Duke football debuts vision for 2024 campaign at ACC Kickoff

It’s time for football again. 

This week, the ACC held its annual Football Kickoff Media event, as all 17 conference teams gathered in Charlotte to discuss the upcoming season with the media. For Duke, first-year head coach Manny Diaz was joined by sophomore quarterback Grayson Loftis, redshirt sophomore quarterback Maalik Murphy, graduate wide receiver Jordan Moore, redshirt senior safety Jaylen Stinson and redshirt junior offensive lineman Justin Pickett. 

Coming off a tumultuous year that was highlighted by an upset of then-No. 9 Clemson in the opener and the sudden departure of head coach Mike Elko, there was a lot of buzz regarding the new era of Duke football. 

Signal-caller battle

After star quarterback Riley Leonard transferred from the program, the Blue Devils now have a major decision to make: Who will be the starting quarterback for the 2024-25 season?

Loftis returns after a freshman campaign in which he began as the third-string gunslinger, but he ended up starting five games — including a Birmingham Bowl win over Troy — after injuries to Leonard and backup Henry Belin IV. Now, he aims to re-earn the position he finished the season with. 

“Being in a room with guys like Henry and Riley, who had starts, who had snaps in big time games, I learned the value of asking questions. Being able to talk to veterans and guys that have done it before really [helped me] figure out how to do my process,” Loftis said.

On the other side of the battle is the Texas transfer Murphy, who was the biggest splash out of the portal for Duke. After he redshirted his freshman season with the Longhorns, the Inglewood, Calif., native had to step up to the plate when star quarterback Quinn Ewers went down with an injury. Murphy went 2-0 in his starts, allowing Texas to stay afloat in the College Football Playoff race. 

Diaz days

In two years, Elko turned Duke from a ACC bottom-feeder to a team that could go toe-to-toe with the conference’s best; the Blue Devils went 17-9 during his tenure with two bowl victories to boast. Now, Diaz is tasked with keeping that momentum.

“The first question I asked was ‘What can we do better?’ You know, a lot of good has been done here in the last 24 months, what can we do even better? What's the one thing that if you could change it to make us even better, what would be that thing?” Diaz said.

After a short tenure as the head coach of Miami, Diaz went up to Penn State to take the defensive coordinator job, and what he accomplished there was nothing short of remarkable. The Nittany Lions were a dominant defensive unit under his tutelage, ranking near the top of every major defensive category and propelling their coach to Durham to take over his second ACC program.

While following up Elko may be a tough task, Diaz seems up to it, remarking about the excellent infrastructure that is already in place and the immense support from the administration and fans. He has also been successful in recruiting, bringing in a sizable transfer group highlighted by Murphy and building a 2025 recruiting class that is on track to be one of the best in school history.

“People want to be at Duke. The parents of our student athletes want their sons to be at Duke. They want them to finish and graduate at Duke. I think that's where we're a little bit uniquely poised [compared to] some of these other schools,” Diaz said. “We can sell so much more than [football].”

One major challenge for Diaz in recreating the success of the past two years will be finding ways to replace a large number of contributors. The Blue Devils just said goodbye to one of the most impactful senior classes the program has ever seen, and lost even more players to the portal. However, Diaz seems unfazed and encouraged by the mental makeup of his group.

“You're always trying to impress upon your team the virtues of hard work, sacrifice, discipline, can't have a great team without that … That's obviously true at Duke, but what you realize at Duke is you can't even get in unless you were raised that way,” Diaz said.

Keeping the culture

One of the stories that developed throughout Elko’s tenure — especially in the time between his departure for Texas A&M and the hiring of Diaz — was the tight-knit nature of the locker room. That phenomenon doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. 

The Blue Devils lost a surprisingly low amount of impact players to the transfer portal in the wake of the coaching change, with Diaz convincing starters like Stinson and running back Jaquez Moore to withdraw their names from the portal.

“With the coaching change, there’s a lot of doubt in the air. I tested the waters just to see what was out there, where my head was,” Stinson said. “But ultimately, just the brotherhood we have here, the culture we have here, I just wanted to run it back, do it one more time.” 

Another major component in keeping the momentum going was the retention of strength coach David Feeley, who is among the best in the business and beloved by Blue Devil players. The 2023 ITL Strength Coach of the Year also worked with Diaz at Miami and his return had several players excited about the new era. 

“That was absolutely one of the most important decisions, and to be honest, it was made before I was hired. David called me and asked me if I'd be interested in the job when it opened and I said, ‘Well that depends.’ He says, ‘Depends on what?’ I said, ‘Would you stay?’”

Duke also still has a number of excellent players on the roster to work with. Moore figures to be an All-ACC level performer at wide receiver, and Tre Freeman and Chandler Rivers highlight a defensive unit that wreaked havoc over the last two years. If Diaz can keep that momentum going, the Blue Devils should again be a tough out in conference play.