Manny Diaz previews Duke's 2024 season

it's finally here and uh none too soon we're really excited to um begin to open up our season had a really good training camp but ultimately you just reached that point where you got to go play somebody you got to go find out what you're all about we were on um in our in our world today is a Tuesday even though it's a Monday on the calendar with the the game on Friday so we we today we had our this morning we had our second Tuesday practice for Elon um got a lot of respect for those guys I think Tony and his staff do a great job um um certainly Devonte Edwards your defense coordinator has a really nice job Devonte was at NC State when I was there many moons ago so familiar faces um a team that you know has our full respect uh beting two top five I was actually surprised when the FCS top 25 came out that they were not ranked um I feel like they should be ranked two top five victories a year ago um and then bringing a lot of experience back when you have a quarterback who's playing in his seventh year and if you look at his numbers the last five games I think 12200 yards with 12 TDS against no interceptions I that's as good as anybody anywhere um four to five starters back on an offensive line a receiver that could play you know anywhere in our league um same thing as safety and All-American safety so they they've got they've got really good players uh they've got familiarity in their scheme which we don't you know this will be our first time um and so like all like all first games what you know from those that taught me it's more about the basics that you do well um season openers normally come down to conditioning which our guys have great confidence in David Philly that will be in shape to play a game um they come down to tackling because we all have very limited tackling opportunities during the month of August um and then tackling goes hand in hand with turnovers not just creating turnovers but because people are getting tackled more than they have in August you know ball security comes at a premium and nobody I'm sure on either side has tackled the quarterback nobody turns the ball over more than quarterbacks do so again ball security uh tackling and turnovers goes in hand in hand there and then finally special teams um you know in terms of making sure that you're you're sound you've already seen some examples from the week zero games of you know bad snaps over over punter heads you know a muff kick at the at the goal line and it gave us some great uh video to show our guys in our special teams meeting yesterday some things that have actually happened that we have a chance to coach off of and hopefully avoid some of the same mistakes but as as I said we're excited to go play and with that I'll open up for questions hav named Malik starter and all that I'm curious do you plan on using multiple quarterbacks in in the game do you want to get Grayson or Henry some reps or is it just as the game as the game plays what your mindset towards yeah I mean we want to have a qb1 and wanted that the whole way you know if we ever felt like situationally there was a u an instance where bringing somebody in might schematically make sense you know you can you're always going to do what it takes to move the ball and score points um but it's important that we have a quarterback and and that Malik is our quarterback Malik was voted Captain by his teammates um what what kind of leader is he in the locker room even though he's new here yeah I thought that was U I thought that was a great endorsement um it um I think it means that he's got he has the guys respect you know um he you know part of why we named him two weeks before the opener once we felt like we had the the information we needed to make a decision but second um so that he could take that huddle as a guy and and and you know and not you know think well I I can't overstep my bounds because I'm not sure yet um and so I think he's growing into that role more and more you know it for for for all of the again the hype and whatnot this is still going to be his first year in college football being the starting quarterback on a team and so um he will I expect to grow into that role um as everybody else will grow into their role and so I think the leadership aspect is a big part of it the biggest thing what that means to me is is understanding that everyone's eyes are on you not just when things go well when things don't go well which invariably they will um and we had a great little situation in our in our kind of m game we played on Friday night where um you know our defense created a turnover that the the sort of the the the other team had kind of gained a little bit momentum the defense pred to turnover and mik came up on the next play and and threw a beautiful post from about 50 yards out to Javon Harvey you know for a touchdown and and that that's the type of leadership people want to see like a response and uh and I'm sure there'll be plenty of adversity on Friday night that we'll get to a bounce back from as well