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| Home / College Guide / Duke football talks rediscovering the process, ACC unveils new tiebreaker rules |
| Posted on Wednesday, July 22 @ 00:03:18 PDT |
The reigning ACC champions are back.
As the calendar inches closer to September — and Duke football’s first game of the season against Tulane — the Blue Devils took the podium Friday in Charlotte for the conference’s annual Football Kickoff event. Head coach Manny Diaz, tight end Jeremiah Hasley, linebacker Luke Mergott and running back Nate Sheppard represented the team, fielding questions about their offseason, shocking portal moves and other changes around the league.
Diaz enters his third campaign at the helm in Durham, having just received a contract extension through the 2031 season. He’ll aim to lead Duke to a fifth consecutive winning season, as expectations are only rising in the Bull City.
Quick turnaround
Despite last season’s accomplishments — including a 9-5 record, ACC Championship and Sun Bowl victory — its back to square one for the Blue Devils. In his opening statement Friday afternoon, Diaz emphasized Duke’s focus on connection amidst a “transactional” phase of college football — highlighting Hasley, Mergott and Sheppard as three anchors of the programs culture and character.
The player trio all fielded questions about the last-second transfers of star quarterback Darian Mensah and receiver Cooper Barkate to conference foe Miami.
Mensah was also in Charlotte to represent the Hurricanes, as they look to return to the College Football Playoff after a runner-up finish last season. The former Blue Devil faced pressure from reporters regarding his move and reported lucrative new contract.
“Its hard to leave people you love,” Mensah said. “But at the end of the day, business is business.
Who will assume the spot under center is still up in the air for Diaz’s squad, with redshirt freshman Dan Mahan and San Jose State graduate transfer Walker Eget poised to vie for the starting job.
Another key focus is filling the shoes of several defensive stalwarts, including linemen Wesley Williams, Vincent Anthony Jr., Josiah Green and Aaron Hall. Defensive ends coach Harland Bower also left the program in February to take a job with the Baltimore Ravens. While the departures leave only a few starting spots locked in, Diaz says that’s due to the depth of the room.
“That means that this August is going to be a heck of a competition, a heck of a battle, because whoever starts, theres going to be some damn good players watching that first 11 that run out there against Tulane,” the coach said.
Maintaining the standard
Despite turnaround in several key positions, Duke maintains strong confidence in itself and its identity as a program.
“It’s not about trying to recreate the outcome of what happened a year ago,” Diaz said. “Its about rediscovering the process. Even though we’ve had different names on the back of the jerseys over the last couple of years, the constant has been how we work and how we prepared.”
The preparation and standard is established in the weight room, or the “church of Feeley” — Diaz’s nickname for strength coach David Feeley’s rigorous and demanding attitude towards physical and mental improvement. His emphasis on hard work, facing challenges and continuing to get better are some of the key tenets of the Blue Devil program. Having those ideals stay the same energizes a team who has dealt with its fair share of turnover.
“[Coach Feeley] has been instrumental to this team, to me, to everybody else on this stage in getting bigger, stronger and faster,” Sheppard said.
The sophomore running back burst onto the scene last season, taking over starting duties by Week Five and earning Second Team All-ACC honors. Now a clear offensive cornerstone, Sheppard’s return to Durham underscores the culture and belief across the program. However, his unofficial title as speediest player on the field might face some challengers.
Diaz said that two-thirds of the team is running over 20 miles per hour, and the team is recording higher weightlifting marks than it was at the same time last year.
“Our guys are seeing real tangible proof that if they just follow the program, if they follow our process, and they follow the system, they get better,” Diaz said.
That theme is especially evident on the defensive side of the ball. Anchored by a strong linebacker room in Mergott, Nick Morris Jr., Kendall Johnson and Bradley Gompers, Diaz says Duke looks to return to its defensive prowess of the 2024 season, once again highlighting depth as a key strength for helping the Blue Devils play their brand of football.
“If anybody has paid attention to Duke football, its probably going to be decided in the fourth quarter,” he said. “Im really excited about seeing that depth all across our defense help us see us through in those late wins more than they did in 2024.”
In both 2024 and 2025, seven games were decided by one score or less — resulting in six wins in 2024, but just three in 2025. With the Blue Devils possessing far more questions on offense than a season ago, newfound defensive toughness will be vital throughout a competitive conference slate and nonconference tests.
Curbed chaos
Duke remained at the forefront of other discussions in Charlotte, including in commissioner Jim Phillips’ opening statement. The ACC unveiled new tiebreaker rules governing the final standings and championship game selections, changing the system that enabled the Blue Devils to claim the conference title last December.
With the College Football Playoff reserving one spot for each Power Four conference champion, Phillips says the changes ensure the championship game “features the two most deserving teams.” Diaz’s squad advanced to the title game on “combined winning percentage of conference opponents, a narrow metric that will primarily be replaced with a “Team Success Rating” comparison between any tied teams. This rating will be provided by SportSource Analytics at the end of the regular season. A detailed description of the new tiebreaker rules is available on the conference website.
Diaz pushed back on this change in his opening statement, saying the new rules remove “the most objective metric” as the shift comes in the wake of a five-way tie that enabled 7-5 Duke to advance.
“Inherent in the narrative of changing a tiebreaker for the conference championship game is the assertion that last years team was undeserved of being in the championship game,” he said.
“I think its not just false, I think its insulting.”
SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee also made headlines for his defense of the Blue Devils’ championship, saying they should have earned a spot in the playoff over Sun Belt champion James Madison.
“What [Duke] did last year, winning the league, was incredible,” Lashlee said. “When you win the ACC the way they did and who they beat, they should have been in instead of a team from the Sun Belt.”
Lashlee’s Mustangs were one of the five teams in the end-of-season tie after a loss at Cal in the final week of the regular season tipped the scales in the Blue Devils’ favor. James Madison fell to Oregon 51-34 in the opening round of the playoff, after earning its spot as the fourth-highest rated conference champion.
Those complicated tiebreaks and chaotic finishes may be in the past now, and the focus turns to the 2026 season, which kicks off in less than six weeks. The Blue Devils will face a balanced slate of conference foes from a championship game rematch at Virginia October 23 to a clash against their former signal-caller Mensah at his new home in Miami.
Duke begins its title defense September 5 against Tulane at 3:30 pm inside Wallace Wade Stadium.
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