{"id":344706,"date":"2026-07-18T20:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T20:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/344706\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T20:00:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T20:00:21","slug":"dukes-diaz-on-miamis-involvement-in-mensah-transfer-only-say-what-you-can-prove-wral-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/344706\/","title":{"rendered":"Duke\u2019s Diaz on Miami\u2019s involvement in Mensah transfer: \u2018Only say what you can prove\u2019 :: WRAL.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHARLOTTE \u2014 College football coaches haven\u2019t been shy about tossing around accusations of tampering when players transfer to other schools.<\/p>\n

But Duke coach Manny Diaz wouldn\u2019t use that word Friday when discussing the high-profile transfer of quarterback Darian Mensah to ACC rival Miami. Mensah helped lead the Blue Devils to their first outright ACC championship since 1962 and publicly announced he\u2019d be returning to Duke before hitting the portal on the final day of the transfer window.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Mensah picked national runner-up Miami, Duke sued, accusing him of violating the terms of his two-year contract. The sides settled, allowing Mensah to transfer to Miami.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an unanswerable question because ultimately what it comes down to \u2014 and this is why it was never an issue for us \u2014 is you can only say what you can prove,\u201d Diaz said when asked by WRAL if Miami tampered with Mensah.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, it doesn\u2019t matter and that\u2019s why our issue was never with any other school. Duke was very consistent. The whole situation was simply about a contract that we felt had to be honored. And if it wasn\u2019t honored, then what is the ramification of that? That\u2019s exactly what happened. All parties were satisfied and all parties moved on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tampering refers to contact between a school and a player before the athlete is in the portal. It is considered commonplace in college sports, especially with agents and other third parties. And though it\u2019s not allowed, it is nearly impossible to police. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney accused Ole Miss of \u201cblatant\u201d tampering six months ago, but said he hasn\u2019t heard from the NCAA despite providing evidence and reciepts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is rampant because there hasn\u2019t been much consequences and I don\u2019t know there has been much fear of consequences,\u201d Swinney said at ACC Kickoff according to the AP. He said congressional oversight may be needed and said fines, suspensions and firings should be considered as potential punishments.<\/p>\n

Mensah, who was reportedly making $4 million at Duke, is being paid $6.5 million at Miami, according to On3<\/a>. The Hurricanes were reported to be considering a number of quarterbacks, some in the portal and others who were not.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in the market for a quarterback,\u201d Cristobal said at ACC Kickoff. \u201cWe felt the team was really set in so many areas. When Darian hit the portal, we felt this is a guy we would love to pursue. Watching crossover tape with so many opponents we faced, we saw his level of talent and play. What really took us by surprise in a great way is what an incredible young man he is. His levels of leadership, care factor, time invested in his craft, football IQ, just natural human IQ, just an elite person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mensah said repeatedly at the ACC Kickoff that he chose Miami because the Hurricanes offered him a better chance of winning a national championship and could enhance his NFL Draft prospects, as it had for transfer quarterbacks Cam Ward (No. 1 pick) and Carson Beck (started national title game) in recent years.<\/p>\n

Diaz, who is entering his third season at Duke, said contract terms should be honored. Diaz said Duke includes buyout language in its contracts with players. Schools are allowed to pay athletes directly.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople say all the time, coaches level. Sure, coaches leave but they have terms of contract that they have to pay,\u201d Diaz said. \u201cAs long as those terms are set, there\u2019s no judgement. It is what it is. I think that\u2019s what you\u2019re seeing nationally with what we went through.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cEveryone\u2019s learning. I\u2019m sure teams learn from what we went through. When you launch the rocket for outer space and you\u2019re still building it as you\u2019re going through the atmosphere, that\u2019s kind of college football right now. It\u2019s going to be a little bumpy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without Mensah, the Blue Devils turned to San Jose State transfer Walker Eget at quarterback. Eget, who underwent knee surgery after the season, is expected to be a full participant in fall camp, Diaz said. But the coach also said not to rule out returning quarterback Dan Mahan, a redshirt freshman from Burlington, who has impressed.<\/p>\n

It seems, at times, like the entire program has been ruled out. Despite winning the ACC title, the Blue Devils were left out of the 12-team College Football Playoff. It won\u2019t happen again because the ACC champion will receive an automatic berth in the playoff moving forward.<\/p>\n

Then came the Mensah saga.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And now the ACC has adopted new tiebreakers<\/a> that are aimed at keeping a team like Duke \u2013 which had three nonconference losses including to Tulane and UConn, but emerged from a five-way tie for second place \u2014 from even making the title game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t noticed a bunch of people shouting out that Duke is at the top of the board,\u201d said Diaz, who is 18-9 at Duke. \u201cWe\u2019ve kind of fallen back to the bottom half of the pile again. I think that\u2019ll immediately establish a chip on the shoulder for our guys.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE \u2014 College football coaches haven\u2019t been shy about tossing around accusations of tampering when players transfer to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3607,141285,53260,27515,123,125,124],"class_list":["post-344706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-acc-football","tag-acc-kickoff","tag-duke-sports","tag-manny-diaz","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}