Locked On ACC - Daily College Football & Basketball Podcast - BREAKING: Duke QB Darian Mensah Hits Portal In SHOCK MOVE, With MIAMI The Expected Destination!

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Have the Miami Hurricanes just stolen their next star quarterback from the Duke Blue Devils?In a shocking twist on Friday afternoon, Blue Devils standout Darian Mensah has announced his intention to leave Durham through the Transfer Portal. The Miami Hurricanes are his expected destination. Miami has been QB shopping but missed out on Brendan Sorsby, Sam Leavitt and Ty Simpson. Hosts Alex Donno and Kenton Gibbs discuss the complications that come from Mensah’s revenue sharing agreement with Duke, and how he and Miami will try to work around it. Have the Hurricanes just found their next Cam Ward? Mensah threw for nearly 4,000 yards in 2025 with 34 touchdowns to just 6 interceptions. Is the College Football world outraged by his departure?Everydayer Club  If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.WayfairGet last-minute hosting essentials, gifts for all your loved ones, and decor to celebrate the holidays for WAY less.Head to https://Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. Wayfair. Every style. Every home.  FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Just when you thought the transfer portal couldn't get any crazier, Duke's superstar quarterback, Darien Mensa, intends to hit the transfer portal, and Miami is widely being reported as the destination. You are Locked-on ACC, your daily podcast on the Atlantic Coast Conference. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team, every day. Shout out to the Everydayers, and thank you so much for making Locked-on. on ACC and Locked on Caines, your first list. We are simulcasting, baby.

I'm Alex Dono from Lockedon Cains. He is Kenton Gibbs from Lockedon Wolfpack. He's also a former NC State defensive lineman. And he is a respecter of Darian Mensa, as I certainly have as well. We are on the number one Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. And today's episode is brought to you by Fanduel. The college football playoff has one huge game left, and Fandul is the best place. to get into the action on Monday night.

So visit Fanduel.com to get your college football playoff, profit boosts every game day. It's all about Dary and Mensa on this episode. Miami being reported as the destination. And Kenton, this has, I mean, perfect to be able to do this on locked on ACC and locked on Cains because he's trying to leave Duke, he's trying to go to Miami reportedly.

So this has ACC ramifications. There could be a renewed blood feud between May, Danny Diaz and Miami ramifications, Duke ramifications. Kenton, I feel like in this equation, the collective college football world outside of Coral Gables is like Jesse Pinkman screaming about Walter White. He can't keep getting away with this. You can't. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, this scene is so interesting to me from every perspective. Obviously, we've got the Miami perspective where people are like, they've swung and missed on all these quarterbacks. But then when you hear about how the MNSA story has developed, Duke's educational year has already started. Their educational semester has already started. Their students are in class. Mensa has not been on campus for any of that. This doesn't seem like a last minute kind of thing there. And then you look at this from the Duke aspect of it.

it and say, okay, well, let's look at not what we're going to lose. Let's look at what we had while we have. If you tell the average Duke fan before the season, hey, you get Derry and Menta, you're going to win a national championship, just paying $4 million. They would say, what? We've got our quarterback for the next couple of years and we get guaranteed an ACC championship. Wow. You said national championship. I'm sorry, ACCC championship. Yeah, they would say, wow, we're going to be nationally relevant. And we're going to be a playoff team because we won an ACC championship.

And you would just sit there smiling like an evil genie, you will win an ACC championship of Darryon. That is my word to you. You have my word. And this is to be the end result of it. So you ask yourself, if you're talking about Duke, was it worth it for them? I would say yes.

I would say yes. When you talk about Duke football and what they have been historically, although this was not one of their best seasons on paper in terms of record, won an ACC championship. That is something not many teams can say. A power for championship. Miami hasn't said it.

And many people are still doing the joke about, oh, Mani Diaz won an ACC championship before Miami. It just so happens that Miami's not playing for a national championship. And so now, if you look at this going forward, for Duke going forward, I don't see a way out of this. I really don't because it's so late in the portal game that you, If you don't have an answer in-house by now, I don't think that there's a ton of other players

that are going to come open. I highly doubt that you're going to see a player that was as impactful as Darren Minza. With Derrick Minza on some of those games where the defense did precious little. They did little to nothing in Duke this year. And yet, he was still able to make a winning product in Durham out of what they had offensively.

