3 new college football coaches who will thrive right away, 2 who will struggle

Manny Diaz should be able to have fast success with the Duke Blue Devils

I don't know if this is my favorite hire of the offseason, but Manny Diaz may not skip a beat taking over the Duke Blue Devils for Mike Elko. In truth, this may be a stepping stone job for Diaz as well, as Elko parlayed a strong two-year run in Durham for a shot at fixing all that went wrong at Texas A&M. Then again, Diaz could be in his honey hole in the ACC. If he wins big at Duke, man, will Miami look stupid...

Besides retaining many of Elko's guys, this program actually has fairly decent bones. There is still some semblance to what made David Cutcliffe so successful there previously. Furthermore, I love that Diaz was able to poach Texas backup Maalik Murphy in the transfer portal. He is going to be fun as hell to watch. Whenever Duke has an entertaining quarterback, good things happen for the team.

While I wouldn't say that Duke will be contending for an ACC Championship in year one under Diaz, I have them in that same cluster of teams with Boston College and Georgia Tech, holdovers who I think can win between seven and nine games next year. They are not quite on Louisville, Miami or North Carolina State's levels, but the Blue Devils, Eagles and Yellow Jackets are going to be tough outs.

Look for Duke to be probably just as good under Diaz in year one as the team had been under Elko.