Diaz and Duke have taken care of business early on.
It’s interesting to look at Duke’s football season right now and compare it to prior years. With head coach Manny Diaz taking over just a few seasons ago, there’s been a lot to like about what he’s done.
He was able to win the ACC title game a year ago and has his team playing really good football right now, starting 3-0.
It almost feels disrespectful that Duke, after winning the ACC a year ago, isn’t ranked after taking down Tulane, Illinois, and Stanford. That’s a Group of Six team widely regarded as one of the better ones in the country, a decent Big Ten team, and an ACC opponent that Duke was able to blow out, 35-7.
For whatever reason, that’s the case for the Blue Devils at the moment, and it doesn’t sound like it’s bothering Diaz too much.
In fact, he’s happy with how his team has lived up to expectations, adding that in prior years, it didn’t always feel like his team did what it had to do when it was favored. Instead, Duke has simply taken care of business, and that’s a positive sign.
“We had struggled in two years with expectation,” Diaz said. “We'd struggled with being the favorite. We'd struggled of not trying to be perfect, of at times playing tense in those type of games. And we really challenged our guys this week to just present as the best version of ourselves and just be us.”
“I do think what does help is I do think this is a team that has extraordinary belief in their identity,” Diaz said, per Duke Wire. “And I think that's been obvious. And the identity is in body blows. I mean, dominating the line of scrimmage, which, again, it's not a first-round knockout type of thing.”
There’s a lot to like about what this Duke team has shown, especially if the offense can do what it did against Stanford.
There were still times when I was a bit worried about the passing game, as the quarterback finished just 14 of 24 for 202 yards, but Nate Sheppard was ridiculous, rushing for 154 yards and two touchdowns on 23 carries.
