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Breaking Down Darian Mensah's Start at Duke vs. UNC Last Season
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- Breaking Down Darian Mensah's Start at Duke vs. UNC Last Season
(IMAGN Images via Reuters Connect)
Not often in college football does a team get to play a quarterback twice in two years when he's played for two different teams.
On Saturday, Oct. 31, that's set to be the case with Miami Hurricanes' Darian Mensah.
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Mensah is a junior QB who began his career at Tulane, transferred to Duke, and now is looking to lead the top-ranked Hurricanes to a National Championship.
Life comes at you fast, as it was just a short year ago that he was on a Duke team that started the 2025 season 1-2.
The Blue Devils ended the year with a victory in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl against Arizona State to finish 9-5 (6-2), but that's nowhere near what's happening at Miami last season.
In '25, Duke played at North Carolina on Nov. 22, and it just so happened to be the game where Mensah threw for his fewest passing yards all season.
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Mensah only threw for 175 yards vs. UNC
Head coach Bill Belichick got a look at Mensah just under a year ago, and everyone knows he's not going to let that go to waste.
Second chances don't come often in this modern era, and there's nothing quite like hosting the No. 1 team in the nation on Halloween.
Fans at Kenan Stadium may be a bit disinterested not just because it's a holiday, but because of how this Tar Heels team lost in overtime to Syracuse last weekend.
That said, there's nothing quite like having the No. 1 team come to town, and this is undoubtedly the biggest home game of the year for UNC.
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Mensah threw for as many as 389 yards in a game last season. Bowl game included, he threw for 300+ yards on six occasions.
There were only two instances where he threw for less than 200 yards, but Duke still won both of those games.
His first performance of that kind was a 20-for-33 showing against UNC, where he threw a touchdown and no interceptions.
Mensah ran the ball three times for 27 yards in that one, and he was only sacked once all game.
Now, he's got a much better offensive line, a better run game, and one of the best receivers in the entire country.
To say that he's surrounded himself with a better offense would be an understatement, and this is a UNC defense that just blew a lead against Syracuse, so who knows what's about to go down in Week 9.
