Duke Makes a Statement in Winning 2025 ACC Crown
Jim Sumner, GoDuke the Magazine
Duke football hosted Virginia on November 15 this season, a game with significant ACC title-game implications.
It did not go well. Virginia took a 7-0 lead on its opening possession, led 17-3 at the half and extended its lead to 31-3 after three quarters.
Then Darian Mensah led a 72-yard Duke TD drive, followed by a Tre Freeman interception and touchdown and it was 31-17.
Duke couldn’t complete the comeback. Virginia added a field goal and won 34-17. But Manny Diaz saw something.
I am pleased at the heart and fight that we showed in the fourth quarter. When it looked as bad as it did at 31-3, to come back and get a couple of touchdowns there in the fourth. That does show that there’s a backbone to this team, there’s a backbone to this program and that’s what it’s going to take going forward.~ Duke head coach Manny Diaz to the media following the Virginia game
Three weeks later Diaz was holding up the ACC football championship trophy.
Some context.
The terms “Duke football” and “ACC champions” haven’t been linked much in recent decades.
Gallery: ACC Championship Game Celebration
You may not remember much about 1962. That was the year Mantle and Berra won the World Series for the last time. West Side Story won the Academy award for best movie. The Beatles were struggling to gain a foothold in the UK. The year was closer to the 19th century then it is to 2025.
And Duke football ruled the ACC roost. Three straight titles, a 16-2 conference record over that span, 6-0 in 1962.
That was Bill Murray’s last great Duke team. Still, Duke had a chance to finish first in 1963, 1970 and 1975 but fell short.
Duke actually did finish first in 1965 but lost the title the following summer when South Carolina was forced to forfeit wins over Clemson and NC State, forfeits that enabled both schools to go from a half-game behind Duke to a half-game ahead of Duke.
That was it until Steve Spurrier’s third and final Duke team shared the 1989 ACC title with Virginia.
Spurrier’s departure ushered in years of futility.
David Cutcliffe and a substantial boost in program support resurrected the program. Duke won the 2013 Coastal Division title, which earned them the right to get mauled by 2013 Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston and eventual national champion Florida State.
Still, that 10-win season demonstrated that Duke football could be competitive.
Manny Diaz took over following the 2023 season after Duke had gone 16-9 under Mike Elko.
Diaz had to cobble together a competitive roster after the NFL draft, graduation and the transfer portal stripped Duke of much of its top-tier talent. Duke’s 2024 “spring game” was more of a situational scrimmage because Duke only had five healthy offensive linemen.
Duke was picked to finish 11th in the preseason ACC poll.
Instead Duke tied for fourth, 5-3 in the ACC. Duke defeated Florida State for the first time in program history, overcame a 20-0 deficit to defeat North Carolina 21-20, and also defeated NC State and Wake Forest, giving the program the mythical state championship.
Gallery: Historic Comeback: Duke Tops Tar Heels
The nine-win regular season earned Duke a spot in the Gator Bowl, where they lost to Mississippi.
Duke and quarterback Maalik Murphy parted ways after the 2024 season. Shortly after, Diaz landed touted Tulane transfer Darian Mensah to replace Murphy. Not only was Mensah a clear upgrade, his move to Duke solidified the message that Duke was ready to play with the big boys.
Mensah proved his worth out of the gate. But a series of mistakes and short-yardage problems doomed Duke to early-season defeats against Illinois, Tulane and Georgia Tech, all games Duke could have won.
But Duke also posted come-from behind conference wins against NC State and California, a blowout win at Syracuse and a pulsating 46-45 road win over Clemson, Duke’s first win at Death Valley since 1980.
Virginia’s win over Duke left the Blue Devils 5-5 overall, needing at least one win over the final two weeks to become bowl eligible.
North Carolina was first, in Chapel Hill, local bragging rights, the state title, the Victory Bell.
But an ACC title was not on the agenda.
Definitely some juice going into this game. A huge rivalry. I think we’ll be ready. A good game for a step in the right direction.~ Duke quarterback Darian Mensah leading into the North Carolina game
It turned out to be a good step, indeed. After leading 24-10 in the third quarter, Duke fell behind 25-24. Trailing by that score in the middle of the fourth Duke’s maligned defense got back-to-back sacks by Josiah Green and Aaron Hall to force a punt.
Gallery: Blue Devils Rally, Keep Victory Bell
Duke drove to the North Carolina 27 with just over two minutes remaining. Duke sent the field goal unit out on fourth down. But the call was a fake, perfectly conceived and perfect executed, a flip to kicker Todd Pelino, who sprinted down the left side of the field to the one-yard line.
Anderson Castle barreled over for the touchdown on the first play, his third TD run of the game.
Duke’s defense forced a holding penalty, another sack and a fourth-down incompletion, sealing the 32-25 win.
Duke converted 5-of-6 fourth-down plays, Pelino’s fake among them. Duke was the team getting sacks, forcing penalties, playing with verve and confidence.
