Arizona State Head Coach Kenny Dillingham Monday Press Conference:
Monday, November 9, 2026
On his reflection of the season and relying on freshman:
“I thought we played well week one, week two we were playing good football, and then it was like boom in the fourth quarter. Go to London, win a football game against a conference opponent. We got back and we got into a funk. We lost our identity. I can't put my finger on why that happened, but we got back and we struggled for three weeks just playing the game the way we should play it. The last three weeks, I thought we've played it way closer. Obviously players have changed, and a lot of young guys have started to step up. As a collective, I think the team kind of just figured out themselves better too in the last three weeks and we kind of lost that for three weeks. Definitely interesting because we played three weeks there, where we were so unidentifiable to our last four years. I put a lot of blame on myself because something may have happened, the return and how I managed the return off of the big trip and stuff like that. Obviously I did something wrong there, because you don't just have like a three-week random outlier over a span of four years. Unless there was something that I did poorly there to manage that. Now I think we're playing competitively. We're playing hard. A lot of young guys are playing, which is unbelievable for the future.”
On lessons learned this season:
“If we ever end up doing something that's just unique, or if guys are in a funk, then just doubling down on the guys is a learning experience for me.I've got to try to fix problems, and that's the goal. This team has really rallied behind each other, and that's a positive sign of the culture that we're creating. Regardless of what happened, they rallied behind each other and they got out of it. We're playing better football. I told the guys, we still haven't played our best game. We haven't done that yet, but we're at least playing recognizable football. There are some things that I could take away, but honestly, if I said them, it's going to sound very excuse-like. I'm not going to get into them because I don't want it to be twisted as an excuse.”
On challenges of playing freshman over veterans
“In college football, especially now, more than ever, the power four level is veteran-led. You look at all these teams, and it's almost every week you look at who's playing. It's fifth year senior, fourth year senior, and that's just because of the way the portal works. People are trying to attract the veterans, the proven commodities to their program. These teams are so much older now, than what it used to be. Playing so many younger guys and them being out there and being able to perform, one it's challenging to get those guys in the field because you obviously have good veterans or veterans that you believe in. Those guys when they all got their opportunity maximized it. It definitely is a fine balance of, there's no way you're gonna just start that person game one based off of how teams build rosters. My opinion, is more challenging than it used to be. All those guys earned the right to play more, we didn't give it to them. They've all earned the right to play more. When you're going into next week, you're talking about five and a half freshmen essentially starting for us. Some people will use that as an excuse. I use that as the opposite of an excuse. It's phenomenal that we have five freshmen starting for us. That's phenomenal, but nobody cares. You're either going to get it done or you're not.”
On the offensive playcalling in the first and second half:
“It's all possessions. We had two possessions, to start the second half. One we convert the fourth down, get towards the 50, we miss one, dang it, punt. The other one was a bad possession. You're up two scores in the fourth quarter, it's tough. Then you're up three scores in the fourth quarter at some points. If you stay aggressive in the fourth quarter with a two-score lead. How aggressive do you stay? Even if those are the best calls. Sometimes you can be aggressive by putting your defense on the field, that is aggressive. I am doubling down on our defense. There's a mindset that is aggressive, just as much as you can be aggressive on offense. That's just what I'm trying to manage, just trying to win the football game. When we didn't score those first two drives coming out of the half, that compounds when you do get a little more conservative. I do understand the perception that could be, wow, what happened? In reality, we were close on a third down where we just missed a guy, and if we completed it, who knows what happened on that drive. It could be a different narrative. Part of that is just the score of the game in the fourth quarter. In the third quarter we've got to play better. Fourth quarter probably conservative nature. I would say a balance of both”
On (ASU RB) Cardae Mack’s usage:
“100%. You want to find more balance. It's football. It's so funny because it's like, oh man, we didn't give him the ball. You got him the ball too much. It's so results driven that you can never get to. You can't get distracted by what you think by what the results had, because if those carries would have equated to 200 yards, then it'd be a different narrative. We just got to say what we think is the best plan over the last three weeks, and then we're figuring out that balance. But I do agree with you; he was on the field too much. We got to keep our legs fresh. We got to balance that with (ASU RB) Kyson Brown and balance that with Manman (ASU RB Demarius Robinson). I don't think there's a guy in this building who thinks differently than that, but we know he's played so well. I think we're in the mindset of: how do we get the ball, but he cut the ball too much, but not that much. We want to get the ball, so I think we just got to be better there, managing that back rim count.
On college football playoffs getting rid of conference championships:
“It's a new age in college football. It's changing all the time, just adapt and adjust. That could change how teams build rosters. It could change how teams scheme. Because with more teams getting in, nobody's gonna want to face a team that runs a midline or under center triple option to the 24th seed. I'll tell you that much. You'd rather be the number two seed than the number one seed. I think it changes the game a little bit because once you get into that tournament, there's so many types of schemes you can run on offense and defense. I think the uniqueness of the scheme because you're playing across conferences can become an advantage for teams, and it can become very challenging to go play when you're in a week-to-week tournament, and all college schemes are so drastically different. So it could become interesting just kind of how that plays out and how teams take that and try to create an edge for their program, knowing that more teams get in.