And then you look at Miami going forward and you say, well, there's a need of quarterback. one-year rentals have worked out pretty well for us. What if me thinks one-year rental couldn't hurt us? How about it? How about that? We got a number one overall pick. We got a national championship appearance.

Let's try to get the triple way of me. Let's try to get all three and one. I'm not mad at it. I'm not mad at it from Miami standpoint at all. Obviously, I do hope everybody's following the rules. And I'm being very serious about that. I do not like the idea of anybody tampering. I do not like the idea of anybody breaking rules.

I do not rock with that. regardless of if it's an ACC team or not or what team is hurt. I do not rock with that. But again, the NCAA has to step in and be more definitive about what is tampering. How do you enforce tampering? Because right now it seems like it's the wild wild ways. Well, because like the way that I understand like enforceable tampering is if you can prove there was contact between player and a member of the coaching staff. So from where I sit, there seems like there's a lot of ways around that, Kenton.

And that was something that like Wisconsin and their, their pending lawsuit against Miami over Xavier Lucas, like they, they alleged that, you know, Miami staffers had an in-person meeting with Lucas while he was still at Wisconsin. Now, Miami contends they got their dates wrong, that that actually happened a year prior when Lucas was still in high school. But like, what happens between intermediaries,

I mean, unless somebody can prove me, wrong on that when you talk about defining what is actually tampering if intermediary reaches out to another intermediary and you kind of understand like hey if you were to enter the portal this could be what you get from this other school that that's not technically tampering I mean maybe by the spirit of it you could say it's tampering but it's not enforceable if you do it that way and we're going to be talking a lot kenton about darian mensa in the situation pending here so what what we know is so the report started coming out late this morning. It might have been early afternoon from 24-7 sports and on three sports that Duke was concerned

that Darien Mensa was going to enter the portal before the deadline, which is later tonight. And obviously your radar goes up, right? Like, why is Duke leaking this, right? They're either, you know, trying to get ahead of it or they're trying to stop it, but something's going on. And then a few hours later, I guess it was around 5 p.m. today. we're live right now at about 545. The reports came out that, yeah, Darien Menta intends to enter the portal.

So now what still has to happen is Duke has to file his paperwork. So you have to wonder, you know, are they going to file it? We'll talk about all that stuff. But I want to address one thing here, Kenton, near the top of the show, because I get it that maybe, you know, a lot of Miami fans didn't necessarily spend a lot of time on the CW or wherever watching a whole lot of Duke football this year. I think you should have. Yeah, they played in the ACC championship game.

They won the ACC championship game because I've seen some people in the live chat are like, does Miami really want the quarterback from Duke? Is that who you want? Very immense of this season, friends. Completed 67% of his passes for 3,973 yards. He was the second leading passer in FBS football, nearly 4,000 yards, 34 touchdowns to just six interceptions. Darien Mensa is an absolute stud, and I would say, Kenton, and you mentioned Miami striking out on some other quarterbacks they've tried to get, I could make an argument

that after striking out on a few top players, Darian Mensa might end up being even better than any of the guys they struck out on and a better fit for Shannon Dawson's offense. Donnell, would you deem what Carson Beck has done, like his actual play, not the result of his play, just his play this season a success. Would you say, hey, that's about what I want from our quarterback? I mean, I would say it's a success, but like within the confines of like the team that was built around him, right? But I mean, if you could, if you could put, you know, Darry and Mensa next year on a roster that's similar to what Miami has this year, it would almost be like having Cam Ward with the current Miami defense. Like I think the ceiling gets a lot higher with Darian

Mentsa. Imagine you take Carson Bex play from this year and you take away five interceptions and you add in five touchdowns. You add in about 400 yards. You think that would be a success? Yeah, I would say so. With all due respect to Duke, I watch a lot of their football and I do say with all due respect because they that their their team this year achieved well above what most people imagine was possible for them in terms of winning an ACC championship. If you think that that team, you remove Derry and Minson and put in an above average quarterback, hell, I'll even give you good. You put in a good college quarterback, not great, not terrible, good college quarterback. You pick what he's good at.

You could make him a good runner, good passer. You pick what you make him good at. If you think you replace Dary Minson with a good quarterback and that team goes to an ACC championship and wins, even with the luck of the draw and everything shaking out their way with tie breaks or whatnot, there's no way. team allowed over 35 points multiple times and won football games. That's that's a real statistic from that team. They allowed over, I believe it was 33 rather, that they allowed over multiple times they've won those games. So if the comments or questions from Miami fans are, are, is he good?

