Arizona State Head Coach Kenny Dillingham
On whether they will take a different approach heading into the Big 12 Championship Game:
“Yeah, no. No different approach. It's Monday.”
On wide receiver Jordyn Tyson’s status:
“Jordyn's going to be out indefinitely. So, unfortunately, I don't want to give a complete timetable, but he's going to be out indefinitely … I really don't want to comment. I don't know the depth of [his injury]. I just know he's out indefinitely.”
On what will change with wide receiver Jordyn Tyson out:
“It’s time to move some people around, time to get more people on the field, create a little more balance offensively and like always, we’ve got to be able to run the ball and have good play action.”
On praise from other programs and his roll outside of coaching ASU football:
“I just try to be me and that's really it. I don't like to look at that side of it. Just go and be a good person, make good decisions and have more fun working harder than anybody in the country. That's how I look at it every single day. And is that going to happen every day? No. Am I going to yell at people sometimes? Yeah. I'm sorry, it's going to happen. But, I just try to be the same person every day and hopefully it impacts the people around me. So it's cool to hear that, but I don't really know what the impact is. I do know football. I know sports are a great connector. It's one of the best connectors and we're trying to create infinity within our university. We're trying to get more people back involved. One of the largest universities, we're trying to get more of the alumni back involved, back at games. I think we have over 20,000 alumni in Texas and we’re trying to get them out to the game. And football is a great connector and when you can connect people through sport it’s special because of the emotions that sports create. So I do think what we can provide in football is the connecting of people in ways that academics cannot.”
On the difficulty in replacing wide receiver Jordyn Tyson:
Well, he's a really good player and he's very physical. I mean, he blocks people well. I saw a few people highlight his blocks on social media, which were awesome because I think that's what really has been separating our team is how hard we play all 11 … it's everybody's doing the things that are extraordinary. And what definitely makes it more difficult is, he demands two people to cover them. So if people don't have to demand two people, then they can load the box. So you’ve got to find more creative ways to win those one on one matchups.”
On takeaways from running back Kyson Brown’s performance against Arizona:
I don't know anything specifically that I saw that was different. I thought we had a good plan for running the ball and I thought our O-line moved people, our wideouts blocked on the edge and then he made people miss. It sounds really simple, but that's the game of football and I don't know if there's something different. I just think he's going to get slowly better and more comfortable seeing things every carry he gets. I think he went for over 100 yards and over 12.5 yards per carry, so that's incredible.”
On recruiting more out of Texas and the impact of playing in Dallas for the Big 12 Championship:
“That's why, two years ago when I got the job here, we made an emphasis on recruiting in the state of Texas because we knew the direction of college football was us towards the Big 12. And going to the Big 12 means we play games in Texas and we play games in Oklahoma, which means it's easier to recruit the state. So, I do think playing a game there, being televised there, being one of the things on the billboards there is huge for the brand of Arizona State football. But, what I hope is big time alumni from that region show up to the game and maybe somebody who hasn't been to a game in ten years shows up to the game and we get them back engaged. Going back to what we said earlier, football and sports are a great connector and I think this is an opportunity to connect people back to the program that have maybe been disconnected for years.”
On when they learned they were in the Big 12 Championship game:
“I was watching the games on the way home on the bus and right when the game was put away and TCU won, I made an announcement to the guys that we’re in the Big 12 Title Game. They were pretty fired up and it didn't matter the opponent we were going to play. The whole goal was to get there and that's all we can control and then we woke up in the morning and found out who we got to play.”
On Head Coach Matt Campbell’s success at Iowa State:
“(It’s) his culture and his realness. I think he's one of the most real people in the sport. You see the passion and emotion on the sideline - like you see it, it's not fake, it's real. When I was at Auburn, I had the ability to go study at one program in the country. I had two days at that time. Coach Malzahn would let you go and study with the team and I alluded to this for Cincinnati because the defensive coordinator in Cincinnati was the linebackers coach at Iowa State and I chose to go visit Iowa State. That was the program that I wanted to study from because I thought that they were overachieving at that time early in his career at a high level before he had built it up. Now, he's built it up. Now they're achieving at a high level consistently and I wanted to go just study and what I took away was like, the realness of the culture. I was like, ‘man, he's over here jumping around with a dude and then he gets in the front of the room and demands respect.’ And I'm like, ‘man, this culture that he created, I feel like is sustainable. I feel like this is a winning formula.’ So all the Xs and the Os I learned and I studied that stuff, but I was really trying to get a vibe and a feel for how did he create that culture? And he was one of the youngest head coaches at the time. He was one of the youngest head coaches in the country at Toledo before he got to Iowa State. I think his genuineness is infectious and I think that's why he's had that success. I think he's just a real person. I think he's a good person, that's real. And I think the guys see his passion and saw his vision because he lives it.”
