Duke has already solved its biggest preseason question on offense, but Manny Diaz still has some sorting to do on the other side of the ball.
The Blue Devils are less than two weeks from opening their 2026 season as reigning ACC champions, and the first test comes Sept. 5 against Tulane at Wallace Wade Stadium. The quarterback battle is settled - San Jose State transfer Walker Eget beat out redshirt freshman Dan Mahan - but the secondary remains the area most in need of clarity before kickoff.
That was the one room Diaz pointed to early in fall camp as completely open.
"I think you can see even just from today that there's a sense of purpose," Diaz said. "Right, every time that ball's in the air from our secondary.
There are no jobs claimed in the secondary. So everybody understands that every time there's a ball thrown, someone's got a chance to earn playing time this year."
Duke does have some familiar faces to work with at cornerback. Landan Callahan and Kimari Robinson returned, and they still look like the likeliest starters when the Green Wave come to town. The staff also added depth and competition with Western Kentucky transfer Dylan Flowers, Montana transfer Kyon Loud, and Northwestern transfer Evan Smith.
Safety looks just as unsettled. DaShawn Stone appears set for one spot, while Andrew Pellicciotta and North Texas transfer Patrick Smith-Young are in the mix for the other starting job.
The challenge is obvious: Duke lost a chunk of last year’s championship-level production in the back end. Cornerback Chandler Rivers is gone, along with safeties Terry Moore and Caleb Weaver. Moore didn’t play in 2025, but he was one of the team’s top players in 2024.
That makes the secondary the one area that still needs to catch up with the rest of the defense. The front seven may be the strength of the roster, with the defensive line and linebacker groups both looking like elite pieces. If Duke wants its defense to get back to its 2024 standard, the new faces and returners in the secondary have to take on real responsibility.
There’s no shortage of options, though. Diaz and his staff have bodies to deploy, and if that group comes together quickly, Duke could once again field one of the ACC’s most dangerous defenses.
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Solomon appears to be the front-runner heading into Week 1, which makes the path a little more complicated for Moore, one of the more highly regarded names in the room. Rather than locking into an immediate every-down role on offense, Moore may be more valuable early as a return specialist and a rotational receiver, a reminder that even talented newcomers sometimes have to carve out production in layers before the bigger opportunities arrive. [Read more 🡒]
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Dukes ACC Title Defense Rests On A Few New Faces
Duke heads into 2026 in a familiar place and a very different one, trying to defend an ACC title while replacing a good chunk of the roster that got it there. Manny Diaz has already settled on San Jose State transfer Walker Eget as the starting quarterback, a move that gives the Blue Devils an experienced hand to organize the offense as the season approaches.
The bigger test may be how quickly the new pieces around him settle in. The receiver group has been reshaped by transfers Jared Richardson and Javen Nicholas, and on the other side of the ball linebacker Tyshon Reed is expected to be a key figure alongside Bryce Davis as Duke looks to get more out of its pass rush. For a team that just climbed to the top of the league, the margin for error is going to come down to how fast those fresh faces become reliable ones. [Read more 🡒]