now (Major League Baseball), and everyone knows they're about to go into a knockdown, drag-out fight over the future of that game.
"Everyone knows communism sucks, right? It’s really, really bad, and it’s pretty proven through the annals of history. We were kind of sort of a communist state in the NCAA for a long time, but unfettered, unregulated capitalism has its downside as well. The common theme is just greed in both. What we’re doing right now, if we don’t have some way to control it, is not good. This is not a 'can the university sustain this?' I don’t think this is really good for our fanbase, and I think we’re taking a lot of liberties. We’re not a professional sports team. The people who pay their hard-earned, the people who pay for the parking, the tailgate, to come to games. Ultimately, the cost always goes to the consumer. Always. Any economics, first day of class, they’re gonna teach you that.
"The things that are happening that changed the sport are good for the sport, but if we don’t get some sort of regulation on it, we are going to ruin this. And I don’t want to hear about how good TV ratings are now, or someone had a great day, or someone stormed the field because one game was awesome. That is all literally short-term stuff. If we don’t get this corrected, we’re gonna be wishing we had what we had because it’s a damn good thing. And the product is good, but there have been better things that have been ruined by greed before, and this is going down that road.”
Duke head coach Manny Diaz warns that greed is ruining college football
You don't have to look far for a recent example of greed serving to ruin something in college football. Just look at the recent reporting that the College Football Playoff, just in year three of the 12-team playoff era, is set to expand to 24 teams starting in 2027.
A wildly unpopular move that the majority of college football fans do not want. But the powers that be don't care because it will be revenue-producing. More money will be made. And that's all that matters, fans be damned.
Some might look at Diaz's comments as sour grapes over Darian Mensah's transfer this past offseason or how Duke football frequently has to do more with a lot less than its counterparts. But his words are unequivocally true.
There are a lot more "have-nots" in college sports than "haves." And that's a problem that will have to be reckoned with - and fast - before we reach the point of no return and athletic departments across the country have to start cutting non-revenue sports to save money so they can afford to field competitive teams in the revenue-producing sports.
What the future of college sports really looks like, nobody knows. But Diaz is right that if we continue down this path, we're going to ruin a pretty good thing.
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