Turn on those games. Turn on the games. Yeah, I implore you to turn them on. Do the knowledge like we hear Locked on ACC. do because Derry Minson is a stud. He is one of the few guys in the nation that if somebody said, Ken, NC State's got a chance to get him,

but you're going to lose C.J. Bailey. I'd have a conversation about it. I'd think about it. Most other guys, I'm like, I don't want to have one-year rentals. Some teams are really good at one-year rentals. Some teams are not. NC State has not been good at one-year rentals. I'm good on that. So with that in mind,

I'd think long and hard. But if I'm in Miami situation where it's him or is Emery Williams, the alternative option? Yeah. No disrespect, but I'm taking Mensa. Come on. Come on. Stop playing. Last time we saw Emery Williams, he was struggling to throw against, what was it, Rutgers in the bowl game or something like that?

Well, no, it was Iowa State in the Pop-Tard's ball. Iowa State in the Pop-Tars ball. Yeah, come on, come on. Stop playing. With all due respect to Mr. Williams, right? And I'm sure he's become a much better player system. This is not a knock against him. This is not a knock against him at all. Darian Minza is like the kids say one of them ones. He's one of those ones that when you see some things in there,

and in the words of Detroit legend Jaila Rose, you only is faithful as your options. And right now, Miami has the option of the baddest baddie at the dance to take home with them. And I wouldn't. I think that Miami would be remissive they did not at minimum kick the tires. And one last thing here, the offer that went out to Todd Simpson, If that was a real thing,

Ty Simpson saved Miami by deciding to go to the NFL. You all should be as excited as anybody has ever been about a declaration of a player going to the NFL as there has ever been if you're getting Darian Minza. If you're getting Darian Minza instead of Ty Simpson, and I'm going to leave it. Ty Simpson is a Miami Hurricanes legend now for turning Miami down. I think some substantive updates is this is unfolding live.

right now with Darien Mensa. And I also, I want to have a conversation. And it's why I'm so glad Kenton is here because there's certain conversations. You see, I'm wearing Miami year. I might need to recuse myself from some conversations. A lot of college football fans right now are saying this is ruining the sport. How do you let Miami get away with this? They need to be sued for tampering.

So, I mean, I want to have that conversation as well. You want to keep it locked right here. We're only getting started on this simulcast, locked on ACC and locked on Cains. Folks, all this happening with Miami right now, and they're playing in the Natty in a couple days. Like, Carson Beck, still Miami's quarterback. He's had a hell of a playoff, and the Miami Hurricanes are taking on the Indiana Hoosiers. And with this college football playoff, now reaching their crescendo, Fanduel is giving all customers even more ways to get in on the action on Monday night.

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Thank you so much for making locked on ACC and Locked on Cains your first listen. And folks, make sure you're taking advantage of the Everydayer Club. We got an Every Day or Club for Locked on ACC, for Locked on Wulf Pack, for Lockedon Cains. Go to Lockedon Podcast.com slash Everydayer. You get exclusive ad-free episodes. You get exclusive Discord access, one-on-one text access with me, a discount on the awesome Locked-on merch store. I mean, people have been asking me for years, when are you going to sell some merch for

Lockdown? The merch store is here, and you get a discount when you, you just. join the Everydayer Club, Lockdownpodcast.com slash Everydayer and find your favorite shows on there. All right. So Kenton, one of the many journalists that's all over this is Barry Jackson from the Miami Herald. And he updated 33 minutes ago, barring any unexpected last minute snafu. Miami Hurricanes are expected to snag top quarterback Darien Mensa per source. He was second in the nation in passing yards and trailed only Fernando Mendoza in touchdown passes.

So Keynes are poised to land an elite quarterback in free agency, as he calls it, three years in a row. And then there's also Kenton an update from Ross Dellinger of, I think he's with Yahoo Sports. He said, if a buyout is paid by Mensa's new school, possibly the value of his contract, which is $4 million, and it will be reduced from the revenue share pool of his new school according to house settlement rules. So there's going to be some weird stuff, Kent. I don't fully understand the revenue sharing world. And I know like the contract that he signed, he signed a two-year deal with Duke last year. So there's definitely going to be some haggling over how he gets out of that second year of that deal with Duke.

