Duke and Miami don’t battle on the gridiron until November 14, but the bad feelings between the Blue Devils and Hurricanes surrounding Darian Mensah’s last-minute transfer to South Beach this offseason were at the max during ACC Media Days last week.

The new Miami quarterback was the first to fire shots at his former team.

“At Duke there was kind of some friction when I first got there because my dollar amount was released," Mensah said. "Everybody sees that, and it was just hard for me to be the new guy, and everybody said, 'Oh you're getting paid more than me, and I've been here for X amount of years.' At Miami, the culture is different, and it just feels like family and actually feels like I'm at home."

Sure, there could have been some hard feelings between some teammates after Duke paid Mensah reportedly close to $4 million last offseason to get him to Durham after one year at Tulane, but it was how the quarterback left the Blue Devils’ program that has some questioning his motives. After pledging to come back to Duke for his junior season, Mensah entered the transfer portal at the last minute. After Duke dropped its lawsuit against him, he immediately signed with the Hurricanes.

Duke tight end Jeremiah Halsey shot down any rumors that Mensah started about there being a rift in the Blue Devils’ locker room last season.

"No, Darian's contract was no problem in the locker room," Hasley said, per ESPN. "He was a great quarterback for us. He earned everything he got. There was never a problem."

As for whether or not Miami was tampering with Mensah before he entered the transfer portal, Duke head coach Manny Diaz didn’t exactly say it didn’t happen.

"That's an unanswerable question," Diaz said told WRAL. "... You can only say what you can prove. To me, it doesn't matter. That's why our issue was never with any other school. Duke was very consistent. The whole situation was simply about a contract that had to be honored. It wasn't honored. Then what are the ramifications of that? All parties were satisfied, and all parties moved on."

When the two teams meet in Miami in November, the storylines will write themselves.

This article originally appeared on Duke Wire: Darian Mensah gives lame excuse for leaving Duke for Miami