On limiting turnovers:
“Obviously, possession of the ball like you can't score without the ball. So the longer we have it, I know some people don't agree with that, but I still believe there's some power in the ball. And possessing the ball and keeping the defense on the field and keeping your defense off the field. Staying fresh. So it's been huge for us. Turnover margins, It's one of the strengths of the team we're about to play Iowa State as well. So, we have to hopefully be better than them at taking care of the football and they're going to hopefully be better than us.”
On possibly being Big 12 representative in new College Football Playoff:
“I’ve never talked about it…Let's go. You play another game. I mean, that's what I said. Now, you can play for a championship but like the best team.. just because you win a conference doesn't make you the best team in the conference. You won the most games in the conference. That's why there's so much volatility. At the end of the day, I guess winning is the determining factor for best teams. But I think what our goal is is to be the very best version of ourselves and repeat. I'm going to say that from now until forever and then people are going to get really bored of asking those questions because I want to say the same thing for a long time. It's like just be the very best version of us. After the game, I say, ‘Congratulations. We won. This is awesome. Celebrate. Who are we going to play next?’ I don't even know if we're in the title game. I don't care. We're going to play another game. Let's be the best version of us when we're playing.”
On the significance of winning a Big 12 Championship:
“I think it's a reward for success. For finding ways to win. Finding ways. Best teams don't always win. The most talented teams don't always win. But the way we define sport is through winning and if you can find ways to win, that's the reward is winning. Finding different ways to win. I think that's the fun part is we've gotten here. We're in a position to compete and win a championship. Not many people can say that at this time of year. Only two teams in our league can say that they put themselves in a position to win a championship and that's the significance. It's about all the challenge is to get to this point that you're one game away from accomplishing something that people said couldn't be done. That's significant. And I think that's the significance, is finding ways to win. I've never looked at it like, ‘oh, you're the best team, you're the worst team.’ Nobody really cares. Who's the team that won? Repeat, repeat, repeat, find ways, different ways to continue to win.”
On connections to other programs in the Big 12:
“I don't have connections to Utah. I don't have connections to BYU. I don't have connections to Kansas State. I don't have connections to most people. To be honest, I just respect them from afar. I don't dislike many people and that's just not my personality. I try to take something from everybody. Everybody's gotten to the position that they are because they're really good at something. And what can you learn from everybody that you go vs and what can you take from everybody that you go vs and try to take a little bit of that into your own program.”
On the biggest challenge in facing Iowa State:
“Physicality. Put a fullback in, put a tight end into the boundary and we're going to run toss g lead on 1st and 10. Let's go. Stop it. And if you load the box, we have two big wideouts. We have a big, 2000 yard wide out we're going to throw it to. So play one high, we throw it to these guys. Play two high, we’re going to run g lead right at you and do it again and do it again and do it again and then find a different way to do the same thought process. There's a clear identity and the best teams in the country have a clear identity. When you watch this team play, the toughness, the physicality across the board is the clear identity that they have in the program.”
On changing walkthroughs and kickoff with the early game time:
"We will add a little bit. Good question. We usually do walk-through Saturday morning. With the early kickoff and the time change, our guys are already going to have to wake up at roughly 5:45 a.m. our time to adjust to this time change. That's part of it. So we're probably going to have to move our walk through, shorten it and move it to Friday night. We don't normally do anything when we get to the hotel on Friday night, but we will this week because of the schedule."
On having players see success after a rough season:
"It’s super cool to see that. To see X (Xavier Guillory) come on these last two weeks and make critical plays, super rewarding for him. We need more of those plays this week. To see Cam's name on the list of the top 10 for the Heisman is awesome. I think he's number two or something in the entire country in yards from scrimmage right now. That's remarkable. When you talk about the Heisman trophy, you talk about impact. I think it's the most impactful player or the best player. I don't know exactly what the clear definition is, it goes back and forth a little bit. I don't know of a player who makes a bigger impact on a program. He took a team that won three games and now they've won 10 that takes on his exact identity of him as a person which is: passionate, intense, physical, tough. The team's taken on that identity as a program, which has completely changed the structure of the program. He's put up unreal real stats. I think it's going to be one of 100 people in the history of college football to put up 2000 yards from scrimmage or something. What he's accomplished is something special and I think he should be talked about for that. Whether he should win it or not. There's two guys that are unbelievable right now. But whether he should be in the conversation, I don't think that's a question."
