Arizona State Head Coach Kenny Dillingham Postgame Press Conference:
Saturday, September 13, 2025
On how they made things easier offensively tonight:
“Establishing the run was huge and a couple of the first early drives, we were trying to figure it out. Running the ball is one of those things that you have to be dedicated to because of the move in the game. Everybody moves a little different on the Defensive line, you have got to figure it out. So once we got to figure it out, our guys did a good job, and then we did simplify the plan. We probably cut our play sheet down by about 25-30%, if not a little more. And we really made sure that our guys were all dialed and all on the same page, and I think it showed up. I think we played pretty clean football and we still missed some opportunities, some big opportunities. We had a penalty on a couple of drives and one of them brought us back. So, I thought we played pretty good.”

On how he felt about the operation on offense as a whole:
“I thought it was really good. We as a staff had a two-minute scenario where we have to get better at. We thought somebody was dinged up, so we subbed. He has to just go down because a sub in that scenario creates a slow sub on their side of the ball and it costs us about 30 seconds with the whole jogging off the field instead of just ‘hey, if you're hurting, you can't be a tough guy. You have to go down.’ So we as a staff have to go through that, but other than that, I was really pleased with how we operated.”

On Sam Leavitt’s performance tonight:
“I thought he played well. Just looking at the stat sheet, passing for 188 (yards) on 15 (completions), that's pretty good. It's over 10 yards. And then for rushing, his ability to extend in the rushing game for 75 yards. so that's winning football for 3 TDs. I thought that was winning football. He got us into some good places. So I thought he got in a rhythm and I thought he played well.”

On what a touchdown does to the sideline:
“It gets them excited for sure. I thought we had good energy all night. I think that was one of the things I was pleased with was that we carried over the second half of last week in terms of the energy and the passion and how we played on both sides of the ball at the end of this week. So I think we're slowly figuring ourselves out. I continue to say you want to get better and you want to learn more and adapt to your team as the season progresses. If you're firing all cylinders in week one, it's probably going to be a bump in the road. People are probably going to try to figure you out. You'd love to do that, but the goal is to get better and better and better. I think we've gotten better. Even in last week's loss, I thought we got better in that second half, and I think this week we got better because that's a good football team. The goal next week is to get better again because we face another good football team.”

On a big night performance from the Tight Ends:
“Chamon (Metayer) has just been a soldier for us the first few games and not many targets. He's just gone to work and I said you got to reward people that just work like that, block like that, and he can do that. His Twitter handle is ‘takehimdeep7’, so he didn't take them deep but he took them short. And he scored seven, so that kind of counts. I've just been very pleased with how he's been blocking and how he's been playing football. So you got to reward him.”

On if last week’s loss was a blessing in disguise:
“I said that last week. Anytime you get kind of punched in the face and then you rebound, it's like, ‘OK, you want to go back to work.’ You have two choices, you can run at it or you can run away from it. I hope we're a football team that runs into it. They run straight at it. Coach (Charlie) Ragle brought up this like buffalo versus a cow. A cow runs away from the storm, a buffalo runs through it or something. We wanted to be the buffalo this week. You just run through the storm, you get through it faster. You get the cow, you get caught, you're in it longer. So hopefully we're a team that runs through the storm.”

On Keith Abney’s takeaway in the second quarter:
“Game-changing. Takeaways win games. We talk about it all the time. I chase him every day in practice and get the ball up. That's the most exercise I get all week is just running around chasing him, saying ‘ball up, ball up, ball up’. I chased him saying ‘knock the ball out on defense’. They convert a third down, (he) punches the ball out and creates a takeaway. Absolutely a game changer.”

Arizona State Quarterback Sam Levitt 
On his jump throw touchdown pass to Tyson:
“They brought double-sided pressure. We were going to go out to it, but we had a miscommunication on the protection. I knew (WR) Jordyn (Tyson) was going to get to a spot, we talked about it all week. I was high and low off the defender out there, lost my back, and needed to make a play. I knew where we was going to be and got to the ball to him. Made one hell of a play. I practice a lot because you never know what position you’re going to be in to try and make a throw like that. I missed one earlier to (TE) Cameron Harpole, that one hurt me. I wasn’t going to miss again.” 

On what he makes of this bounce-back game after the loss to Mississippi State:
“It was big. I said it a couple of times, but I was grateful for what happened against Mississippi State. If we came out of there with a (win), we wouldn't have attacked the week the way we did. The little issues would’ve got blown over. They came to show and we honed in on those things and we band together as a team. We saw the second half for Mississippi State carried over into this game. We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to continue to build upon this and keep the same mojo as a team overall.”

Arizona State Wide Receiver Jordyn Tyson
On team humility:
“(TE) Chamon (Metayer) is an amazing blocker. I missed a couple of my blocks today and I felt so bad I went up to him and apologized like three times. He probably would have strung it for more yards, probably would have had 100 on the day. It’s just how the team is, we are unselfish. Humility is a big thing and we just don’t care who is getting the ball.”

On tonight’s run game:
“Especially being as run efficient as we are, (RB) Raleek (Brown) had like 150 yards and we were able to run, run, run. It makes my job easier especially when our linebackers are tucked away in the box.”

On Raleek’s offseason development:
“He was just so hurt from the same boat I was in, just hurt. He had a knee injury and knee surgery, just not being in a (right) place. Seeing all your brothers play and seeing us lose in the College Football Playoffs. You just develop this hunger of wanting to come back better than ever and I feel like and that’s what he did. In conditioning days he was working his tail off, squat days he was squatting as much as he could, bench days he was right there with me on rack one.”

On making it back to the Big 12 Championship:
“That definitely hurt but I’m trying to go back, that’s our goal.”

Arizona State Linebacker Jordan Crook
On needing a dominant win after last week’s loss:
“That was definitely our focus all week. With the second half of last week, we kind of saw who we were. I think once we realized that, all week the focus was to come out here and get back to playing our type of ball. And I feel like we went out there and did that tonight.”

On Adrian and Jordan making big hits and if there was any motivation coming off a loss from last week:
“We knew the quarterback was a runner, but we just knew we wanted to play a better standard defense and better standard of football on the defensive side of the ball. And I don’t think we were playing bad, but we just kind of said we wanted to get back to playing our type of football on all three levels. Whether it was offense, defense, or special teams, we just wanted to make sure we went out there and played our style of football – fast and physical. The biggest thing out of everything was we wanted to make sure we stayed on their neck the whole game, not give any easy things up and just make it hard for those guys.”

Arizona State Running Back Raleek Brown
On what it’s like to play after injury setbacks:
“It means a lot. I’ve been working for like two years, or a year and a half, I’ve been working a lot. I just thank coaches and everybody that believed in me to play running back and just keep going. It meant a lot. 

On his 75-yard rushing touchdown:
“It felt good. As soon as I got the ball I saw it. It felt really good to finally get a long run and for it to not end up getting called back.”

Arizona State Safety Adrian Wilson
On filling in for injured player Defensive Back Xavion Alford:
“(LB) (Jordan) Crook was actually the first person to text me and was said ‘Lock in. It's time now and you're here’. So for me it was just playing for them and they believed in me. It was just about making sure I did my job to help the team.”