I'm going to tell you this. If it is four million coming out of Duke's bank account, I would I would do everything I can to make sure that. young man does not play next year. And I very seriously mean that. I very seriously mean that. If you are getting $4 million taken away from the allotment to your roster for this player that's not going to be on your team next year, that's not, four million ain't nothing to sneeze at. That's not just like, even if we're talking about. Oh, no, it's revenue. It's reduced from the revenue share pool of the new school. So it would be reduced from Miami's revenue. Oh, okay. Okay. I had to double check that just to make sure. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, that makes a lot more sense. So if that is the case, Miami's taking a big swing and a big bet on Mentsa, but hey, if they're comfortable taking that swing and taking that bet, they're comfortable doing it. You know, I'm not there. I'm not the steward of their finances, but that is a massive swing in that case. Because Dary Mentsa is going to need what he needs, right? I highly doubt that he's going to take a severe pay cut to the tune of whatever the buyout is,

which is basically his entire amount last year, which means he'd be playing for free in the hopes of winning a national championship and getting drafted highly. Don't get me wrong. You can make up some ground if you figure it out and get to the NFL as a number one pick or top five pick, whatever case may be. But that is an extremely risky move by Darien. I think that he would still need to be very well conversated here, which would mean even if you get him at half and then you pay out the whole amount to his previous team. That's $6 million on one player. that's a lot of money on a college guy.

That's beyond NFL first rounder money on on Derry and Mentsa. But what's the value of a national championship? What's the value of an ACC championship? What do you put those things at, right? So that's just what that is. And I'm going to say this more than anything else. Buy out monies, all that. This is why the teams and the players need to sit their tails down

and reach collective bargaining. So that way, all of this stuff is put out there in a way that we don't get all this. Well, it could work out this. Well, it should. Well, you know, Washington, they got him in a 360 deal. He can't move nowhere. Well, you know, Duke, you got to buy a money. Make it so that it's uniform across the board.

And everywhere you go, hey, this is what you got to get. Hey, maybe even a group of our teams get a little payout, get a little chunk of change based on whatever the new guy salary is, whatever the case may be at his new school. whatever it looks like. But right now, like I said, a lot like with tampering, because while everybody's going to hit on Miami and say they're tampered, guess what, if Dono Motors, if Dono Maserati of Miami decides to go over to Daria Minson and say, hey, man, we got $6 million for you. Is that illegal per the NCAA's rules? I mean, it would have to go through the clearinghouse, but I'm a big,

I'm a big believer in having meant to do all the advertising and meet all the criteria to be a legitimate NIL deal. So it would face some scrutiny, but we'll get it done. Dono Motors will get it done. Okay. If give Chevrolet of Riley was to go around every running back in the nation and say, hey, we got a lot of touches to replace Hollywood Smothers. I'm going to you tell me. If the NCAA allows it, then that is what is allowed. You cannot get mad at somebody for using every single bit of what is legal to their advantage. Is this good for the sport? No, I would objectively say no it's not right I'm not going to make any argument say oh yeah this is a great thing that'll grow the fan base that'll grow all of the viewership that'll make more people enjoy it I'm not

going to tell that lot but what I am going to say is we cannot sit here and get mad at a team for doing everything within the rules up to the the hold on wait is that legal if the answer is not a no and the team does it all you can do it's I don't like it it don't got to feel good and comfortable for me. I don't have to get the warm and fuzzies, but the rules are the rules. And at the end of the day, the rules are not being enforced or the rules are so lax that that's just what it is. Now, the rules not being enforced is a different story. Let me take that back. But the rules being laxed, that's not Miami's fault. Miami taking advantage of lax rules, not Miami's taking advantage of or this, Miami not following the rules, disregarding the rules,

that's a different story than Miami saying, hey, there's a loophole here and we're going to slide through it every year to get the top quarterback. Well, and I know like for the whole, this is so terrible for college football crowd, because there's going to be a lot of that. I know I can already predict my next couple days on social media. I'm going to be arguing with a lot of people about this. That's what I'm here for. But let's also think of the Darien Mensa perspective, Kenton,

