Manny Diaz receives debut Duke season grade from Greg McElroy

Former Duke head coach Mike Elko turned the Blue Devils program around in his two seasons in Durham, going 17-9 after the Blue Devils had won only five games combined the previous two years. Manny Diaz kept that momentum going, leading Duke to a 9-4 season in 2024.

The former Miami head coach and Penn State defensive coordinator was recently praised by Greg McElroy on the Always College Football podcast. The ESPN analyst gave Manny Diaz an A- grade for his first season at Duke.

“They did a great of taking care of business against in-state teams,” McElroy said. “They beat North Carolina. They beat NC State. They beat Wake Forest. That was the first time they beat all three in one season since 2013.

“And they were great in one-score games. They were 6-1 in games decided by a single score. For Manny Diaz, his Year 1 grade is A-. I thought it was a great first year for him in Durham, North Carolina.”

Diaz lost some Duke players to the transfer portal, including star quarterback Riley Leonard, but that didn’t keep him from having a successful year.

Transfer quarterback Maalik Murphy played well for the Blue Devils, and Manny Diaz and his program did an excellent job of finding ways to win games. McElroy was surprised by the success Diaz had in his first season.

“When Manny Diaz was hired, everyone was able to kind of wrap their heads around it and say, ‘OK, well he’s got Power 5 experience, having been the head coach at Miami. And he also comes from that defensive background that we just used in success with Mike Elko.’ So it kind of made sense,” McElroy said.

“And as a result, I was a little surprised when Manny Diaz took this one, because he was in a good position at Penn State. But he clearly saw something that the rest of us didn’t see, and that was an opportunity to get to nine wins in Year 1.”

Maintaining success at a program like Duke is certainly not easy. But Manny Diaz has proven that he can have success in Durham.

Duke has now won eight or more games for three consecutive seasons.

“The Year 1 record at 9-4 is pretty dang impressive,” McElroy said. “For Diaz to walk into a situation where the team had gone 15-9 under Mike Elko, but they were losing their quarterback and they were losing a bunch of other talented players, I thought it was going to be a pretty tough spot to be in, because Duke had not been a program that had long been able to sustain success.

“Given what he was stepping into, I think it would’ve been easier for it to fall off a cliff and it didn’t.”