New Duke football coach Manny Diaz introduced by university

[Applause] thank you all there was something about Duke first and foremost I want to thank God I want to thank him for his unrelenting Grace allowing me to be here today uh what a privilege and an honor to stand here on the stage to stand in front of all of you as Duke's head football coach uh the anticipation for this moment over this last uh 24 hours 48 hours couple weeks um to be here to be in front of the team yesterday it uh it's been special it's been everything that I thought it to be I can't tell you how excited my my me and my family are to be here to that point I'd like to introduce my wife Stephanie my younger son n you'll have to be you'll have to beet Colin and gav at another time they couldn't be here today but I want to share this family is the most important thing in my life I get used to seeing them around here a lot U it is a family program and we want to make sure they're part of that and Stephanie is my best friend my biggest supporter I wouldn't be here without you uh she's the best and you know I love me so thank you very much for that there's something about Duke so the stor begins really in the last couple years okay the first character in the story is none other than David FY right and as and I would get on the phone with David and as as as David and and his outstanding staff was here uh he would begin to tell me there's something about Duke and then you watched the season a year ago 2022 and you watch success that you guys have and I talk on the phone again say there's something about Duke and then like most of America home on Labor Day night uh this past year Clemson comes into town and you just see it happen and again talking about afterwards and what is it just there's something about Duke well fast forward now to after the season ends okay and all of a sudden now there's a contact from Mina um there's an opening at Duke so would you be interested of course you'd be interested because you've got this curiosity right you got this what is it this thing about Duke well what happens in a process is you begin to go through the people and you begin to meet the people and you decide whether it's a fist Nina mention that word when when she was up here the desire to have a championship culture Elite academic performance and competitive excellence in all aspects of life um that's what I'm about as a coach to me that's what the student athlete experience here is about so where does that begin okay that begins with the Duke Administration that begins with President price wow we what a background uh what a conversation we had just an extraordinary time to to to hear his uh Viewpoint his vision for this University is greater whole and specifically with all the chaos going on in college football his his intention that Duke always competes for championships at the highest level of college football his commitment to that made me feel so so secure in pursuing this job toel one thing is to excel at all things and if we can be El lead at anything we should be El lead at everything and that to me is is part of what makes Duke du then you go on to his Zoom call Dean G Dean Bennett provos Gore Daniel Enis Mary Pat McMahon and you're going through and you're looking at the bias and the track reg we're talking about building spaceships going to Mars holy I mean and every person you meet is more extraord extraordinary than the next and then just in the conversation and what Duke means to them and what it's all about and you're just more and more interested you're more and more engaged and then it's about Nina and her you know and our relationship and and her to to have the faith Le even to give me a call to get an idea of who I of who what type of man and what type of Coach I am but the more I spoke with her the more I spoke with our Chase I didn't let up the passion for the student athlete experience to have the best student athlete experience in the country is where we were aligned in addition and she mentioned it collaboration collaboration and connection two things that I'm all about okay in the time that I've been here okay have hearing the conversations with with some of our tops with all of our supporters some of our boosters hearing their mindset hearing what makes them to hearing their backgrounds and it continues a trend you keep the person you the next person you meet is more Dynamic and more strong than the last one okay and I hear words like galvanized hear words like people wanting to come together okay so you got all this mind then I think back and I think of you know someone who I learned a lot from was a mentor to me David cutliff when I was a head coach in the ACC and we were all the the coaches calls and I saw the success that he had here and then obviously what Mike ELO did and and and the energy that he brought to this program and the wins the past couple years all these things go into play right but then it's ultimately it's got about the young men in the locker room there's something about Duke and as a collaborator I feel like even though you're all here to hear me talk I'm here to listen I want to know what makes Duke special I had an opportunity to have a team meeting in front of these young men yesterday but I tried to get as many as I could in my office in the time that I had afterwards and there was one young man in particular who said something and it finally clicked the whole story The something about Duke's story finally made sense and what he explained to me is said when we're on campus and this is a direct quote we are surrounded by the best people in the world say one more time when we're on campus we're surrounded by the best people in the world and when we come back into our locker room we think we have the best locker room in the world and that's it that's the something about doing that is the culture okay that is the key that's the most important thing and that is the thing to me right now that is so worthy of protecting okay there's been a time of transition and as I told the team yesterday when there's a time of transition the human brains is is is built to separate us from the whole to think of nothing but itself and what we realize in this game is and this why I think we all love this game it's a game where individual goals and individual achievement come through team success if you want to be great you need the team to be great you need to pour into the team for you to individually get out of this game what you want to get get out of it but you have to believe in something you've got to believe in something You' got to believe in something that's bigger than yourself and there can be doubt under under the uncertainty that we've gone through the last couple weeks doubt can creep in the what to believe in the what is