like before we even get to the hypothetical money that he will be making, right? Because people will, of course, say this is all about the money or whatever. You also think about his football situation. So he just at Duke basically put up high school. trophy caliber numbers was one of the most prolific quarterbacks in America. And ultimately it got him to eight and five with an ACC championship, but no college football playoff. Like he played so well this year for Duke and the ceiling was, sorry, you don't make it

to the playoff. He looks at what's happened in Miami. And I've heard it from from good sources that, you know, Mensa obviously was paying attention to the Cam Ward story from last year, you know, a guy who went from. a third day pick, went to Miami, played behind a really good offensive line with a balanced running game. And even though Miami's defense was not good last year, that's why they didn't get to the playoff, like Cam Ward had over 4,000 yards, he got himself to the number one overall pick, that that was something that Darien Mensa took notice of. And he also sees Miami this year

getting to the national championship game. So it's like, you have to look at it from Darian Mentsa's perspective. And I know people will, they'll accuse him of chasing a bag. They'll accuse Miami of tampering and whatever they want to accuse Miami of. But Darian Mentsa also sees outside of the financial factor. He says, okay, I can go to a place that, um, a stacked offensive line. In fact, Miami's got Jordan Seton visiting this weekend. And he might end up signing with the canes to protect his, uh, his blind side next year. Like, I know I'm going to be protected. I know I have an opportunity if they play like they played this year. to get into the college football playoff and possibly play for a natty and improve my draft stock,

maybe up to number one overall. Like all that stuff outside of the money has to be appealing to Darien Mensa. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, I'm going to say a phrase that I never thought I'd say in my life. In defense of Duke football, the games that they did lose this year, I mean, Daryon Mintsa played fantastic in many of them. Some of those, you can directly look at him and say,

I'm buddy. Okay. If you watch that Illinois game, I mean, what more like yes the five turnovers yeah you know like you can't just put that all on like oh the scenario around you was bad and therefore brother if you holding the ball back there thinking you're lamar jackson in 2016 and i could dip and dive and do what i want but it's not going to work out well regardless of where you are but you know i don't think that it's fair for duke to take the blame for that because if he has if you look at some of those games where derry minsel was a turnover machine

which he was early in the season. And that's just what it was. Even if we're looking at the interception, saying that was good, if we look at the fumbles, if we look at the sacks that were taken because he held on to the ball too long and started saying, you know what,

this play is dead. Let's get to the next down. You would be looking at a potentially different scenario. If they win those out-of-conference games where Duke was on paper the better team, you're looking at a legitimate Heisman argument. And I'm going to tell you, with this year's Heisman,

I mean, come on, With all due respect to Fernando Mendoza, come on. It was a week year. It was a week year for the husband. So he could have been there. But with that being said, you are absolutely right with everything else. Everything else in terms of a championship scenario, everything else in terms of whose offensive line would you rather be with, right? It's the old saying, would you rather cry in the Bentley or Rari?

That's where we are right now with him. You're going to go through struggles as a college athlete and all that good stuff. But the reality is you're going to be much closer to a championship with Miami. The back end of that is Duke still is on the rise as a football program from where they've been. They are still on a far rise. The only problem is Miami is also on the rise and Miami's floor is much higher than Duke's. Miami's ceiling is right now much higher than Duke's. Duke's ceiling, which I believe we just saw in these past couple of years,

nine, maybe 10 wins, conference championship. Miami's ceiling, which I believe we're seeing Monday, which is everybody's sealing in college football. If you're the best teams in the nation, a national champion. appearance. That's just what it is. So ultimately from a football perspective, from a purely no money involved perspective, you are right in terms of saying you produced the number one pick and then you go to a national championship. The number one pick plays the same position as him. And now you're in the national championship. What doesn't make sense for him to go there?

I'm not saying this to make this in Miami Love Fest. I'm telling you all the truth. I'm telling you all the truth of the matter. The same way I said, hey, if the rules, if Miami has violated the rules in any way, If there is a single coach that sat down with Darian Minza that had dinner with Darian Minza that had any talks about, hey, Darien, we want you to come here. You'd be our starter right away. If any coach did that, I want them prosecuted to the full extent of what the NCAA can do. I want them to have to fully reverse whatever happened or, you know, Dary and have to go back as oddly as that would be.