On where Arizona State fits into the new format:
“I think it benefits every team in the country that wants to get into the tournament. Now, if you're a team that's always top 10, you're probably saying, ‘Dang, these are more games I gotta play.’ But if you're not one of those top 10 teams that are predominantly in. I think you're at a greater chance to enter the tournament. You never know what happens from there. So I definitely think it opens the door for more teams, including ourselves, to get into the tournament, which is the most common sense response. It's just the truth.”
On (ASU QB) Jake Fette aiming to be more vertical:
“It's a byproduct of multiple things, we've struggled in pass protection this year. It's not a secret. We haven't been able to really throw the ball down the field at a high rate. Part of that is when we're calling those calls and the risk factor of the negatives is so high right now. You look at why the second half wasn't as productive, and it's usually due to a TFL(Tackle for loss) that gets us off rhythm, Also how many risks do you want to take in the game that gets you a high percentage into a TFL? Then can you recover a TFL? Do you want to your team to have to battle out of second and 15 consistently? Can we do that? So I think it's a balance. It's not just him. It's just our football team as a whole. What we're trying to find to be the most productive to win games, not just score points. We're at the point of how do we win football games and what is the recipe to win games? So I don't think it's all on him. I think it's on myself as well.
On (ASU DB) Rodney Bimage Jr.’s injury update:
“I’m not going to get into the details of it, but he's going to be out for the year, unfortunately. It’s unfortunate for him. He was having a good year. He's competitive and has obviously been in our program for a long time. It always sucks when a guy like that goes down with a real injury.”
On common traits coaches look for in recruitment:
“I know this is kind of a weird answer, but in an era where everybody is like, ‘there's always something else out there,’ the ability to be all in is rare. Jake (Fette) was committed 18 months to us and he never wavered. Cardae (Mack) committed mid-season his junior year, had one of the best senior seasons you could have, and never wavered. Dadu (Daquwan Dunn) committed for over a year and never wavered. Julian Hugo, same thing, he never wavered. Suka (Filiva’a “Suka” Lokotui) committed before his mission. He never wavered. The guys that are performing at a high level showed up with such conviction that this is where they needed to be and such excitement to get here and get to work. Their attitude from day one about the work and their want to be Sun Devils has helped them mature faster because they knew that this was where they wanted to be. They didn't have any doubts or any questions. It's pretty cool to have those guys succeed. There's a lot of other guys in that area, I'm just talking about guys that have played significantly right now. But I think there's a lot more guys in that class that are going to turn into really good football players. They may have a veteran that's flying really well ahead of them. Most of those guys are committed and we're all in for a long time here.”
On if he wants to test Jake Fette’s limits:
“Yes and no. We ran him a little bit more the other night. He did a really nice job getting down. Some guys don't have a natural feel to dive and get down, get six yards and dive. That's positive. Those are things that aren't always natural. So we're going to learn about them, but we're not going to try to figure out what he can do. We know what he can do. We believe the strengths that he's good at, but we're gonna learn about him along the way. If that makes more sense than trying to figure out what we can do. We're trying to play to his strengths as much as we can, and our team strengths. The biggest thing with quarterback is that it is a huge reflection of the people around them. So you can only do certain things based on your surroundings, or you can do more things based on your surroundings at quarterback. Part of what we're doing isn't even a reflection of him; it's a reflection of our football team. He's just in the position that is the easiest to test ‘this or that’ because he's the quarterback, but he may not even be getting all those opportunities to do some of those things.”
On the playoff expansion affecting NIL and the transfer portal:
“There's definitely more parity in college football. There's like two undefeated teams left. Everybody else has one or two losses. There are phenomenal three-loss teams. There are really good four loss-teams. The more parity you get, it's a shift because people are so used to going undefeated and winning one game, and that shift in parity is so unique to the college game where you're so used to certain hierarchies and you're so used to certain dominance that now that there is more parity, there's more volatility. More teams are responding to failure and responding to situations. Everybody's responding to this new era, and it's really hard to figure it out because it's constantly changing. So I think it's just a constantly changing environment. Every couple weeks, every month, something happens that changes it.”
