Arizona State Head Coach Kenny Dillingham
On playing Oklahoma State for the Cowboys homecoming game:
“I don't think you can compare our team last year to Oklahoma State's program in any way, shape or form. That's a team that's won seven games for almost 20 years in a row, and it's their homecoming. So they still have the ability to achieve that and keep that streak going. We're going to get their very best and Coach (Mike) Gundy has been doing this a long time at one of the highest levels amongst anybody in college football. The scary part is that they have it there. They have the ability and it's the second week in a row where we’re playing during a team's homecoming. Which means we're gonna get the best crowd that they have all year, and the most motivated those players will really be is when you play at homecoming.”
On facing Oklahoma State’s defense:
“They're completely different from last year. They brought in a new coordinator (Bryan Nardo) last year who’s still there…From a scheme perspective and how they're playing football, they’re probably most similar to Utah. That would probably be the most similar from a schematic standpoint right now, but they're changing quite a bit from earlier in the year to now. So you have to prepare not for what they're currently doing, but for what they have in their arsenal…So I would say that’s one of the challenges.”
On Oklahoma State making changes while dealing with injuries:
“Obviously Coach Gundy has won for a long time. So he probably saw that, ‘our personnel fits this, this is what we have to do.’ I would say there's probably something to that, but there's definitely a reason for the change. Coach Gundy and most good football coaches are all personnel driven. They know how to put their best players in the best position to be successful.”
On Oklahoma State’s offense:
“We have to limit explosive plays…They try to run the football, they try to have a controlled passing game with efficiency and they always have bigger backs. I think when you spread a team out and then have a bigger back, runs can go for four, five, 18 yards and you break a tackle. I think that's just the philosophy behind the style. So it makes it a challenge because you have to tackle this gigantic dude (Ollie Gordon) who's one of the best running backs in college football.”
On quarterback Sam Leavitt possibly returning to action:
“Sam should be back but I'd say it’s still 60/40 or 70/30 that he'll play this week. We have to see him practice and stuff like that. But he's cleared to play, he wants to play and he's excited about playing. He's been putting in a lot of work to play. So we'll see how that transpires.”
On Oklahoma State quarterback Alan Bowman:
“I think he threw for over 300 yards with a high completion percentage last week. You can't count the last interception. So really no interceptions last week since the last one was a desperation throw and those don't count. They just look bad in the stat book. So he's a veteran that completes a high percentage of his balls over time…I'm sure he would obviously like to have more wins in the win column. That's every team in the country. We would like to have more wins in the win column. But this is a veteran that won the job last year and he's won the job at a prior school. He's thrown for 500 yards in a game before. This is somebody who definitely is capable of putting up big numbers.”
On preparing for the five-game stretch to end the season during the bye week:
“It’s been the same process as the first bye. Get the guys healthy, get one really good practice in with the vets that we had on Thursday and then get back to work. It's a normal Monday, normal Tuesday, normal Wednesday, normal Thursday, normal Friday and repeat. Obviously us as a staff, we're gonna pull back a little bit like we did with Utah week, the shortened week and like we did last week. Pull back a little bit just to make sure we keep guys healthy. Because in my opinion, at this time of the year, there are some programs that can keep the foot on the gas and go, and if they get some guys dinged up they can survive. Then for other programs it's a battle of health and who is the healthiest and the freshest in the later weeks. What guys take the field and play hard and physical for five more weeks, and we've got to make sure our guys are in the best position to do that.”
On altering practices as the season progresses:
“The Wednesday practice will definitely be shorter and not as physical as they have been. We've had a pretty physical spring, a pretty physical fall camp and a pretty physical first four to five weeks of the season. I think it's time to take it off of the guys a little bit and make sure we can stay as fresh and healthy the rest of the way. When we say we're gonna go, we better go. There better be contact, it better be physical. We can't turn that down from that physicality standpoint. When we say go, we just have to take a little of it off of you, but you can't manage yourself. Let us manage that.”