On maintaining the culture into the future:
"Hopefully, the retention of players. Your culture is your players. I am not the culture, the players are the culture. The retention of players is what keeps the culture alive. So the retention of players, guys coming back, and then the recruitment of guys that want to fit this culture. Not the recruitment of the best players, the recruitment of the best players for us, which are two different things."
On moments from his coaching career:
"This is pretty cool. As a team, this is probably the coolest thing. I've been a part of watching Jordan Travis, in my second year, go from a guy that wanted to move positions out of the quarterback room, to being a guy that people didn't believe in, to then being the savior. That was probably the most individually, cool thing I've ever seen in my career, was this kid completely transform his life. Now, he’s a guy who plays on Sundays when he didn't even think he was a quarterback at one time. That was the most individually gratifying thing I've ever seen. Second would have been the Bo (Nix) scenario, which was a very similar situation, to see a kid go from where he went from being in the Heisman race. This is the coolest thing I've ever been a part of, from a team. This is a special team. This is a very unique and special football team."
On what makes this team special:
“I just think the guys and the work they put in and the relationships they have with one another is unique in an era where there are different motives than there used to be. I think our guys' motive is winning and the competitive nature of, ‘I just want to win.’ That sounds so fundamental, but there are so many other distractions now. It's not the guy's fault and there's nothing wrong with those distractions. They just want to win. What I'm excited for is because they have that mindset, I think they're all going to be individually rewarded. I think that is what college sports is about. You can come together for a greater cause and then seek individual reward at the same time. I think that's the message that college sports can send out. Where other people say all these kids are transferring and all this, I want to create that message of you can do this together and receive individual rewards. That's what it's meant to be and I think our team has that mindset. I'm hoping to then get these guys those individual awards, accolades and all the things they want individually because of that mindset that they put together this year.”
On the importance of running backs for the offense:
“I think any time that your running back can be a weapon out of the backfield, it just creates another element. I think from now until forever we want to have a back who can become a pass catcher, catch the ball out of the backfield and be a weapon. You want to give the dude the football and you want an elite back. I think one thing that we'll always have here is a back that can play on Sundays and I've been blessed to coach a lot of those guys. Coach Aguano has coached a lot and I can say this with confidence. There are not many places better in the country right now to be a skill player. If you're a wide out or a tight end, you have a quarterback who's going to play on Sundays throwing you the ball for two years. If you're a running back, you have four offensive linemen that can return behind a guy who just was up for the Heisman. I don't know of many better situations somebody can walk into as a skill position player than that situation.”
On Hines Ward’s impact on wide receiver blocking:
“When you have a guy who lived it, did it and smiled when he did it…and he tells you if you want the ball you better block, you're going to block. If he told me to block, I'd probably go block somebody. That's just the respect you have to have for what he's accomplished and then how he operates as a football coach. So it's the mindset that he's instilled in that group is uniquely special.”
On the change in schedule with signing day:
“There’s a lot going on and it just adds more stuff. Everybody has to recruit. Recruiting is the lifeblood of the program, but at the end of the day, it's about your own players. The priority is always the guys who chose to come here. Is there signing day Wednesday? Yes. Do we have to recruit? Yes. Is the portal opening? Yes. Is that the backbone of the program and we have to do that? Of course. But should that take one minute of time away from how you should prepare to pour everything into these players and this game? Absolutely not, because it's our duty to be the best we can be for the guys who choose to be here. If you choose to be here, we're going to pour everything we have into you. We're not going to go and say, ‘this recruit is here and I know you wanted to meet, but I'm going to go meet with this recruit because I'm worried about next year.’ We're going to pour everything we have into you if you choose to come here. If you don't choose to come here, then you don't. But we're going to pour everything we have into our players, repeat, repeat, repeat. Then whenever kids come here, we pour everything we have into them. That's going to be our mindset. It's always about the kid on our roster. I really believe if you treat your own people well, they'll recruit for you.”
On tight end Chamon Metayer’s impact:
“He's very versatile. He's a big dude, but he's very physical. He's one of the best, if not the best blocking tight end. Him and Terrance Ferguson up in Oregon are two of the best blocking tight ends I've ever been around. So his physicality and toughness is unbelievable, and then his ability to stretch the field, catch touchdowns and catch screens…He's vital to the team and he's great for the culture too. He loves football, absolutely loves it. He's physical at that tight end position which is becoming a rare breed.”