Duke’s 2026 season may have been saved by a title run and a bowl win, but Manny Diaz knows exactly where the warning light is flashing brightest: the secondary.
The Blue Devils’ defense against the pass was a major problem last season, and Diaz isn’t treating it like a small offseason cleanup. Duke finished 135th in defensive EPA against the pass, per Game on Paper, a number that stood out even on a team that still found ways to win big.
The offense was good enough to carry a lot of weight, but the pass defense was the kind of leak that can wreck a season if it isn’t fixed. With Darian Mensah no longer in the picture, Duke can’t count on the offense to keep bailing everything out.
If the Blue Devils want to stay in the ACC race, the defense has to come up.
That’s why the competition in the secondary matters as much as anything else in camp, even more than the quarterback battle between San Jose State transfer Walker Eget and rising sophomore Dan Mahan. Diaz made it clear on Wednesday that nothing is handed out on the back end.
"There are no jobs claimed in the secondary, so everybody understands that every time there's a ball thrown, someone has a chance to earn playing time this year," Diaz said.
Duke does bring back three starters in the secondary: cornerbacks Kimari Robinson and Landan Callahan, plus safety DaShawn Stone. But after how that unit performed a year ago, those returning roles don’t come with any guarantees.
Diaz also went into the portal to add competition. Che Ojarikre, who came over from Stanford, Dylan Flowers from Western Kentucky, and Kyon Loud from Montana are all in the mix at corner.
Ojarikre looks like the leading candidate at nickel, but he has a big vacancy to fill with Chandler Rivers now in the NFL. Rivers was one of the few clear bright spots in the defensive backfield last season.
Flowers and Loud both arrive with experience, even if neither has piled up many starts. Flowers has played in 35 career games and started only twice. Loud has seven starts in 20 games.
At safety, Duke added Patrick Smith-Young, a transfer with real mileage from North Texas and Old Dominion. He has started 25 games and appears to be an early favorite to line up next to Stone. Still, sophomore Andrew Pellicciotta is in the conversation too, and the staff clearly likes him enough to give him a real shot at one of those spots.
The message from Diaz is simple: the first depth chart in the secondary will be earned, not assigned. What happens in camp over the next few weeks will matter far more than any past resume.
"There will be ups and downs over the next three weeks, but I think the ones who are the most urgent day to day will probably be the ones who roll out there first against Tulane," Diaz said.
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