Donald Wine

It's one that is a position that we didn't think we would be in.

I'm sure the coaching staff is kind of scrambling at this point because it didn't feel like this was something that was going to happen until just a couple hours ago when some news started trickling out that this was a possibility.

And it just kind of, I'm sure for a lot of you, after the high of the second half of the season, the four-game win streak,

Winning against UNC, winning the state championship, winning the ACC championship, winning the Sun Bowl, and doing at this point very, very well in the transfer portal and getting some guys that we thought were going to be present next year and getting

Darian Mensah, not two weeks ago, said himself that he was coming back.

Cooper Barkay said he was coming back.

Nate Shepard said he was coming back.

And all three of those guys were expected to be kind of the linchpins, the cornerstones of a Duke offense with Darian Mensah as early Heisman candidate.

And now...

we're scrambling here and it, it doesn't sit right with me.

The tampering portion of this is, is not unique to college football.

And unfortunately, as we kind of experienced a couple of years ago, when Mike Elko decided to leave for Texas A&M in the middle of night, after telling his team, he was coming back.

We kind of have to go through this again.

And unfortunately,

being a part of this college football landscape, this is the ugly side of things.

And this is the part that we don't like, but we have to figure out as a team to, to get past the emotion and figure out what they're going to do and how they're going to proceed with the

building an offense around another quarterback, and also in these last six hours before the transfer portal window closes, figuring out how to keep a hold of everybody else.

who might now be questioning whether they stay at Duke because Darian Mensah left.

And maybe Darian Mensah, I know there's been obviously some rumors out there about other guys who might be considering this because they wanted to stay in part to play with Darian Mensah and to be a part of an offense that would be hopefully prolific and to defend the ACC championship, maybe even win one again and get back into and get into the college football playoff next year.

Instead, Derry Mensah, who had a contract, and that's another thing that we'll talk about in a second, has entered the transfer portal where Duke really doesn't have an opportunity to counter and to find someone to replace him.