Some thoughts on Manny Diaz and Duke football

Lots of boxes to check

Is Manny Diaz the one? The one who will not only have a few good years as Duke football coach. But the one who can and will sustain that success, the one who can make Duke nationally competitive in football year after year.

That one.

It seems like every time I talk about Duke’s football history I say something along the lines of “since Bill Murray retired.”

Murray retired after the 1965 season. He wasn’t that old, 57 to be exact,

But the ground was shifting under him in ways he didn’t like. The NCAA allowed unlimited substitutions, which made it harder for Duke to compete. But internal issues were more of a factor, as Duke began talking about de-emphasizing football.

Duke has had 11 coaches since Murray; Diaz will be the 12^th. Steve Spurrier and Mike Elko are the only two to win more games than they lost at Duke. Spurrier left for Florida after three seasons at Duke, Elko for Texas A&M after two. David Cutcliffe is the only coach since Murray to last more than eight seasons.

Technically, Duke usually didn’t fire a coach. They just let the contract expire and didn’t renew.

Paying someone not to coach was too expensive.

Quick Cutcliffe sidebar. After inheriting the worst program in power conference football and starting 4-8, 5-7, 3-9 and 3-9, Cutcliffe came within three games of .500 at Duke twice in the 2019 season before the wheels came off.

What’s with the history lesson? Certainly, the game has changed so much since even a decade ago that maybe there’s nothing to compare.

But. In a time when the buy-in was much lower Duke tried to run a big-time football program on the cheap.

Not for a few years. For almost a half century.

This is the first time since Spurrier left that Duke has hired from a position of strength. Spurrier recommended his defensive coordinator Barry Wilson and Duke took the easy way out. Wilson went 13-30-1 in four seasons, instituting a generation of mediocrity followed by whatever is worse than mediocrity.

After Elko left there was lots of talk about Duke being a stepping-stone job instead of a destination job. But far more often it’s been a dead-end job.