But it seems to me that a lot like with the Xavier Lucas situation, you can make your argument. You can do your lawsuit. You can do whatever you want to be. What was the outcome of that lawsuit, Donna? You know, it's still pending, but it certainly didn't stop Xavier Lucas from going to or playing at Miami. So they, you know, the arm of the law does not move swiftly.

There is not a full resolution yet. Yeah, that's all it is. That's all I'm saying here. Again, I'm not, this is, I'm just as much here for locked on ACC, even more so than I am for locked on Caines. And the reality is you cannot get upset at the Cains for taking advantage of the rules. All you can do is find ways to take advantage of them yourselves. Get your collectives on code to say, hey, our coaches cannot reach out.

The collective can. Hey, if this player has no contact, it's illegal for any of our players or coaches to reach out to them. Hey, you can, buddy. If you want to tell them this is the amount of money we got for you, a lot of these players' numbers are on public domain. You can go ahead and find them. You can type it in a certain website. It will come up.

Ask Lane Kiffin, he'll release all the numbers. You know? And realistically, again, this is a situation where we are where we are, and this is not, you know, I'm not rooting for the canes. I'm not rooting for Duke. I'm not booing the canes. I'm not booing Duke. I'm calling balls and strikes.

And right now, as I see it, Miami is taking a very big swing at something that's right in their wheelhouse and that thing is leaving the park. Let me say one thing. You should be thankful that this is happening with Darien Mensa, because if not him, this might be C.J. Bailey, I'd be saying the exact same thing. Yeah, I know you would. I know you're consistent. I know you would. I try my hardest to maintain consistency in life with Hollywood smothers leaving NC State to go to Bama. I was shocked by that because I thought, dude, go to the NFL. But when I heard about some of the

offers that had come out, I had a very close source to some schools that are powerful schools that told me the numbers that their collectors were offering them. And I said, oh, oh, okay, it makes sense. And the reality, is when people ask me, do you still, are you still going to root for Hollywood and all that good stuff? I look at it like this. It is incumbent upon NC State to create a place that he doesn't want to leave. These players, with the rules as they are right now, players have freedom of movement that is unprecedented. Would I like to see that rained in? Yes, absolutely. I'm not going to sit here and say that I wouldn't. But I'm also not going to sit here and say, I would like player movement to be restricted when it's my guy leaving.

But then when we get a big get out of the portal, oh, I'm super excited and I'm over the moon about it. I call balls and strikes. And as I see it right now, Miami is doing a good job of everything that comes over the plate having their way with it. Well, I want to answer a question because I see this a lot in the live chat as to what this means for Miami's quarterback room. You want to keep it locked right here. Kenton Gibbs from Locked on Wolfpack. I am Alex Dono from Locked on Caines. and we continue this awesome simulcast right here on the lockdown podcast network.

All right. So again, like I feel like people, first of all, if you haven't watched there in Mensa, you need to understand how good he is and how talented he is. That's one thing. So like I think Kenton and I are in agreement. You would totally understand why Miami would go after a guy like this. And for those asking if it's done, I don't think it's signed sealed and delivered yet, but he's getting crystal bald to Miami.

Barry Jackson from the Miami Herald reported that barring an unforeseen snafu that Darien Mensa is going to be Miami's quarterback next year. Now, all right, so Kenton, there is, I talk to Miami fans every single day, and there is a contingent of Miami fans that just did not want to go into the portal for a third year, that they just, enough is enough, it's time to see what you have in the room, let the best man win, okay? And people are especially worried about the younger, because there's, four people in Miami's quarterback room after Carson Beck leaves. Okay, you got Emery Williams,

who would be heading into his third year, Judd Anderson heading into, or sorry, Emery heading into his fourth year, actually, Judd Anderson heading into his third year, Luke Nichol, heading into his second year with four years of eligibility remaining, and Darion Coleman coming in as a true freshman, tremendous arm talent, really exciting. So now, Darian Mensa technically has two years of eligibility left, but Kenton, it's widely expected he wants to go to the league in a year's time. Like, I don't think he's planning on playing two more years in college. You agree? I agree.