it you believe in Duke you believe in the people of Duke and it's not a oneman show I know there's only one person talking right now but this program is not going to be about me this is going to be about us starting in the locker room in every body else in college football alignment wins and the most aligned staffs the most aligned universities the most align booster groups when everybody's pulling in the same direction okay those teams win and when you don't have that you can you can always look and see a reason why for some reason those teams always tend to struggle I feel blessed that I am in a place that has pure and proper align and I want to thank again president price and niia for that opportunity thank you both very much um so as we mentioned what what matters right now okay what matters right now is that current team we've got to keep that current team together there's great talent um there's great people in that locker room and we've got to build on that the first thing order business is that they got to go win a bowl game they got to finish they got to finish finish this season in the manner that it deserves uh in the manner the guys are are going out The Graduate seniors that they deserve to go out as winners okay I want to Echo Nina's comments on the current staff here uh trer Taylor and and and the rest of the guys I had a chance to meet with yesterday a phenomenal job and and many of those guys are in a level of uny that they don't deserve to be quite honest and we understand that as coaches in this profession we all sign up for it that doesn't make them great teachers doesn't make them great men and doesn't make them great mentors and I look forward to meeting with those guys oneon-one and assessing their potential for a future here at Duke as we get down the road um stting from recruiting standpoint we're in an era where um times is of the essence we we believe is an outstanding recruiting class we need to finish and get across the line uh here at Duke signing days a week from Wednesday and we all know the reality of the P um we are not here to tear down what's been done but at the same time we're not here to sustain what's been done okay the growth that's happened in the past year we've got to continue to grow on that and to do that we've got to be active we got to make sure that we can we are selective keep the right type of people in the portal that can help us win okay because we were trying to build off what's happened and get right into it and that would be again one of the most urgent and Elite U urgent and Elite uh topics that we've got to attack from a field standpoint defensively you know and again I got to take a pause right here the think about defense I've got to think again thank first the players who had a chance to say goodbye to you Thursday night at Penn State um those people those young men the opportunity to to Mentor them the last two years and as a teacher anyone who teachers knows um you get taught by the young men the same way that you teach them they taught you so much um they aspired to be great they viewed pressure as a privilege uh they made their abject purpose to be the number one defense in the country um and that's a big statement but somebody's got to finish first someone's got to come first right and they decided to want to be them so thank you for them I'm thank for the defensive staff that we had there when we talk about line wins if there was a coaching staff in the country that had more fun than us this past year uh I'd love to see it it's almost to the point where it shouldn't even be allowed uh but some great men in that room and I think the players picked up on that u i forever believe the alignment and chemistry wins and then again a thank you to James Franklin uh for bringing me to Penn State letting me get a feel for what that culture was um what it meant to be a part of the tradition of that program um and again to allow us to have the success we had defensive the last couple years but to that point we talking about defense we're talking about attack we're talking about aggression um you know to me the point is to get the other people to mess up to try to force mistakes to get them to lose football games and we know does that turnovers the shortest uh indicator of winning and losing have a turnovers happen turnovers happen the most in longard situations had to create longard situations you got to create negative play that's the Avenue for for playing great defense that's what we're able to accomplished this past year the reverse is true on offense so in offense you got to create explosive plays after turnovers it's explosive plays so again our offensive identity we want to be explosive we want to be able to push the ball down the field we got to see Playmakers and we've got to be quarterback friendly so overall you see a team that you want to watch us play you want to see the passion that we play with we should look like we're the most excited team to play and part of that guys that's how we practice out there we got to practice with passion we got have fun playing football there's a lot of stuff in college football that's not always fun but Saturdays that's special and when people come to watch this play we for sure have to look like we're the ones having more fun than anybody else's the point where they almost think we're a little deranged and you know you guys no feeling we probably are a little deranged okay um we got to show toughness great toughness and again that's not just physical toughness in this game to me that's mental toughness you want to root for a team that's resilient you want to root for a team that's never out of the fight you want to root for a team that never gives up it is hard to be relentless okay and then you want to root for a team that that when the best is required they step up competitive excellence and that's what's going def find us and that's who we want to be so we put those things together okay we're true to who we say we are okay we feel good about who we are we're aligned and you got a bunch of guys that trust each other and that's when you play fast and that ultimately is our goal as a coach so it to me I'm humbled hopefully to be the next part of there's something about Duke and with that I want to thank you for the for the opportunity to be here today to address you and at this point believe we'll open up for Q&A Co thank you so much we'll now open the floor for questions from the media there are microphones located on either side of the middle section we ask that you please use the microphone closest to you please identify yourself and your affiliation Aaron beard why don't you get us started He Man Aaron beard with the AP um you were a firsttime head coach at Miami so there's always the experiences of having to learn