On if there needs to be any tweaks while playing on the road:
“No, because we've been good on the road in the past. We've played three road games or three top-10 teams at the time. We haven't played our best football, but I think we'll continue to play better. But I don't think it's operational. There's not much you could do. You can go out there Thursday because it's another three-hour trip. This is another four-hour trip, another super long trip across multiple time zones, and that is a challenge. You can do that, and half the people will tell you it works, half the people will tell you it won't, and then you can do something else, half the people will tell you works, and half people will tell you won't. At the end of the day, our guys have to wake up in the morning, get ready to play a football game, play our best game, and it doesn't matter where we play. And this is a great environment here (Acrisure Bounce House). The last time I was at this place, we lost 56 or 54 to 47 in overtime versus UCF when I was at Memphis in the championship game of the American Conference.”
On what stands out about UCF:
“Speed stands out. Explosiveness, they're multiple on both sides of the ball offensively. They do a great job with formations and shifts and motions and shot getting guys down the field.They ran a two-by-two slot post the other night, but they released the boundary tight end to pull the quarter safety down. Where most teams are seven-man pro it, but they wanted to try to keep the boundary safe like a very good scheme that's very sound, that is purposeful. Sometimes you face teams and they kind of just do what they do. I think this is a very purposeful offense. They do things to attack what you're in, as opposed to like this, if we're running this regardless. And then on defense, I think they attack. They play a bunch of coverages. They play a ton of man, a ton of quarters. They love the two sims from different angles, blitzing corners, blitzing nickels, gut crossing. I would say it's just a team that's built around attacking on both sides of the football, and they have really, really good team speed. So that when you attack and you have team speed, it can create explosives for them on defense and explosives for them on offense.”
On QB Jake Fette from his first start at BYU and into UCF:
“You have to try to block out the noise and stay poised and calm. I think he did that for the most part in Provo. We didn't get it done, but I thought he was poised. So I'll just say the poise of the game. And, when you get up there and you're about to take a snap. Just focus on the things that matter, and that's doing your job and being loud. And I think we'll hopefully build on what he did at Provo.”
On UCF Head Coach Scott Frost’s second tenure as HC:
“I think people forget he took over a team that won zero games at UCF when he got there, and he built it into a team that went undefeated, one of the best teams in college football. And he came back, and his identity of speed and athleticism and attacking is starting to show back up for them. And so I would say there's some similarities in terms of that piece of it. In terms of the athleticism he's recruiting there, it is getting to the point like they had it. And I think there's a lot of guys on that team that are to that point in terms of they just got athletes all over the field, and then they attack with all phases of schematics.”
On roster building with effective freshman:
“You're just trying to get the best players to add to your roster every year, and hopefully freshmen are some of those guys, but there's a reason that teams like veterans because there's not as much risk, right? When older guys are playing, you've usually watched their tape before, you kind of know what you're going to get. I think there's a reason for that. I definitely think that we've shown the ability that freshmen can play here, that they can be productive here, and that we run schemes that allow them to be productive here at a fairly high rate. I definitely think it could potentially get us in the game with some freshmen that we feel like can make an early impact. I'm usually very transparent in the process. I usually will tell a kid like you can play for us earlier. Listen, it's going to be really, really hard for you to play early. This is going to be a process of development. You have to do A, B, and C. I just think there's depends on the kid.”
On the growth of the defensive line unit:
“They've really grown together. I think Coach Diron (Reynolds, DL coach) and Coach (Vince) Amey (Assistant DL coach) have done a great job. I think they played in the passion of the '96 Vince Amey right there, for the '96 team. Definitely a lot of hard work has gone into those guys, and a lot of hard work has gone into the last three weeks. Those guys kind of right the ship from earlier in the year.”
On playing for championships:
“I don't ever talk to our guys about championships. That's even the year we won the Big 12 championship. I don't know if I ever talked about the Big 12 championship. I always want our guys to be the best version of us, be the best football team we can be, so that doesn't really have an effect on me personally. I just want our team to be better than we were last week. I just want our guys to be the best version of our football team. That's it, and I try to obsess over that, and it's such a cliche answer. I get it, but it's actually what I believe.”
On controlling the line of scrimmage:
“It's definitely been better. We didn't control our offense last week at all. We got destroyed from that side of the ball. Our offense, up front, they whipped our butt. That was a very good front. They did a lot of good stuff schematically. They got after us on the front, TFLs, in the run game. They got after us pretty good defensively. We're playing really well in the run game, and we're fitting the run as a team. I think that's the biggest thing, how do you fix tackling? Our four minutes of tackling drills have not fixed our tackling a day. I wish I could say, ‘we started doing this special period too, and it's changed everything’. Has that probably had a little bit of a help? Yeah, but where everybody understands what we're trying to get accomplished, and they leverage the ball to their teammate. We call it keeping the cup. We're keeping the cup. We're keeping the ball on the proper shoulder, the proper leverage. When you do that, you usually don't allow big plays, and we haven't allowed big plays. So then, when we have negative plays and we have stops, and you combine it with not allowing big plays, you're going to be a really good rush defense. I think it's just the ability that our guys are playing hard and physical, but we're playing very, very sound in the run pitch right now.”