Arizona State Head Coach Kenny Dillingham
On the team's performance under adversity:
“Our guys didn't flinch in that game, which was awesome to see, there was never a wavering, never a flinch just on the sideline with their body language or anything. That's a really good sign of the direction of the program is when you win games like that, when your guys don't flinch.”
On the team seeing the plan come to fruition:
“The value is that you get by with success. It's a lot easier to get by with success than it is to continue to try to preach on the dream or what should happen if you work hard. The negative is expectations. People get unrealistic expectations with success. Being in the entertainment industry, you entertain and people get excited. Excitement creates expectations, expectations create pressure and then you lose your edge. The key is we're the same team that we were before we played a game, or the same team we were in spring, or the same team we were in fall, we added a few players. We've played a few games. That's really about it, but we're the same team that just needs to get better and better and better. The best opponents we face this year are in our future and not in our past and we have to get better every single week if we want to continue to have fun Saturdays.”
On the players staying grounded:
“I do. Last week was humbling. I thought we played absolutely horrible, specifically in the first half. Over 50 MA’s as a football team, even though it's a short week, it's not good for us as a staff and not good for the players on the field. It's not good for anybody and it starts with me. We can't go into a game and have plans that produce 50 MA’s in a football game. We probably did too much in a short week. Both of our sides of the ball are more schemed up. That short week was probably harder on us than some other teams just because of how we play offense and defense. We probably did too much and that's on me to monitor that moving forward because you can't win a game with 50 MA’s. Well, we did, but you shouldn't.”
On the maturity of the players:
“No question. I tell the guys to let me do all the complaining. Tell me anything that you want to complain about, I'll do the complaining, you do the playing. ‘Don't worry about the officials, let me control the officials, let me talk to them about things that are happening to you. Let me do that, let me do the yelling, let me do the complaining, let me do all that stuff and you guys just play the game.’ That was just an example of that and that wasn't the only example of the game. There's multiple times defensive lineman think they're getting held even when they're not. They're always held that, in the past, we may have lost our crap, but they came up to me. ‘Hey, they're holding me here, there's hands in the face and they're telling me.’ I'll go communicate it, if we get a call, we get a call. If we don't, we don't. That is a sign of growth that we're not in an argument with somebody or flailing our arms on the field all game long when we think we're being held, we're getting to the sideline and we're communicating it to myself and the staff, I'm communicating it. It just shows that there's the buy-in of what we're trying to get accomplished.”
On if this team is 'different':
“The work they would put in the weight room and the lack of people on lists. The minimum expectation was so much higher, all off-season long. The minimum expectation is what I call the standard. Be early, be on time, work hard. All that stuff takes no talent and it's very simple to get accomplished. The moment where I felt like, we may have really good leaders or we may have some leadership here was when we said, ‘Hey, you guys have one more five-yard sprint, you have to do it perfectly.’ And then the offense ran 40 yards, the defense ran 30 yards when they went back to their huddles and when they described the drill, the leader said they wanted to run 40 or 30 instead of the five yard sprint that I said. That was a really good sign that these guys want it.”
On the balance between NIL deals and maintaining focus:
“Honesty. I think if you're always honest with people and they know you're honest with people, then they're gonna listen to what you have to say. If every game I go in there and say this is the best team we've played, they’re gonna be like, ‘Here we go again.’ You have to be honest. That team last week, I thought was the best team that we faced up to that point. They were really good up front, they ran to the ball harder than we did throughout the football game, which is what showed up on tape. It was the first team that I thought played harder than us at times. It's more than just honesty with your guys and they know the truth. You just have to tell them the truth and that they’re gonna get great opportunities. Go take them, but what does that have to do with the fact that if you want more opportunities, we have to continue to play well and those opportunities that you're getting have no effect on if we continue to play well. Like I said, I thought we played a bad game. I thought I coached a bad game. I thought I put our guys in bad positions to be successful, especially early in the game. We weren't ready to play and then we had four penalties on one drive which is unacceptable. We only had two penalties in the first three quarters of the game and we had four on a backed up drive. We're driving the field to have four penalties and then have an illegal man in the backfield on a punt when we put him inside the one when statistically it's a less than 2% chance that you drive from inside the one yard line to score points in a tight game. That could have been a game losing penalty just not lining up on the ball. I have to get all that stuff cleaned up.”
On defensive back Shamari Simmons embracing leadership:
“Shamari is not gonna talk a lot, Shamari is just gonna do. Xavion (Alford) is gonna talk, so it’s a perfect combination. Shamari is gonna work whether he’s banged up or not, and you’re gonna have to pry it out of him if he’s banged up. He was banged up at the end of the (Texas State) game and he was still going out there making game changing plays. Causing a fumble after he was banged up and then blowing a guy up on a screen. Having his physicality at the nickel spot…I think he's doing such a good job there and he's buying into that role. It’s a huge game changer for the football team.”
