DURHAM, N.C. — When the deal was done and the reality of the moment finally hit him, Darian Mensah couldn’t help but well up with tears of joy.
In seemingly an instant, a player who had one FBS scholarship offer coming out of high school and started fall camp as Tulane’s third-string quarterback was now a multi-millionaire and headed to one of the top academic schools in the country. You could call it a dream come true for Mensah, but he couldn’t have even dreamed that big.
A player that even the most hardcore of fans didn’t know existed mere months earlier was now believed to be the highest-paid player in college football with a deal that could pay him $8 million over two years, as CBS Sports first reported last December. His agent, Noah Reisenfeld, told him even if he never played a down in the NFL, he was now set for life financially.
Mensah’s mind quickly went to his mom, Naomi, who had raised him and his three siblings as a single mother. He thought about all the challenging moments along the way. How his mom seemed to work 24/7 and yet still had to file for bankruptcy at one point. On all the sacrifices she made to keep their family afloat when the situation got dire. How he dreamed that one day he could provide financial help and ease his mom’s challenges.
“I’ve watched her struggle many times — physically, emotionally — and seeing that as a kid, it does something to you,” Mensah told CBS Sports. “To have this opportunity is a huge blessing.”
Mensah’s life forever changed when he agreed to go to Duke, but his journey is still just getting started. It hits another important milestone Saturday when he returns to New Orleans to take on Tulane.
Highest-paid player in college football history? Transfer QB Darian Mensah’s Duke deal is sign of times
John Talty
Coming out of St. Joseph High School in Santa Maria, California, the recruiting attention never made its way to Mensah.
He had a total of two scholarship offers: Tulane and FCS-level Idaho State. He was the No. 135-ranked quarterback in the 247Sports composite rankings. There was talent there, but the Mensah family was fighting to survive, and it wasn’t like there was a ton of leftover money for expensive private quarterback training or flying all around the country to get in front of different coaches.
The California kid picked New Orleans out of the two and redshirted his freshman season.
And then the lone staff that thought he was FBS-worthy left. Willie Fritz and his son, Wes, were the early believers of Mensah but had decided to leave for Houston. It could have been easy for Mensah to get lost in the shuffle of a coaching transition as new coach Jon Sumrall and his staff came in.
He started fall camp as the third-string quarterback, but as Sumrall and his staff watched more and more practices, they liked what they saw out of the redshirt freshman. He had a coolness about him, an ability to not get rattled or too high off what happened. In a surprise, Sumrall named Mensah the starter ahead of its season opener, a top 25 game against Kansas State. Mensah immediately paid off Sumrall’s faith, throwing for 342 passing yards, two touchdowns and one interception in a game the Green Wave should have won.
It wasn’t as easy the following week against Oklahoma and Brent Venables, who eats up young quarterbacks, but Mensah kept getting better and better as the season progressed. Toward the end of a standout season for Tulane, Reisenfeld knew there would be a strong market for his client should he enter the transfer portal. He had the ambitious goal of making the Tulane quarterback few knew the highest-paid player in college football.
As Reisenfeld assessed what the options could look like, Duke was doing its own due diligence. The Blue Devils’ brain trust liked that Mensah was a smart kid who was little-recruited and yet had still won the job.
“That means something to do that,” Duke offensive coordinator Jonathan Brewer told CBS Sports. “To prove to everybody you’ve got something and you aren’t just a highly rated guy who had things handed to you.”
As the season progressed, Duke general manager John Garrett and his team met once a week with Big League Advantage, an analytics firm it worked with, to determine who might be a good fit. They needed someone who had strong academic credentials, which Mensah had, but they also wanted someone who could help elevate the offense. They watched Mensah’s games against Power Four competition and came away impressed with how his game would translate to the ACC.
On paper, Duke didn’t need a quarterback. It landed Maalik Murphy, a Texas transfer, the following cycle and the quarterback threw for 2,993 yards, 26 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in Duke’s nine-win season in 2024. But as Duke coach Manny Diaz and his team thought about how the program could level up, to find those small edges to go beyond nine wins, they saw an opportunity at the quarterback position. It wasn’t that they disliked Murphy, who later left for Oregon State, but they felt like they needed someone who had more scrambling ability and could make something out of seemingly nothing.
“If you’re not able to extend plays, you have to be so elite with the ball and your mind to get there,” Duke coach Manny Diaz told CBS Sports. “To me now, it’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity. There’s not many people that are having a lot of success right now without the ability to be able to buy time and sort of make those off-schedule plays.”
When Mensah entered the portal after the American Championship Game, Duke told Reisenfeld he was their No. 1-rated target. And when the agent for Young Money APAA established the compensation range it would take to land Mensah, Duke didn’t flinch.
The agent said there was another school, which he wouldn’t name, that was willing to pay the same as Duke. But it was clear early on that once Mensah, his family and his agents all convened together in Tampa that Duke was the preferred school. It had the strong academics that were critically important to Mensah, it was investing big money in improving its football program and wanted to feature the young quarterback in a much more pass-friendly offense than what he had at Tulane.
“We assessed it all and we thought Duke was the best fit,” Mensah said. “It wasn’t between a bunch of schools. I kind of wanted to get recruited, but Duke had everything I wanted and checked every box.”
With Mensah now guiding the offense, Duke is 2-1 with a tricky road game against Tulane this weekend. The Blue Devils had a big opportunity last weekend against No. 11 Illinois, but sloppy plays and turnovers took what looked like a game Duke had a real chance to win into a 45-19 loss.
Returning to the school where you got your start is never easy. Sumrall has said all the right things this week about it, but there were understandably some hurt feelings within the program when Mensah left. There’s plenty of extra motivation, too, to prove the Green Wave are just fine without the highest-paid quarterback in the country. People within the Tulane program believe they’ll be able to rattle their former quarterback.
“I think there’s familiarity on both sides,” Sumrall said. “We know Darian well; he knows us pretty well, too. He’s gone against this defense plenty in practice… It’s a unique matchup, I think what makes it unique is this type of thing happens all the time in pro football. College, it’s probably a little bit newer with the era we’re in.”
A year ago, Mensah was a little-known Tulane quarterback just trying to prove he belonged in college football. Now, he carries the extra weight of proving he’s worth one of the most expensive contracts in college football, to date. While there may be outside questions about how that much money can change a person, those inside Duke say he’s been the same kid from the moment he arrived on campus.
“He’s a genuine person,” Brewer said. “He cares about people. He loves football. He’s a competitor.”
There’s no major ego, no throwing his weight around as a player who makes more than some Power Four head coaches. He’s just a 20-year old kid who has capitalized more than perhaps anyone in college football history on the convergence of NIL and revenue share money.
No matter what happens Saturday, college football has forever changed the trajectory of the Mensah family.
“It’s been everything I’ve wanted and a huge blessing,” Mensah said. “When it comes to taking care of family, it’s something that I hold dear to my heart.”
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