By Louis Fernandez, WRAL Sports

Duke football head coach Manny Diaz said finding QB1 in fall camp was a challenge for the Blue Devils. Texas transfer Maalik Murphy and sophomore Grayson Loftis didn’t make it easy on the coaching staff.

“This was a great competition. Grayson and Malik pushed each other really, really hard, and I would probably tell you, 10 days ago, I’m not sure that we knew the answer,” Diaz said.

So how did the coaching staff figure out Murphy would be the one behind center?

“They both played well in the first scrimmage, but you started seeing Maalik make a couple of special plays. That continued through the last week and then going into the final scrimmage again, there were some ball placements, some throws that we just felt like took us to a different level,” Diaz said.

At 6’5″ 230 pounds, Murphy has the strength to make just about any throw you could ask for. It was his touch on the deep ball that stood out to Diaz and Co.

“He throws the ball extraordinarily well down the field,” Diaz said. “We pride ourselves on stretching the field horizontally and stretching it vertically, and his accuracy down the field, I think, is a big plus for our offense,”

Murphy spent two seasons with the Longhorns, redshirting his freshman year. In his second season Murphy played in seven games, making two starts. He completed 56.3% of his passes for 477 yards, throwing three touchdowns and three interceptions. Texas won both of the games Murphy started – against BYU and Kansas State.

“To be in a battle itself is exciting,” Murphy told WRAL after practice on Wednesday. “Knowing that there’s somebody like at the same level as you pushing, pushing you to be the best version of yourself. Grayson and Henry (Belin IV), they’re both great guys with the same mindset as me. You know, they want to put Duke football in the best position to win, and they’re going to do anything in their power to do that.”

Murphy said he looked internally to find the extra gear that ultimately separated himself from the other quarterbacks. He called it “a deep dive” into himself.

“I was being aggressive, but at times I got overly aggressive and ultimately, doing things like that can hurt the team, and that’s not what we need. So making the right decisions and being aggressive at the right times is is kind of that, that happy medium I want to be in,” Murphy said.

If Murphy plays it right, the Duke offense has the potential to put up big numbers. Blue Devils offensive coordinator Jonathan Brewer coached at SMU for two seasons – as the quarterbacks coach in 2022 and the co-offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach in 2023. Mustangs starting quarterbacks Preston Stone and Tanner Mordecai averaged 3,360.5 passing yards and 30.5 passing touchdowns in a season. To put that in perspective, the last Duke quarterback to throw for more than 3,000 passing yards in a season was Sean Renfree in 2012. No Duke player has ever passed for 30 touchdowns or more in a single season.

“We felt like (Duke) would be attractive to a quarterback because of the track record of success that QBs have had in this system, whether here or at SMU or wherever else along the along the way,” Diaz said.

Diaz added that this was truly a competition for the starting job. Murphy wasn’t just going to be handed the reigns coming from a big program like Texas. He did admit though, having a player of Murphy’s caliber commit to Duke out of the transfer portal in December was a boost the program was looking for.

“You just saw somebody who was eager to be a part of something special and early on believed in what we were doing. I think the storyline up to that point had been who left, and that had taken a little bit of the wind out of the sails of the success that the players in that locker room deserve for what happened last year. The players are the ones that win games. The players are the ones that are gonna win games this year, and and we had to kind of re-energize the program. We had to sort of get our mojo back as a program,” Diaz said.

“I felt that his commitment to us was a big statement of intent to the people behind our program who helped make that happen, the people inside our program and most important of all, the ones in our locker room, who are the ones who … have to believe that we can continue to compete for championships here at Duke.”

Murphy and the rest of the team will have an opportunity to start that building process when the season begins on August 30 at home against Elon.

Source: wralsportsfan.com