what it means to sort of be the guy in charge and run a program curious what you took away from those experiences and also it didn't end the way you wanted it to there so I'm curious kind of what your thinking was when you left there about the opportunity of being a head coach again yeah you um like anything you learn so much if you're a first you're a starter the first time you're a position coach first time you're a coordinator um but there's really nothing like being a head coach I me even just now the familiarity of the the last 24 hours since touching down here in Durham um so you're aware you know I've joke it's like it's like parenting you know you you know if the fact you're born into this planet means that you obviously have parents somewhere you get to watch your parents you think you have some sort of idea of what it's like until you bring your firstborn home and then it's like whoa where's the instruction manual for this thing right so um so I think after you know your first year as a head coach I think you get your SE your sea legs underneath you a little bit more um and I felt that our second our our second and third year at Miami I thought we were on the process on the way of building a really strong culture you know um the 12 ACC wins the last two years uh we won you know um four out of five I guess to end the last season so we felt like we were on the way we understand again you're in this profession you understand what it is but you're always learning you know just like you a demand from the players you're always learning you're always expecting that um anytime you play a game you want to pack it what can we do better um and so there are a lot of things Plus getting um through the culture at Penn State that you know if you got another chance to do it again um where you're going to be better the last part to your question is this if you had a chance to do it again make sure you do it in the right place make sure you do do it somewhere where alignment where support and expectations okay all meld into one and that to me is where I feel really really good about this opportunity here I feel really good about the support we have I feel good about the timing I think people are energized to make do Duke excellent um and I feel sometimes timing matters I feel like I'm in the right time at the right place follow how did you regroup you know after your exit from Miami which was obviously a frustrating experience the way that everything went down sort of how long did it take you to sort of think about the next opportunity that might come you know your job that being the coordinator again was sure a lot of things on your mind it was very quickly because because I think James Franklin called me he might have called me an hour after getting fired at miam I mean the body wasn't cold of the funeral you know what I mean so uh so and I got to credit Stephanie she you know she really you know encouraged me to get back you know on the saddle um cuz you don't know where your next opportunity you don't even know what that level is going to be at and uh you know I I do believe in this I do believe that you know God's here to where we need to be when we need to be there and I think some of the lessons learned at Penn State uh maybe a better man maybe a better coach for sure to be here now hey Coach Josh Co s 7D podcast um as you transitioned away from head coaching back to the defensive coordinator position is there anything you learned um as far as the CEO part from Miami that you're going to take and then from James Franklin being there kind of the not just the head coach but the CEO role of a program yeah and um because the other thing extraordinary when you talk about two years ago 5 years ago in Miami um college football is hard of the same sport as it was 5 years ago I mean December was nothing like it was uh December of 2018 you know my first with this so um you have to be constantly evolving because our landscape is constantly evolving so yeah I think I think you're like I mentioned before you're always learning you're always evaluating what are the best ways to do things um I've been blessed to work with a lot of great head coaches uh and to see James and see his program where it was around a year 10 11 and and and where the players understood what was established you know we talk about the power of belief you know um where everybody knew what the core values of that program was and and and the players would see comfort in that because you know it wasn't going to change dayto day um so I learned a lot from that experience and learned a lot from the culture of those guys in that locker room hey Jim F go do the magazine and Jim Su Sports want to back to the comment you made earlier about been content with the status quo wanting to take the next step what is the saving for this how far can academic small private school go in college football what is this program steing how do you get that how do you get this team there we will go as far as we believe we can go I believe that um I've got the great thing I love is that what you believe is more powerful than what you can prove um you see it all the time in our country and um I think where how far we can go is is in direct relation to what we believe we can accomplish um how we see ourselves if we see ourselves as incapable we will be incapable uh if we see ourselves as capable then we can accomplish anything now here's the key the key is once you set what the North Star is now be obsessed with Improvement right you know we talk about player yesterday be obsess be obsessed with Mastery we're we're on a a a lifetime long journey to master our craft to master who we are as people so that gets us obsess with Improvement so now we have the North Star out there but now all we're trying to do is just plus one ourselves if I can be plus one of what I was yesterday plus one on what I was a year ago um those are the steps that get you to where you want to get to um even using this pastor an example you don't there was nothing to do on the first day play of the first game of season to finish number one in the country in Total Defense right it was a journey it was a it was it was a series of practices workouts meetings down after down quarters in the games right and at the end someone said you do this better than anybody else but it was a journey to get there we couldn't think about the end we had to think about all the steps along the way to get there thank you hello Coach Roy Carolina Blitz coach I want to touch on U how do you reassure players that stuck around through the gr Hustle the fans the administration that Duke is just not a stepstone program that you're here for the Long Haul to build and sustain a culture that's already been PR well I think it's a lot of the conversations that