Manny Diaz details how Duke's academic standards impact recruiting

It’s no secret that Duke has to adhere to a different academic standard than many teams in the college football world. However, their second-year head coach Manny Diaz sees it as a strength rather than a weakness.

During an appearance on the College GameDay Podcast, Diaz shed some light on the situation. He explained how the Blue Devils’ high standards have impacted recruiting, both at the high school level and in the transfer portal, and the ways in which Duke has still found success living by a different code.

“We have to make sure that we, whether it’s portal recruiting or high school recruiting, that we bring people who are going to thrive here. We had like a 3.32 team GPA this past spring. I think we were 3.2-something in the fall. So, our guys don’t just survive, they truly do thrive. They take a lot of heart in being the people that do hard things, right? Because this is different. It’s a different deal here,” Diaz stated.

“But the way to make this place really shine, and we learned this — we brought in David Cutcliffe to Zoom with our staff during our hideaway meetings last summer, and you’ve got to let Duke be Duke. You’ve got to let the strength of the school be its strength. If you want to be something else, you’re going to always be disappointed. The ones who want to do those things, the parents who raise their kids to do hard things, not only do they really enjoy being here, but they want to stay here and attract others that are like them.”

Alas, that’s a fantastic way to attack the situation from Diaz, who wouldn’t have take the gig without knowing what coaching at Duke entails. After posting a 9-3 regular-season record last season, ESPN’s Pete Thamel believes the Blue Devils have a chance to make some serious noise in 2025, thinking a College Football Playoff appearance might not be a complete pipe dream.

“If Duke is able to get by Illinois, there is a path there for them to be in the thicket of College Football Playoff contention,” Thamel said, via the same episode. “Tulane is a difficult game on the road, as Manny [Diaz] mentioned, but Tulane is not what they were. They lost a lot.

“… It gets harder and harder by the year to project what these teams are gonna look like because there’s so much personnel. And I’m not making an excuse, I’m just saying like it’s less linear, one year to the next. But if you go past Tulane, all of a sudden, you got NC State at home, you’re at Syracuse, you’re probably favored at Cal, Georgia Tech at home, and then they go to Clemson, November 1. That game could have significant stakes.”

We’ll see what Duke has for an encore under Manny Diaz this season. With former Tulane quarterback Darian Mensah committing to join them, their academic standard isn’t hampering them at the moment, as the Blue Devils seem to be primed for a run this coming season.