Infuriated by new tiebreaker rules targeting the Blue Devils, Manny Diaz blasted league expansion and demanded automatic playoff respect for the reigning conference champions in Charlotte.
Duke Blue Devils head coach Manny Diaz responded to changes the ACC made to their tiebreaker formula for the conference title game this season.
The Power 4 conference made those changes after Duke made it to the ACC Championship Game with a 6-2 record in league play, but had five losses overall. The unranked Blue Devils threw the ACC for a loop when it upset Virginia in the conference championship.
The College Football Playoff committee put Miami in the tournament as an at-large team, but the Blue Devils were left out. The committee put in two Group of 6 programs, Tulane and JMU, who were ranked ahead of Duke.
During the ACC Kickoff media event in Charlotte on Friday, Diaz said he was "insulted" by the "Duke tiebreaker rule" being implemented this week, saying his team deserved to win the conference championship.
In addition to defending Duke's ACC championship, he questioned why the conference had so many teams.
“What we’re in is we’re in a competition," Diaz said, via a transcription from On3. "That’s what this is. Seventeen teams showed up here this weekend to compete for one championship. The most simple way to do that is if we could all play each other, right? We can’t do that.
"There’s too many (expletive) teams. It would be great to have head-to-head, but there’s so many teams it’s hard to get us all together head-to-head. It would be cool to have common opponents, but you know what? It’s hard to have enough common opponents."
Diaz argued that in addition to Duke deserving to win the ACC, his team should have made it to the CFP regardless of their non-conference record.
“What also is deserved is that whoever wins this competition in this league, and what should be the discourse in this league, is that the conference champion should go to the CFP," Diaz said.
"That should happen. It’s respect for the league, it’s respect for what it means to play in this league, it’s respect to be one of the final two standing in this league."
It's hard to argue that Duke deserved to make the CFP over Tulane. The Green Wave defeated the Blue Devils 34-27 in September and lost another game to a non-Power 4 team, UConn.
Still, there's no argument that Duke didn't deserve to win the ACC, and the championship should be celebrated by the conference, not dismissed.
