With the 2026 college football season just under three months away, previews are rolling out. The latest is Athlon Sports who puts together its magazine each year giving insight to the upcoming season. 

But one of the more fun things they do is a section where anonymous coaches talk about other teams in the conference.

That includes the Duke Blue Devils.

For Duke, they are coming off one of their best seasons in history in terms of success and winning the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship. They ended strong by winning their bowl game as well. 

After that, the sky was thought to be the limit for Manny Diaz's team. Then a big transfer portal decision rocked the program. Quarterback Darian Mensah opted to leave Duke and instead head to Miami, the College Football Playoff runner-up. The addition of Mensah gives Miami a legit quarterback as they look to make another run.

Meanwhile, for Duke they are hit with a big loss and will have to look elsewhere at quarterback. That situation happened to be a big topic as a fellow ACC coach touched on that and didn't put the blame on Duke. 

In the article, one ACC coach mentioned how it's tough in terms of the timing for Duke to lose Mensah at this stage in the offseason. He also didn't put the blame on Duke and instead called it a 'tough blow' for the program:

“What’s so tough in this era is the timing of when Duke ost (quarterback Darian Mensah) to Miami. There’s no way that they thought they were going to lose him. So they didn’t replace him or get someone comparable because why would someone comparable come while he’s there? That’s a tough blow.” 

The coach isn't wrong. One of the big problems with the portal is timing. How was Duke supposed to replace a player of that caliber?

It's been a hot storyline all offseason. We also got to finally hear from Diaz on the situation as he took the high road and wished Mensah well while also complimenting his team.

Diaz plans to use this as motivation for his team.