Duke's Manny Diaz Has Intriguing Idea To Level Playing Field

Today's world of college football, and college sports altogether, features a ton of chaos.

Head coach Manny Diaz has been fantastic as the Blue Devils' head coach, compiling a 22-10 overall record so far and securing the program's first ACC Championship since 1989 in 2025. Additionally, he's doing it without the vast resources that true college football powerhouses have.

Manny Diaz Has Interesting Idea Regarding Transfer Portal

Duke was one of the biggest transfer portal victims this offseason. Following the 2024 campaign, the Blue Devils signed Tulane transfer quarterback Darian Mensah and Harvard transfer wide receiver Cooper Barkate. Both turned into arguably the best players at their positions in the ACC in 2025.

Mensah led the ACC in passing yards (3,973) and passing touchdowns (34), while throwing just six interceptions. Barkate became the first Duke receiver to reach 1,000 yards since Jamison Crowder in 2014. Diaz and his staff identified talent at mid-major programs in the transfer portal and turned them into legitimate stars in a year.

In the end, it did secure the program a conference title. However, great players at less prominent programs then become prime targets for the big dogs in college football. That's exactly what happened to the Blue Devils.

After Mensah publicly released a video saying he would return to Duke in 2025, he announced his intentions to enter the NCAA transfer portal at the last second, with Miami being the school to watch. That led Duke to file a lawsuit against Mensah, but that was eventually settled before it reached court.

Barkate followed Mensah to Coral Gables, but Mensah's case became a defining moment in today's college football world. Duke signed Mensah to a two-year NIL deal from Tulane, but all he had to do was enter the portal, and the contract virtually meant nothing. It begs the question: What's the point of these contracts to begin with?

Now, you can't blame Mensah for taking life-changing money and going to a program with a real chance to compete for a National Championship. Still, Duke identified him, developed him, and eventually lost him for nothing in return. Additionally, Mensah's late transfer put Duke in an impossible spot to find a replacement, though it did land Walker Eget from San Jose State.

Programs with fewer resources than top programs in the sport have an incredibly difficult path to competing consistently. As soon as players that these programs identified early develop into real stars on a national scale, a big-time program swoops in and takes them away, and those smaller programs don't get anything in return.

In a recent discussion with On3's Ari Wasserman and Andy Staples, Diaz presented an interesting solution for teams that lose key players and get nothing back.

"I think the game does now and should always favor, you know, universities that have great alignment and people who are working together and working smarter and working better for them to win," Diaz said. "But eventually, those teams can get beat by teams who just simply have more resources."

"If we have programs that are constantly winning simply just by paying for their mistakes by plucking off other people's rosters, that's not great...and you don't get anything in return, right."

"If you sign a bunch of great recruits, and you develop them and then they go somewhere else, and again I'll go back to European soccer, you should receive a transfer fee that you can pay above your cap number, right. So you can either reinvest in your team or go keep reinvesting in the development of your players."

A transfer fee in soccer is essentially when a player elects to transfer clubs before his contract expires; the new club pays compensation to the old club the player played for. It's an interesting idea by Diaz that logically makes some sense.

Does This Make Sense?

On the surface, giving college football teams something in return for losing their top players makes sense. In the current state of college sports, it's incredibly difficult for football programs like Duke to keep their stars when one of the sport's heavy hitters comes calling.

This makes it extremely difficult for a football program like Duke to consistently compete every year. The Athletic recently estimated the roster budgets for all 68 Power Conference teams, and the Blue Devils were at the very bottom of the list around the $10-$12 million range.

Now, Diaz has consistently kept Duke as a competitive program, as did Mike Elko, but the yearly challenge will never change if programs like Duke can't keep their stars in town and never get anything back when they lose them.

It's an interesting idea from Diaz, and one that could make sense.