On ASU’s first Big 12 game against Texas Tech:
“This is the first Big 12 game and this will literally go down in history. There's only one game that's a first, and there are very few times in sports that you get to accomplish a first. A real first. Not like the first time to have a 100 yard receiver and two sacks and all the crazy firsts, this is a real first. It'll be remembered forever as Arizona State's first Big 12 game. I'm excited for the tortillas. I've heard there's tortillas that get thrown around. I'm excited for it because it's a challenge, and it's what college football is supposed to be. I was told that where we walk out is underneath where the band is. A college band on the road, it’s gonna be loud. Their fans are die-hard fans. It's a college town and it’s gonna be an unbelievable environment for our guys to play in. And I think that's the exciting part about joining the Big 12, is the environments that we play in. We have to make sure we clean up the pre-snap penalties.”
On having another road game in Texas:
“I think just an away game in general is probably more helpful than having that away game back-to-back in Texas. The time change is probably helpful. We just played a game on a two-hour time change. So that type of stuff and the guys adjusting, I would say there's a little bit of comfort there that we've done it. I'm excited because it's an early kick. When we go back that direction for two hours, we're trying to stay in our own time zone. So our kids will wake up around 7-7:30 Arizona time. And they'll be out heading to the game at 10 o'clock Arizona time, which is right around when we're at practice. So it should be from a body clock perspective, kind of when we're used to it. If not a little bit more, with an hour more of rest than they're usually used to. So, from a body clock perspective, I think it fits us traveling back there.”
On what stands out about Texas Tech’s offense:
“They score a lot, that stands out. They're very creative. I reached out to their offensive coordinator Zach Kittley. He was a D1-AA coordinator before he went to Western Kentucky. When he was a D1-AA coordinator before he got hired at Western Kentucky, he had one of the top offenses in the country. I used to reach out to all the younger dudes who are having success and I randomly reached out to him on Twitter. I'm gonna watch your stuff just because you're scoring a lot. And then a month later he goes to Western Kentucky. They hired the running backs coach that was working with us at Florida State who I then later hired at Oregon, Carlos Lachlan. So there's a little bit of connection there, and I have a lot of respect for what he does offensively and he knows how to score. He's really creative. You never see the same thing in back-to-back games, which I think is a testament to him in terms of changing up the pictures. He constantly changes up the pictures. So whatever you show your guys, you're probably not gonna see on game day. Different formation, different motion, different shifts. You may see the same plays, but you're not gonna see the same physical picture from game to game. And I think that's what makes them successful.”
On wide receiver Jordyn Tyson’s growth:
“I definitely think he's grown up a lot. Not just physically if you look at his before and after photo since he's been in the program, but mentally he's really grown up. I think that's a testament to Coach Hines Ward, who kind of gets to mentor him. They're similar, they're both 6-foot and a half. Strong dudes who are good with the ball in their hands that are great possession guys, and can both be dogs in the blocking game. So I think when he sees the career Hines had, and when he challenges him to do certain things and play a certain play style, I think he can see it’s coming from a similar style of player. I think that's really helped him kind of grow up a little bit and you can see that with all the things you just described. He's one of the guys that I'm most proud of just in terms of his growth, physically and mentally over the last year.”
On injured players returning to action:
“Prince (Dorbah) will be back, which is huge for us. Hopefully we'll get Sean Na’a back, we should get him back too. We should get Jordan Crook back, a linebacker there. Both the D tackles that were out last week (Jacob Kongaika and Zac Swanson) are still questionable, that's a 50/50. Hopefully we get one of the two of them back. Hopefully that's how it spins out, but we don't know yet. Laterrance Welch will still be out. (DeCarlos) Brooks is still questionable. We have to see how he progresses throughout the week. Raleek (Brown) is still in this questionable state where he's healthy, but he's not. We have to wait for him to get to full speed and I don't know if I want to play him again if he's at 85-90%. I don't think that's fair to him. So I think he's questionable as well in terms of how we want to use him. If he gets to full speed 100%, then we'll play him. If we feel like he's still in the mid nineties, then we'll hold him. Then Tate Romney is still out, arms don't heal quickly.”
On what he’s seen from Texas Tech’s defense:
“They just created four takeaways essentially on consecutive drives in a football game versus a North Texas team who was 2-0 at the time. They create takeaways. Coach Tim DeRuyter has been around for a long time, he’s been a head coach and been very successful... He worked for Coach Justin Wilcox at Cal before he went to Oregon. That was before I got there and before he moved to Tech. So you can definitely see some similarities to Cal... I think there's a lot of philosophy that he has that Wilcox has at Cal.”