I agree. That's something that should definitely be happening for him. Yeah. And so, okay. And I know people have been talking about this. There has been some buzz that, that Emery Williams might have, no matter what happened in the transfer portal, might be looking for a different opportunity. anyway. So he might have been leaving no matter what. And so I honestly, I, and I think Miami

calculated this risk. And it's why Miami did not go after Hussein Longstreet, who's got four years of eligibility left and why they were going after one year guys. I do think Miami, in my humble opinion, really wants to keep Luke Nicol with four years of eligibility remaining happy and Darion Coleman with four years of eligibility, that they want to keep both of those guys happy. So I don't think Darian Mentsa coming in for one year, because I think that was Miami's plan anyway, was to bring in another one-year guy. I don't think that that's going to cause either of those two to leave.

I feel strongly about that, that you're going to keep your young guys in the room. Well, here's the thing, right? I'm not as familiar with Miami's, you know, with the full temperament of those players as I am. Like, NC State's quarterback room, I could have told you from a mile away. Lex Thomas was going to be gone.

Although his family, the Thomas name, a ton in terms of Thayer and Drake and all that. That young man can play football. He can play football at a higher level to many people giving credit for. And the writing was on the wall with Will Wilson being the short yarder specialist, the C.J. Bailey being C.J. Bailey, he wasn't going to play. He was probably going to lead, right? I don't have the insight into Miami's, quarterbacks, temperaments, and personalities, but I will tell you my overall thoughts looking at this from the outside end as an outside perspective.

at the end of the day, you don't delay what is happening in front of you right now for what could happen tomorrow. And I understand the idea of delay gratification. Do you want one year of this guy or three of a guy that's almost as good could be there a year three? The old saying is a bird in the hand that's burden of what? Two in the bush. And if those guys could be there, my question is this. Why would you even need to go on the fourth? because we're talking about even if we're not talking about any type of buyout, right?

Even if we say no buyout, you just got to pay him the salary. Even with that salary, if you are matching or exceeding what he was making at Duke, you could have done a ton of other things with that salary if you felt comfortable about the guys in your room. And remember last year when Syracuse went out and got Steve Angelly, what was the first thing I said? Ricky Collins must be bad. He must be bad. Yeah.

Because you don't go out and get a quarterback this late in the ball game if you believe in what's already there. So to Miami's two Miami's quarterback situation, I'm not going to sit here and say, oh, yeah, I know everybody in that room is terrible. But what I will say is, I know that Darien Minza is degrees ahead of the knees. It's not really the same level if you're willing to go through the potential rigumor of having to do all the things and dot all the eyes and cross all the T's to make sure that you're good here when you already like you said you've got four guys in that room right now there are four guys not count Carson Beck after Monday Carson Beck will never put on a Keynes uniform again in an official capacity that is a factual state there is no ifans or much about it

even if he draws his sham bliss impression and says I'm gonna pull a Diego Pavi I'm pull a TJ Finley I want one more year then say ain't gonna do they're no they're not so With that in mind, if you look at this quarterback room, if Mario and Company were comfortable with what they had, they would say, throw that money at Seton, close the deal. Hey, throw that money over here, close the deal. Hey, we got to replace Bain and Mesidor.

Go find us to it. Prince just jumped in. You manly did. Got a sack and kiss us. Go close the deal. That's not where that money is being allocated to. They're saying make sure that we get Darien for a reason, for a reason. So ultimately, however people feel about, oh, I, you know,

I want to. in-house guy. You should want the best guy. You should want the best guy. And that's my thing. I mean, there's in today's college football and with the way Miami has recruited for the last four years, like you can't really afford to say, oh, it's like a rebuilding year next year. Like there is, there is so much pressure to stay at the level that they're at right now. But hey, I thought this was a tremendous conversation. And I'm so glad we could do this on locked on ACC and on locked on Keynes and I promise you we will get the Duke perspective. I actually, not his fault.

I did invite JJ Jackson from Lockdown Blue Devils, but I invited him like an hour before we did this and he's calling a basketball game tonight. So we are going to do a near future episode with JJ Jackson to get the Blue Devils perspective because I want all sides of this tale to be told. But he is Kenton Gibbs. You can check him out. And listen, if you're if you're locked on ACC every day,

and maybe you haven't checked out Locked on Cains and Locked on Wolfpack, make sure you do. If you're a Locked on Cains every dayer, I think you guys now know what Kenton Gibbs is all about, and that is ball knowledge and breakdowns. And I hope you check out Locked on Wolfpack that he co-hosts with Grayson Boone. And I hope you check out Locked on ACC if you're new to this side of the program. So we will talk to everyone next time on another episode of Locked on ACC and or Locked on Cains.

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