Having a new starting quarterback to begin the season is nothing new for the Duke Blue Devils and Manny Diaz.
The start of the college football season is just days away. For the Duke Blue Devils, they will kick off Week 1 by hosting the Tulane Green Wave.
It will be a rematch of last season's battle between the two teams where Tulane beat Duke at home. This year's matchup will be a little different, however. Both teams will have new starting quarterbacks.
Darian Mensah transferred from Tulane to Duke for the 2025 season, forcing the Green Wave to find a new signal caller. Now, it's Duke's turn after Mensah transferred to Miami this offseason.
For Duke, they saw San Jose State transfer Walker Eget win the starting job after a long battle this offseason. The quarterback position is the biggest storyline for the Blue Devils this season and while they don't need Eget to play at Mensah's level, he still needs to be very good.
But having a new starting quarterback isn't something new for Manny Diaz and Duke. In fact, this will be the third straight season they will have a new starter at quarterback as Diaz explained on Tuesday.
Well, we've done it for three straight years, right? The first part of your question, the continuity is that the players understand the expectation and then you have the visual evidence or statistical evidence that it works. And so the coaches get it, the players understand it, players can explain to other players because they've been through it and they can see Duke guys executing and having it work. When you bring in another quarterback, especially when they're a transfer, they've got their old body of knowledge of the way they used to do things.
There's just different things that they feel more comfortable with. So I think what you got to do is when you bring a guy into your program, you got to find out who they are, find out what they do best. And like any other good coach would do is you build your offense around what they feel the most comfortable executing.
There's going to be some growing pains for Eget and the offense, especially early on in the season. That's expected when you're breaking in a new quarterback.
But Eget isn't no slouch either and he put up some good numbers at San Jose State.
This is a level higher for competition throughout the season and Eget is going to be tested, especially in Week 1. Diaz and the Blue Devils are confident in Eget and now it's time to go prove it on the field.