On Texas Tech's Tahj Brooks' offensive impact:
“He's dynamic. You're not a 1,000 yard rusher on accident. He's absolutely dynamic. Last year, he was making plays left and right. This year, he sat out the Washington State game. But since he's been back in, their rushing attack drastically turns when he's in the football game, even if you look at the stats. So the fact that he's back is huge for them as somebody we got to control. We have to contain (him).”
On Blazen Lono-Wong and Caleb McCollugh’s impact through the years:
“Those guys that are still here, kudos to them for just battling and battling and battling, and they're both still playing for us, which is pretty cool. I think both those guys have always had really good mindsets, you know, they've both always been about the work. I think the guys that are still here, they’ve just wanted to work. They just want to keep plugging away, keep getting better. I think both those kids kind of do that.”
On finding a way to win with injuries:
“We harped on depth. Now, I thought we had the depth to survive some situations like this. I think the short week being banged up, specifically at one position, to D line, in the core, in your linebackers. When you have four of your top eight guys out going into the season, and they're out for a big game on the road, and to still find a way of winning. Guys like Deeter (J.P. Deeter) step up, Monday (Tristan Monday) step up and Blaze (Lono-Wong) step up and Caleb (McCollough) step up and be able to win a football game. That shows you the depth and that good experience for them. And hopefully we start getting guys back. And as we get guys back, we're going to become a better football team, and I think we will get a wave of guys back this week.”
On defensive linemen Elijah O’Neal's development:
“He's been unbelievable. It's a blessing in disguise when somebody goes out for a little bit of time. And when Prince went out, Prince was playing at a high, high level, and a non contact injury knocked him out. He'll be back this week. That gave Elijah the opportunity to get a lot of reps and grow a lot. And now that you're getting Prince back, and you have this new found version of Elijah, that probably needed those reps in order to get to where he is, right now, we kind of double dipped a little bit. We got a better version of Elijah, and we get a fresh Prince, a healthier Prince back. Oh- a Fresh Prince reference. I didn’t even mean to do that, but, yeah,- West Philadelphia, born and raised… But no, it's an exciting thing. I'm really proud of how Elijah's playing right now.”
On quarterback Sam Leavitt’s work ethic:
“He's just a worker, man. It's the same. People are gonna ask me questions about Sam every week. It's gonna be the same. He's the same dude every single week. He's gonna show up early, he's gonna leave late, he's going to do everything he can to prepare for. He's going to be really, really hard and critical of himself. I don't know if you guys noticed, but last week, in the middle of the practice, he missed a throw, and I started telling him he sucked because he's so competitive that if I tell him it's okay he gets mad at himself because he knows it's not okay. So I tell him he sucks, and he's like ‘well screw that guy,’ I can throw. It flips the mindset for him. But he's so competitive. He's an ultra competitor, and you can see that when he plays. He gets targeted and pops right back up and doesn't even blink. And we don't want him to get targeted, we want him to fall down – well, we don't want him to fall down. But still, the kid's awesome. I'm glad he's the guy that, with four years left, I get to say my tenure here is linked very strongly to him, and I'm glad that he's the guy that it's linked to.”
On defensive back Shamari Simmons' energy:
“I think the guys respect him so much that when he makes plays, or when he gives energy, when he gets excited, it just ramps everybody up. Some guys, they always get excited. They'll get excited if their pinky touches the ball carrier. Well, Shamari is one of those guys that when he gets excited and ramped up, it brings a real natural juice, because it's real. It's not fake. It's not half in,half out. It's like, ‘dang.’ That's real passion. So I think when he makes those plays that everybody feeds off it.”
On former Sun Devil Jalin Conyers, who is now a Red Raider:
“Jalin was an awesome Sun Devil here. He had his own podcast here, he was one of the most liked people in our program. I brought him to media days as a captain. We went to Vegas together. Here we took him to a show in Vegas during media days, and went to dinner. I had such a good relationship with Jalin. I'm glad to see his success. He's had a really good first three games. He's playing the Wildcat there, he's playing wide out, he's playing tight end, he's in the backfield as the second running back. He's back really close to home, where his family and his mom, who was really close to him can watch him. He's with a coach who I respect and a coach who I know will take care of him. So, I couldn't be happier for him and what’s happened for him in the first three games. Hopefully there's one bad game in there, maybe week four. That would be the goal. But other than that, I wish him nothing but the best, and I just want to see him succeed.”
On his recruiting schedule after the win vs. Texas State:
“Friday, I started. I was in San Marcos, then went from San Marcos to San Antonio. Saw five schools in San Antonio, then left San Antonio, went to El Paso. So I watched a school game in El Paso, and then left at 9:30 at night after the game and then flew back home. Then Saturday, we had a day off so I got to hang out with the little guy.”