On adjustments for the quarterbacks:
"There's a few things that we added with Jeff (Sims). There's really nothing that we took out for him. To answer your question. Not much. We’ve been rolling with Sam (Leavitt) for a while. So it's really just back out of the status quo, if he's the guy this week, which I hope and I anticipate that he is."
On how self-scouting over the bye week:
"Our guys are still playing hard. I know that's a small one. There's a few coverages that we're not great at, there's a few coverages that we're really good at. I don't wanna get too much. I wanna, you know, I want them to figure that out which they will. There's a few things that we've got to lean on more and a few that we have to take out. And then from a running the ball perspective, I would say the same thing. There's a few rushing schemes that have had high productivity rate for us that haven't been called a lot and then a few that have been called a lot that haven't had as high productivity rate. We got really lean on what we're good at. At this point you're battling in weeks this late in the season. Scheme is important, but your guys should have seen most of scheme so you may be a little bit of a repeat mode. Now it's about execution, and then how do you make something look different and get to the same thing that you've already done or that you've repped 40-50 times."
On in-game decisions:
"When you coach offense, you're constantly worried about the clock. For my entire career, two minute, four minute, when you get in the game, how many seconds it takes to end the game, when you should go for two, and all those. The analytical piece of the game, when you go for four pounds, it's kind of built into offensive coaching naturally because you have to know all that. You have to know if you get to 4th and 4 on the minus 45 that this week, it's gonna tell you to go for it, which is not really like, right? And if it's 4th-and-2 on the minus 30 this week may be a “go for it” according to the book. We don't use the book, but I would say, generally, the book doesn't change more than 1 to 2 yards until you get to about the 40 yard line. Most of the time it's very consistent, give or take, how aggressive sometimes 4th and 3 can be a “go” on the minus 35, some weeks minus 38. We don't do it that specifically. I just know the general area. Then we play from there. In terms of the game clock and our game management, I love rules. I'm a little bit of a nerd, so I study the rules. I study how rules affect (the game). Like if you go out of bounds with 2:05 left. Well, you shouldn't use a time out because if you use a time out well, they have, or 2:45 left, they have to set the ball. So you're really only gaining 38 seconds instead of 40 seconds on your time out usage. It's better to use that time out if somebody's tackled inbounds, even though they throw the ball back inbounds in college football. After a first down with 3:30 left. Obviously, the clock stops. So you should never use a time out after a first down when you're in a four minute scenario. There's so many little nuances of college football that are different than the NFL because the stoppage rolls with first downs and out of bounds that it's actually a little bit more difficult to work the clock in four minute and two minute drills. You just have to know the rules and you have to know the referee mechanics of how the ball is gonna get spotted. When the clock is gonna roll based off that and that's just stuff that I've studied over time, you know, and learn from different people. Every week I learn something else from a different coach. When we watch all these weird scenarios Coach Butterfield puts together, I want to see if somebody's doing something that we should do."
On finding the team’s identity:
"You have to manage your team. You have to get to know the team. For us right now, we're having big waves of negativity on the road. It's “oh, we're playing good football.” “Oh, crap. We just lost 17 straight points, or 24 straight points. What just happened?” “Oh, we played good football again.” It was like 12 minutes or 15 minutes from hell. Gets us down all these points and then we play another three quarters of good football on the road. So how can we manage the emotions of the game? You got to get to know your team. Maybe the statistics and common sense from a statistical standpoint may say, this is 4th-and-1 on their 48. Yeah, you go for it every time like this is even a question. Or 4th-and-2 on the minus 45. Yeah, this is an absolute go for everything that's even close to analytics It's a go. But our team is struggling handling emotional swings on the road. So for our team, maybe that's punt on the road. Who knows? Those are the things that when you get to know your team and get to know if we could just manage this downward spiral on the road and limit it and get out of it, we play really good football. How do I limit that and not get caught up in the analytics or what over time should be successful? What is successful for our team even from a mental standpoint?"