Most importantly Duke rediscovered its running game. After rushing for only 42 yards on 23 carries against Virginia, Duke rushed for 177 yards on 43 carries, controlling the time of possession 36 minutes to 24.
Nate Sheppard led the way with 90 rushing yards.
Wake Forest was next, the regular-season finale, Duke hosting over the Thanksgiving weekend.
Slowly news began to percolate that Duke wasn’t completely elminated from the ACC title picture. Duke had two ACC losses and a lot of one-loss teams would have to lose again for the ACC’s tiebreakers to mean anything.
None of this mattered if Duke didn’t beat Wake.
Duke did just that, blasting the Deacs 49-32 in one of the season’s most complete games.
Gallery: Duke Downs Wake Forest on Senior Night
Would the rest of the ACC co-operate?
Georgia Tech began its ACC season with five wins and looked like the presumptive champs for much of the season. But they lost two of their final three conference games.
That left Virginia, Pittsburgh and SMU as one-loss teams going into the final Saturday. Two would have to lose for Duke to make the title game.
Virginia easily handled rival Virginia Tech. But Miami defeated Pitt, leaving both with two conference losses.
That left SMU at California, a late kickoff for eastern fans.
Following the Wake win Diaz told the media that he didn’t want his team wandering off the next day in any nature preserves without their phones.
He need not have worried.
Co-captain Aaron Hall said a sizeable group of seniors gathered at an apartment shared by Freeman and Sahmir Hagans and became “Cal Bear fans, all of us seniors just sitting on the couch watching the game.”
SMU fell behind 31-14, took the lead, surrendered a last-minute TD and missed a last-second field-goal… producing a Duke-Virginia rematch for the ACC title.
Portions of the college football universe asked how a 7-5 Duke team made the title game, while a 10-2 Miami team did not.
Simple. The ACC established protocols for breaking ties, protocols agreed on before the season began, and followed them.
Duke had other concerns, namely how to overcome that 17-point gap from the first meeting with Virginia.
One way to control a prolific offense is to keep them on the sidelines.
Duke got the ball first and kept it for 9:38, 15 plays, 75 yards, a hurry-up offense turned into a ball-control offense in a week.
It was a master class in controlling the clock — a five-yard pass, a four-yard run, a three-yard run, a nine-yard pass, a five-yard run. Only two of Duke’s 15 plays gained more than nine yards, the second a 12-yard TD-pass to tight end Jeremiah Hasley.
After Virginia tied it 7-7 Duke did it again, a TD drive taking 8:02 off the clock to go ahead 14-7.
They dared us to run the ball. We knew that was going to be the challenge going into the (title) game. My front five did an exceptional job of creating holes for our running backs all game long.~ Mensah on what was learned in the first game against Virginia
A Pelino field goal put Duke up 20-10 with five minutes left. Then the wheels came off. Virginia cut it to 20-13 with a field goal, then Duke punted to the Virginia 4 only to allow the Cavaliers to march 96 yards in 1:22, the tying touchdown coming with only 22 seconds remaining.
Two Duke penalties aided the Virginia drive.
Coaches and players talk about “next play.” Easy to say, maybe not so easy to do after the catastrophic end of regulation.
Mensah said it was easy to hit reset.
Those are the moments I live for. We knew this game was going to come down to the last play. Just trying to get my guys excited. We all live for these moments. There’s no better feeling than winning a championship, so why not go full face into adversity?~ Mensah
We preach the next-play mentality. We said, ‘Hey, guess what, we get to play overtime for the ACC.’~ Diaz
Duke got the ball first. Sheppard picked up 11 yards on the first play, which Diaz called “a statement.” Duke reached the one-yard line and went for it on fourth down, when a field goal would have given Duke the lead.
But “aggressive” was the magic word for Duke down the stretch. Mensah rolled out, bought some time with his feet and waited for someone to come open. Hasley was that someone and Mensah found him.
Virginia had a chance to answer. An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after the touchdown started the Cavaliers at the 40. They tried a flea-flicker but linebacker Luke Mergott jumped the route and ended the game with an interception.
Mergott began the season as a backup but became a starter and then something pretty close to an every-down player as linebacker injuries mounted.
Diaz made its best appeal to get Duke into the College Football Playoff, to no avail. Still, Mensah said winning the school’s first outright ACC title in decades is one of the reasons he came to Duke.
Me and Coach Diaz talked about it when we first met. To bring a championship to this school, who’s primarily known for basketball, is a statement.~ Mensah
Is there better to come? Diaz opened his ACC title game postgame recalling the conversations he had with the Duke leadership before he took the Duke job, referencing the support he was promised and has received, the ability for Duke to combine elite football and elite academics, the ability to compete for championships, not every generation but every year.
If that comes to fruition, 2025 may be seen as the foundational season of another run of Duke dominance.