After some serious hemming and hawing, Darian Mensah and Duke’s standoff ended Jan. 27, the same day the two sides settled their dispute. The quarterback will play his junior season with the Miami Hurricanes, per On3’s Pete Nakos and Hayes Fawcett, supplanting Carson Beck after Mario Cristobal’s team finished as national runner-up to Indiana.
Mensah, who spent one year in Durham after transferring from Tulane, completed 66.8% of his passes for 3,973 yards, 34 touchdowns and six interceptions in a season where the Blue Devils improbably won the ACC championship. Mensah announced his intent to transfer on Jan. 16. The move was met with pushback from Duke, which said it would pursue breach of contract charges due to ‘irreparable harm’ caused by Mensah’s leaving.
Mensah becomes the latest mercenary quarterback to join Miami’s roster. Before Beck transferred from Georgia for his final college season, Cam Ward had transferred to the Hurricanes from Washington State. In Mensah’s case, his decision to enter the portal was compared to a similar situation with Washington’s Demond Williams. But Williams ultimately stayed in Seattle after the university threatened to sue him.
Mensah will enter as a junior for Miami, so he could declare for the NFL draft after the 2026 season if the next year goes well enough to give him respectable draft stock.
Why was Darian Mensah able to transfer to Miami?
The divorce between Mensah and Duke was not a clean one. The quarterback announced his intention to enter the transfer portal on Jan. 16, and four days later Duke said it would sue him because of the ‘irreparable harm’ his leaving would cause.
That harm, as it turned out, was reparable, as the two sides reached a settlement on Jan. 27, two days before his Jan. 29 preliminary hearing. On the same day, his transfer to Miami was announced.
Mensah will go to a Hurricanes team that has found success with recent transfers Ward and Beck.
Darian Mensah stats
Mensah has found success in each of his first two seasons. He has thrown for 6,696 yards on 523-of-787 passing (66.5%). He has 56 touchdowns to 12 interceptions as well, having thrown six picks in each of his first two years. He led Duke to a 42-39 win in a Sun Bowl thriller over Arizona State, completing 29 of 51 passes for 327 yards, four touchdowns, and one pick.
2024 stats (with Tulane): 189-of-287 passing (65.9%), 2,723 yards, 22 touchdowns, 6 interceptions
2025 stats (with Duke): 334-of-500 passing (66.8%), 3,973 yards, 34 touchdowns, 6 interceptions