DURHAM, N.C. (WNCN) — The second year of the Manny Diaz era in Durham begins Thursday night as Duke football hosts FCS team Elon from nearby Burlington to open the 2025 season.
Under Diaz’ leadership, the Blue Devils exceeded expectations last season, finishing the season with an appearance in the Gator Bowl and a 9-4 record.
But many pieces of that team are now gone, and Diaz and Duke have several new players to work into the system. The biggest addition is quarterback Darian Mensah, a top-ranked transfer who last played at Tulane.
Mensah joined the Blue Devils early enough to be present for spring practice, but many of his targets had not yet committed to the program at that point. As a result, Diaz said a good part of preseason training camp has been working on building chemistry and figuring out their new offense.
“We’ve replaced our age with age, but they’re new to our program because they weren’t here in the spring,” Diaz said earlier this week. “You would expect that timing in passing offense is something you get better and better at as the year goes on, and my expectation is however we good we throw the ball Thursday night in September, we’ll throw it better in October and we’ll throw it better in November.”
Blue Devils fans will get their first chance to see the new-look offense Thursday night. Duke and Elon kick off at 7:30 p.m. at Wallace-Wade Stadium in Durham.