Darian Mensah Reveals Cam Ward and Carson Beck Reason for Transferring to Miami

Former Duke quarterback Darian Mensah finds himself in a very good position to succeed at a high level at the University of Miami. 

Not only did Miami make a massive financial commitment to ensure it had one of the best quarterbacks in America on its roster and ready to play each Saturday, but the rest of the team is as good as it gets. 

There's a real sense that not only can Miami be a very good team next year, but a team that has a chance to win a national title. Mensah is going to be the reason for that, though I understand that Duke fans might not want to hear that.

It's a strange situation that Mensah had to figure out himself, but he ultimately decided that Duke wasn't the perfect spot for him and decided to go to Miami. 

It's almost wrong to say that it was the right decision, but from a football standpoint, I don't think anybody can really disagree with him. This is the University of Miami we're talking about at the end of the day, as that would be somewhat similar to somebody talking about the difference between Duke and Miami in basketball.

Regardless of how people feel about that, Mensah has his own thoughts. It doesn't feel like he threw a shot at Duke with his recent comments, but they did feel pretty intentional. He added that Miami has a great quarterback history and seeing what its offensive coordinator has allowed quarterbacks to do in the past was something that interested him.

“Seeing what the last two quarterbacks did at Miami was a huge factor,” Mensah said at the ACC Kickoff, per the SF Chronicle. “Seeing the freedom that (offensive coordinator Shannon) Dawson lets the quarterback play with within his offense was also something that was attractive to me.”

The only thing I don't like is that Miami's head coach has come out and made it seem like there wasn't some sense behind the scenes that this was all calculated. 

Once Carson Beck decided to enter the NFL Draft, everybody who follows college football had a feeling that Mensah was going to end up in Miami. 

The second he hit the transfer portal, it was pretty much a guarantee that was going to happen.

“We were in the market for a quarterback,” Mario Cristobal said. “We felt the team was really set in so many areas. When Darian hit the portal, we felt this is a guy we would love to pursue. ... His levels of leadership, care factor, time invested in his craft, football IQ, just natural human IQ, just an elite person."