On what’s changed in the coaching staff this year
“I'd say that the buy-in of the team has changed. When you watch our team play, I thought we played hard last year. But I think we play with confidence this year, in terms of the buy-in and the confidence of how we play. Even when we're down, I don't really think people think we're gonna lose. That’s a very difficult thing to build. When we're down 17 on the road and we don't score on our first drive of the second half, there's no flinching from our guys. We go get a stop, go down and score again. 10 points. Goal to go on the goal line, oh this is getting bad again. Stop, get the ball back, drive back down the field. So our guys have that confidence about them, and I think that the number one thing in coaching is inspiring guys to believe that what you're doing is working. Believe in the vision you're selling. And I think right now, we have a staff that has made those guys believe in what we're doing. The staff and leadership councils, they believe in the direction we're going. They believe in the style of play. And I think for us that's the biggest thing for me when it comes to the coaching staff. The schemes are great and we better have solid schemes. But the real challenge is how do you get your players to believe in the vision and play really, really hard.”
On Oklahoma State Head Coach Mike Gundy:
He's gone roughly 20 years without winning less than seven or more games. That's absurd. I mean, that's absolutely crazy when you really just think about it. It’s an absurd amount of time and the consistency that he's brought to that program is very similar to Coach (Kyle) Whittingham. The toughness that they consistently play with is impressive. You know what both of those teams are gonna be. They may change schemes and they may change coordinators. But you know that when you play Oklahoma State, they're gonna have a really good wideout that you have to cover and they're gonna be able to throw the ball productively. They're gonna have a big running back, and you just know the style of play you're gonna get. And I think anytime you can create that consistency in your program, that's how you win for a long time. So kudos to him, because he's done a phenomenal job for a long, long time.”
On what he wants people to think about when they think of Arizona State football"
“Smart, tough, the ball, and the team is our mantra of how we play football. I think it's really hard for a guy. I would not really want a group of people to describe us as smart. ‘Oh that team, they don't get penalties.’ I hope we don't get penalties, but I really don't want that to be the description. I want them to describe us as tough. With these dudes, it doesn't matter if they're up or they're down. They're gonna hit you in the mouth, they're gonna take care of the football and they're gonna have explosive plays because they play super hard. Explosive plays are made through people playing with an exceptional effort. Explosive plays are prevented by people playing with an exceptional effort to clean up. Somebody gets beat one-on-one, three guys are sprinting their butt down the field to cut them off and tackle them at the 12 instead of scoring a touchdown. So I would want somebody to say these guys play tough. They fly around, they play really hard, they chase the ball, they block downfield. And those two things create explosiveness. If we could be very tough, play really hard and be explosive, I think you can win a lot of football games with those three things. And a lot of people would want to play in them.”
On wide receiver Jordyn Tyson:
"Hip mobility. When he got here, he was a little stiff, he knows it. I told him and he worked his butt off to create more hip flexibility. I think you can see it throughout the games. He's way more flexible and limber on the field than he was last year. What excites me is the times that we've given him the ball, he had explosive plays. When you self scout at this time of year, you're looking at your schemes, but you're also looking at what guys need to touch the ball more? He's a guy who needs to touch it more. He's a guy we got to put on the field more. He's a guy who needs to touch it more. Because one, he's a great kid and he deserves it. But two, his production deserves it. He's one of my favorite players on the team. I know I say that about a lot of kids, which is true. There's a lot of my favorite players in the team. But he's a guy who's very similar to Keith (Abney), they’re best friends, he's in the Barrett honor school. He just does everything right. I think he ran a 10.6 in high school. Naturally he was a straight line runner, but he's got more flexibility now. He just makes plays. He does things right. He plays in all our special teams. That's the guy you want in your program. That's the guy you want to succeed in your program. That's the guy you want people to root for. That's a guy that I could sleep really great at night, If Kent was being babysat by him. I could sleep phenomenally at night."