Manny Diaz and SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee haven’t shared a football field in a few years, but they’ll do so on opposing sidelines this Saturday.
Diaz and the Duke Blue Devils host Lashlee and the Mustangs in Week 9 just three years after Lashlee worked as Diaz’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach with the Miami Hurricanes. Both teams enter the game with a 6-1 record.
“We have such respect for Rhett Lashlee and his staff, who we know well,” Diaz said during the team’s Monday press conference. “They do a good job and they’ve got themselves competing for an ACC Championship, but we’re in the mix as well.”
The Hurricanes averaged at least 34 points per game in both seasons under Lashlee’s watch, finishing 26th and 23rd among FBS offenses. Lashlee dominated through the air as a quarterbacks coach, peaking with a top-10 passing offense in 2021 when freshman Tyler Van Dyke helped the team average 321.2 yards per game.
Despite the offensive success and a 21-15 record from 2019-21, the Diaz era ended in Coral Gables soon after. SMU hired Lashlee as its head coach on November 30. Seven days later, the Hurricanes fired Diaz.
The Mustangs averaged 38.7 points per game in 2023, the eighth-most in the FBS, and they’re scoring more than 40 points per game so far in 2024. And for what it’s worth, the Hurricanes scored 23.6 points per game the year after Lashlee left and finished outside of the top 40 in passing offense in 2022 and 2023 with Van Dyke in the pocket.
Diaz actually took Duke offensive coordinator Jonathan Brewer, who had been Lashlee’s quarterbacks coach from 2022-23, from the SMU coaching staff this offseason.
“You try to get inside of the mind of Coach Brewer because that’s like trying to get in the mind of Coach Lashlee,” Duke defensive coordinator Jonathan Patke said on Monday. “(Lashlee) knows who we are and how we play. And he’s a good football coach.”
This won’t be Diaz’s first time facing off against an old coworker in 2024. North Carolina Tar Heels head coach Mack Brown hired Diaz as the Texas Longhorns defensive coordinator a decade ago, and Diaz beat Brown for the first time in their four meetings as fellow head coaches when Duke overcame a 20-point UNC lead in Week 5.