For as much as it was a “dream job” for Kenny Dillingham to become the head coach at Arizona State, he inherited a complete mess at his alma mater.
The program was still reeling from the tenure of Herm Edwards that ended amid an investigation that resulted significant NCAA sanctions. Edwards was fired three games into the 2022 season that finished 3-9 – the school’s worst winning percentage since 1946. In the aftermath, Dillingham’s first season ended with the same record. Five-star quarterback Jaden Rashada – a top recruit for the school – didn’t pan out and left the program after one season.
The second season wasn’t supposed to be much better. Arizona State was picked to finish last place in its first season in the Big 12, and Dillingham, the youngest Power Four coach at age 34, was ranked the worst coach in his new conference.
Instead, Dillingham has orchestrated a complete turnaround, guiding the Sun Devils into the thick of the chaotic Big 12 title race and a chance to make the College Football Playoff.
If this is the first week you’ve paid any attention to the Sun Devils this season, don’t worry; like Desmond Howard revealed on ‘College GameDay” last week, not many were aware of how good Arizona State has been. It went into the game at Kansas State with a silent four wins in five games.
The Wildcats were a touchdown favorite and considered one of the top contenders in the Big 12, but Arizona State blitzed them with a 21-0 start and won convincingly. The Sun Devils are now 8-2, are in the College Football Playoff rankings at No. 21 with conference leader Brigham Young set to visit the desert in a game with playoff implications that would have been considered more than unlikely at the start of the season..
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Dillingham played coy on whether he saw this success coming, pointing to the fact they’re a few plays away from just having six wins or being undefeated. But he sensed some special was building when his team faced Mississippi State in the second game of the season, when they scored 27-points in the first half in a comfortable win over the Bulldogs.
He saw the physicality and the passion, but what stuck out was the camaraderie.
“It kind of confirmed that we got something about ourselves,” Dillingham said.
Clearly that something is a team capable of playing meaningful postseason football, but the Sun Devils don’t seem all too interested in what number is beside their name. When Dillingham told his team they were ranked, he said they just booed. The coach finds the sudden hype comical and only helpful in recruiting, not winning. The message to team leaders last week was “don’t get lost in the sauce.”
“Nobody cares. Nobody in three years is going to say, ‘Remember when ASU was ranked No. 21 in week 11 in 2024?” Dillingham said. “It’s an irrelevant thing.”
Irrelevant at this point, sure, but the ranking does speak to the tremendous job Dillingham has done in turning the program around.
One bright spot last season was the emergence of running back Cam Skattebo, who spent two seasons at Sacramento State joining the program. Skattebo was a unique all-purpose player last season, rushing for 758 yards and also starting one game at quarterback, while playing receiver and punting, This season, he has become one of the top rushers in Division this season with 119.3 yards per game on the ground.
“Oh man, he is a dangerous running back,” BYU head coach Kalani Sitake said of Skattebo. “He’s physical but you can tell he is having fun out there. It’s been a pleasure watching him play,”
In addition to its potent running game, what’s really helped the Sun Devils on offense is keeping the ball. They’ve only turned it over seven times this season, among the top 10 in the country. Ball security will be especially important against BYU, which is sixth in the country in the forced turnovers with an average of two takeaways a game.
The loss BYU suffered to Kansas also put the Cougars in dangerous territory. They fell to No. 14 in the playoff rankings – still in position to reach the playoff with a Big 12 title but not without it – meaning there’s a sense of urgency to win out. After seeing how devastating a loss was, Dillingham sees BYU having a chip on its shoulder.
“They definitely have an advantage when it comes to mindset based off of last week’s game. They’re going to come into this game like it’s the Super Bowl, which it is,” he said.
Not many people in August would have thought BYU vs. Arizona State would have playoff implications, yet it’s just another example of how wide open the Big 12 is. The Cougars are in first place, but they’re tied with surging Colorado, with Arizona State and Iowa State just behind.
There’s an argument the conference isn’t the strongest – the champion will likely be the only playoff team – but the expanded postseason allows for teams that would have been afterthoughts to have legitimate hype.
What a difference 365 days can make. Arizona State has gone from a team just trying to stay afloat to now playing meaningful football in November. The Valley is building with anticipation for a coach that has shown how much love he has for the school he grew up rooting for and attended.
For most of the past two seasons, there were swaths of empty seats inside Mountain America Stadium. Now, they’ll be playing against BYU in front of a sellout crowd in one of the program’s biggest games in the past decade.
“We haven’t had one like this yet since I’ve been here,” Dillingham said. “This is going to be the game where people can really feel it.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Arizona State, Kenny Dillingham near CFP amid remarkable turnaround
