Manny Diaz proud of how his team has been able to handle adversity
By Hugh Straine
The story of Duke football has been comeback after comeback after comeback. We've seen several games where Duke has looked dead in the water ready to let the game slip away after a bad half or quarter, then as soon as the break ends, we see a brand new team.
Duke has been able to handle adversity consistently after being down and coming back to win games, contributing to the team's first 5-0 start since 1994. Duke football head coach Manny Diaz talked about how impressed he is with the Blue Devil's ability to handle adversity time after time in his press conference ahead of Duke's next matchup at Georgia Tech on Saturday.
"From a football standpoint, the little thing we get to do and create a distraction that we all get to follow, over five weeks I think we've shown that we can handle adversity and overcome adversity."
Diaz then went on to point out that the team now faces a different kind of adversity: winning. The Blue Devils haven't been the underdog in most games throughout the 2024 season, but have sort of created this identity as a team with endless fight that is never out of games after being down late so much.
But now at 5-0, Duke is in the position where it is expected to win the rest of the games on its schedule. It's proven it can take down power conference foes with wins over Northwestern and North Carolina, so now the team has to react to this new identity and come at it with a swagger.
"Now we're faced with a very different type of adversity, which is the adversity of success." Diaz said. "We've been down. We've got three fourth quarter comebacks. Now, sitting here at 5-0 and getting patted on the back, and putting our hands on the [victory] bell for the first time in a long time, and getting told how great we are. That comes with its own adversity, and just like on Saturday how the scoreboard when it read 20-0, it's a liar. It represents what happened in the past, not what is currently going on."
It's really exciting to see this type of attitude from Diaz. With so many new faces on this Blue Devils squad and the fact that Duke is having more success this season than it's had in a long time, it can obviously be easy for these young athletes to celebrate it too much. When in reality, the team still has a long way to go before the season ends with anything of true meaning. Duke still hasn't received a single vote for the AP Poll this season, and it has plenty of opportunities to slip up along the rest of the way in a weak ACC.
Diaz went on to say how although the team celebrated another huge comeback win, it's important to get ready for next week. The team has been in this situation before, coming off of a huge comeback win and being able to get right back into the swing of things. But, this is the toughest back-to-back stretch Duke has had so far this season with ACC play ramping up.
"Doesn't really matter where you're at right now. When we take the field on Saturday night in Atlanta we don't get to start first and five because we're 5-0, and we're also well aware that the team we play is, by far, the most complete team we've played all year and when were battling it out and pulling that game out on Saturday night, they were sitting on their couches watching, resting, having had two weeks to prepare for us."
It seems like this is said every week, but this is surely the biggest test of the season for Duke football in the upcoming contest against the Yellow Jackets. North Carolina was a solid opponent, but now Duke will face on of the best run defenses in the ACC.