Duke's Next Chapter Starts Friday

It’s a coaching standard: Regardless of where he or she works, there’s one inescapable truth. A newly hired coach will rarely be as popular as the day they took the job.

That’s not to say a winner can’t carve an enduring place in the hearts of fans. The last two football coaches at Duke did just that, David Cutcliffe returning the Blue Devils’ stature as a formidable opponent, Mike Elko taking them to more victories in 2022 — nine — than all but two seasons since 1941, the year the Rose Bowl came to Durham.

Fans want to be won over, to bask in the warmth of their favorite team’s success. Postseason berths and achievements on a national stage, poll standings and upper-echelon ACC finishes — even the occasional, surprisingly credible performance against stiff odds — have a way of whittling down resistance, turning unproven strangers into honored leaders.

Of course, every job comes with built-in handicaps, some susceptible to change, and its own history, which can be overshadowed or used to lend perspective. Those parameters go a long way toward defining how a coach is received and how they are judged.

Since Hall-of-Famer Bill Murray ushered the Blue Devils into the new ACC, those handicaps and others have confronted each of the 11 men who became Duke’s head football coach. Manny Diaz, hired last December, is the 12th.

Diaz was previously head coach at Miami, compiling a 21-15 record from 2019-21. Now he’s charged with maintaining Duke’s recent winning predilections.

Of the men entrusted with that job in modern times, just three compiled a winning record in their first season at Duke. And only Cutcliffe, currently a special assistant to the commissioner for football relations in the SEC, managed three straight seasons with a winning mark (2013-14-15), the first by the Blue Devils since Murray’s days in the earliest 1960s.

Diaz now aims to set a third consecutive winning record atop the pair of positive marks compiled by Elko. Happily for the program’s prospects, Elko not only posted winning seasons in 2022 (9-4) and 2023 (7-5) to begin his tenure, he reinforced the impression the Blue Devils could make winning a habit.

Impressively, last year’s Christmastime triumph over Troy in the Birmingham Bowl extended a quiet run of five bowl victories by Duke that currently stands as the longest postseason winning streak in the ACC.

There were entire decades, and not all that long ago, when victories, let alone bowl appearances, were uncommon occurrences at Duke. From 1963 during Murray’s tenure through 1987 under Steve Spurrier, a former offensive coordinator for Duke under Shirley “Red” Wilson (marketing slogan: “Red Means Go”), no coach won more than six games in a season.

Following a brief burst under Spurrier, including a bowl berth for the first time in 29 years, and another bowl later under Fred Goldsmith — the sole Duke coach in the ACC era to open with a winning season (8-4 in 1994) until Elko in 2022 — the Devils’ fortunes crashed.

Now, with four winning seasons in the last seven, two straight bowls and a freshened outlook, Duke is sure to ratchet up its defense under Diaz, who most recently was the defensive coordinator for Penn State. The Nittany Lions were the 2023 national leader in total defense, yielding 223.2 yards per game, the fewest allowed since 2011, and an average of 13.5 points, the third lowest mark in FBS. Diaz stressed pressure defense at Happy Valley; last season Penn State led the nation in sacks and fewest first downs allowed while ranking second in pass defense, run defense and turnovers gained. PSU was 21-4 in Diaz’s two years on the job.

"You want to root for a team that's resilient, you want to root for a team that's never out of the fight, you want to root for a team that never gives up," said Diaz, 50, in describing his vision for the Blue Devils. "It is hard to beat relentless. And then you want to root for a team that, when the best is required, they step up — (display) competitive excellence. And that's what's going to define us."

This story originally appeared in the 2024 Duke Football Yearbook - August 2024. Dedicated to sharing the stories of Duke student-athletes, present and past, GoDuke The Magazine is published for Duke Athletics by LEARFIELD with editorial offices at 3100 Tower Blvd., Suite 404, Durham, NC 27707. To subscribe, join the Iron Dukes or call (336) 831-0767.