The Duke football program will look to replicate its success from a year ago when they won the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship. 

Under Manny Diaz, the Blue Devils appear to be on the right path in terms of finding success and then sustaining it. Duke's win last year in that title game followed by a bowl victory was a good start. 

However, there are some obstacles that Diaz will have to overcome including the biggest one being the loss of quarterback Darian Mensah. 

While Diaz has the attitude of moving forward with the program and wishing Mensah the best of luck, his coaching could now be the biggest difference in finding success in 2026. 

As we prepare for the upcoming season, a new coaches ranking is out from CBS Sports and it has Diaz in an interesting spot. 

Throughout the season, CBS Sports' Tom Fornelli puts out his rankings of coaches in college football. Here in the offseason, he has released his updated list featuring just power four coaches. 

Diaz lands at No. 30 in the rankings from Fornelli: 

You can look at Manny Diaz's ranking and say, "Now wait just a dang second here, this man just won the freaking ACC at Duke, and he can't even crack your top 25!?" You'd have a point. The counter, though, is that he did win the ACC, but with a 7-5 regular-season record and losses to Tulane and UConn.  It's just one of those things! You respect the achievement, but you also have to consider the context. I'd argue a 14-point climb from last year is a perfectly reasonable response to what Diaz did last year. 2025 rank: 44 (+14), High: 21, Low: 36

It's hard to argue against Fornelli. 

While Duke did win the ACC, they went 7-5 overall. They had some tough losses in there as well. Now, without Mensah, there are a lot of questions left to be answered still by the Blue Devils.

Can they improve this year and be even better? It should be another important year for Diaz and his team.