that you know me president price and I had um in terms of committing to each other you know and what is the vision I mean what is it that we're trying to accomplish here and uh and once you hear the stated goals towards the last question that that we don't see any reason why we can't be elite I mean you know just and I keep getting back to if you're leading something you can be elad at anything and U and and if you're not then it is a CH choice to settle for being second best you know and so to me I don't think our young men deserve that um but it but it is ultimately it is what they believe behind you we've got to get the locker room to again to re to ignite that belief in what it means to be Duke in the fact the idea is that we can see it going much further and I do think what I've learned in the 24 hours I've been here speaking to some people outside the program I think people are stirred up you know I think people now are energized and realizing that Duke is not about one man you know and and we appreciate every's efforts but this is a collective event people are now ready to step forward um and I keep again the word that it's got to be so far away from s is Galvanized when I hear people talk about being galvanized they recognize the time is right uh we have the right people um and it's time to go and um and and that's why I stand here as a servant of everybody that's in touch with do football right to get everybody on the same page because this ain't this ain't just like hey watch the head coach do it no no this is all of us doing it together thank yeah con what Devil's Illustrated Manny I think you have about five months when nil was implemented as a head coach and I'm curious how you've seen that change over the last two years and how much of your valuation processing going to the right place enters into the calculation of why you're here now yeah well nil is like most things it's like you know we set out to seea and then we decided to build a boat right um so um it has changed it's going to continue to change um market dynamics are going to continue to weigh on it obviously there was you know story that came out this week I don't I don't know if if you talk about what it was like two years ago I don't know that anybody can predict exactly what it would be like two years from now um I do know what helps our game I do know what helps our young men um and I do know that we need to be competitive in it and I do know that U that we've got people who are excited about that and excited about that opportunity um but like I said it's just a new normal so to your point about what it was like two years ago when I was a head coach I mean it just it was in the infancy then and uh and it is still evolving so we've got to stay agile uh we got to stay flexible because you know every six months it feels like it zigs and zags so you you you got to try to stay in touch with it thanks we have time for two more two more questions Andrew and Brett hey coach Andre long with Chronicle um it's a bit of a two-parter the first of or the first question is um what do you want your time here to be defined by and what's your barometer for being successful we're already we're already asking uh Legacy questions you know and uh you got to look forward the press conference wasn't bad right you know I mean um one and0 right there's James Franklin right one and0 so all you can do is go one and0 today um that's actually pretty funny um I will assure you all think I've think about uh what I want to be a r or what not is uh is is doubtless but I will say this I Mak me like any coach it's going to be about the relationships um all those guys behind you like I told him yesterday some Point someone's going to tap you on the shoulder and say that's it for football for you and uh you want them to look back at this time of life and you want them to understand that a role of the coach in their life and somebody that sees you that even sees you know more greatness than you seen yourself um and have that type of transformative relationship uh with the young man and the guys a lot of guys on the staff in the back that have done that over their careers and you get guys and you know might mean some you when your 20 years old but then they get older they be 30 40 they become parents um and they understand the impact that you had in their life so that and going along with that in terms of measuring success that is Success you know success is affecting people that that you know that God puts us together to have a chance to to impact and influence um for the program like right now I said I mean to me um the director from the top is that we can compete with anybody um we know that's a process because everybody's trying to win right until we find out a way that two people can play and both win right they're only one at the end of the year um so just so we we we as I mentioned we see what the ultimate goal is and now we just we we look at the next step ahead and just you know focus on Improvement R freedlander Saturday road.com um Manny as much of a whirlwind as the last 48 hours have been the next 7 to 10 days are probably going to be even crazier between assembling a staff re-recruiting players you have now putting together signing class and maybe even recruiting guys out of the transfer portal that who were here last year where do you prioritize how do you prioritize and and what do the next few days look like those guys first absolutely first first is our locker room first is the guys that have already done it for Duke um that already have have believed in Duke um and whatever uh turbulence that we've gone through in the beginning of this month that we can we can write that we can stabilize that understand that we keep this team together that we've got a platform to build on um so that's most important second we engaged the the recruits that are committed to us um we express our commitment to them um ask them to stay together uh again the that's why I said something about Duke hasn't changed you know what makes this place special what they committed to is all still here if not better and then we get those guys assigned as you mentioned in 10 days and then as you mentioned there's really no you know the way that portal worst there's not a signing day for the portal so whether it's you know you know our guys to get our guys back fold um the players on the outside who who we believe can help us um there is an urgency for that it's not as soting the same timetable as as recruiting class so to your point it's all happening at once and that's what didn't happen 5 years ago in the month of December um and so you got to be prepared to fight the battle on from thanks good luck you got it that concludes today's special event thank you for attending and please drive home safely