CHARLOTTE – A story waiting to be told throughout the offseason was Darian Mensah’s last-minute transfer within the ACC. He left Duke, the ACC champion that signed him to a two-year $8 million deal, for Miami.
What was he thinking to enter the transfer portal after previously saying he was remaining at Duke?
“Business is business,” said Mensah during a breakout interview at the ACC Kickoff media days.
Such a comment referenced a pay raise reported to be $6.5 million, and he added a chance to play for a national championship. This is the same guy who tugged at heart strings, saying when he left Tulane for Duke in 2025, the Blue Devils gave him a chance to economically improve his mother’s life. He won the lottery.
That’s the kind of story that sold newspapers in the ink-stained wretch days as well as now in the Internet click-bait age.
But what about the guy who committed to Duke out of high school, enjoyed success as a true freshman and resisted the transfer temptations?
Duke running back Nate Sheppard ran for 1,125 yards and 11 touchdowns and caught 37 balls for 286 yards. He finished strong, too, with 170 yards rushing in the Sun Bowl victory over Arizona State.
With that kind of production, tampering through third-party associates is part of the game these days. What brought Sheppard back to Duke?
“Obviously I committed to this man up on the stage, Manny Diaz,” said Sheppard, one of three Blue Devils to represent the school at the ACC Kickoff. “I believed in his vision, everything that he was preaching, and I’ve seen it come to fruition these last two years that he’s been here, especially winning the ACC championship. Those are big reasons why I decided to come back.”
Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi added to the Mensah story at the ACC Kickoff when he accused Miami of pursuing his quarterback, Mason Heintschel, before turning its attention to Mensah.
North Carolina coach Bill Belichick weighed in on transfers while appearing July 24 with Diaz and NC State’s Dave Doeren at the annual Pigskin Preview hosted by the Billy Dooley Chapter of the National Football Foundation. Belichick said the ACC needs to challenge tampering within the conference as well as from a school outside the ACC membership.
Sheppard also said this about returning to Durham:
“The ultimate deciding factor was just the team we have and the family we have in that locker room. I think we have one of the best locker rooms in the country, one of the best cultures in the country.”
Who do you want representing your school?
The guy who says “business is business” or the guy he speaks in paragraphs about his respect for his coach, teammates and school?
The latter, obviously, but Mensah’s story was the one that got the headlines. And there’s this to consider about college football in the age of paying athletes and the transfer: There’s no shame.
In the past, a player with the baggage of a cynical transfer wouldn’t have been one of three players brought to the conference’s showcase preseason to represent the school. But third- and fourth-year players with stature and history on the roster as the face of a program represent a bygone era. Mensah was in the ballroom for the formal interviews and drawing a crowd around his table for the breakout interviews in a conference room.
That makes Sheppard’s story all the more refreshing. He’s the poster boy for a school building a culture that carries the team through a season and later in life at reunions. Duke coach Manny Diaz was philosophical about the challenge of retaining a roster in the new era of money and transfers. He was asked about keep players.
“There’s no way to ensure that,” Diaz said. “There’s no way anybody in the country can ensure that. What we can ensure is that we have a thing that attracts people, that people ideally want to stay, but it also attracts great players.
“That’s been the one common denominator is, look, in our program, we’re only two years in our program. The way we’re recruiting, the caliber of high school player we’re recruiting, understanding the family that wants their son to graduate from Duke is really, really important.”
Diaz also pointed to the hidden message of finding talent and developing it. Duke football, unlike Duke basketball as a magnet for 5-star and 4-star players, must rely on 3-star prospects playing like 4-stars. Sheppard, who earned second-team All-ACC honors, was a three-star recruit from Mandeville, Louisiana.
“Listen, if people want our players, that means we’re doing something well, right?” Diaz said. “If we stunk, nobody would want any of our guys. So, this is kind of a champagne problem, right, when you win a lot of games and have a lot of guys perform at a high level, ideally the whole idea is that they’ll have the opportunity to go straight from Durham to the NFL Draft, right?
“We’ve had guys that have done that, that developed, and all got drafted this past spring. That’s going to become a recurring theme at our program.”
Mensah may end up realizing his dream of leading Miami to a national title. But what if he doesn’t. Last year, Miami quarterback Carson Beck transferred in from Georgia chasing a national title with a big pay raise. He was close, earning a berth in the College Football Playoff championship game. But he ultimately came up empty-handed.
Think Miami’s fanbase will embrace Beck as an older alum? He’s already forgotten. He’s a Georgia guy.
That will be another dimension to watch about our changing times a couple decades down the road. Who will be better remembered by their school – the guys chasing money or the guy adding to a school’s legacy?
Or maybe by then fans won’t care. Mensah’s story at the ACC Kickoff was an example of already heading down that slippery slope.
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