Arizona State Head Coach Kenny Dillingham Previewing Kansas:
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
On how the flight was and how the players have adjusted since arriving in London:
“ It was good… Adjusting, playing a road game on Saturday and then getting out of there Saturday night. We're still in the adjusting phase, but I think we're getting there.”

On how today's practice went: 
“Solid day, I thought the set up was really good to practice in and the fields are in good shape. The situation here was a pretty good setup. Obviously not as clean as being at home or the whole process isn't as clean as being at home, but it is still kudos to everybody being involved and getting us set up here.”

On how things have been operationally: 
“Bryan McGinnis and Lexie (Godfrey) have done a great job getting this place set up for us and having a plan. It's definitely different, It's definitely unique. Obviously we played on Saturday and our opponent didn't. They played on a Friday at home. We played on a Saturday away. So from a whole logistical standpoint, they're two completely different games. For us getting out here early, the logistics have been as good as they could be. It's college athletics and you don't expect the scheduling to be different when you schedule a game like this but at the end of the day it is what it is. Nobody's going to feel any better or worse for us. There are no excuses. You either get it done or you don't. That's the situation we're in, you either do or you do not.”

On how exciting it is to coach at such a big event at Wembley stadium:
“I am excited to get back on the football field and try to play a cleaner game than we did last week. That's my number one excitement level, trying to play the best football game we can play this week.”

On if the guys had the opportunity to do anything fun in London or any exploring:
“That was the first time I've been outside in 48 hours, so not me. I know some of the guys went over to a restaurant. We are letting our guys go and if they want to go into London or this other town that's about 20 minutes from here. Some of our guys went in a couple nights ago or last night, but for us it's just kind of a status quo when it comes to the work from a staff perspective. I haven't left, like I said this was my first time outside since we got here.”

On what impact have you seen from (DE) Lyrik Rawls:
“Lyrik’s done a great job for us in the first two weeks. It's a great question, especially this week. He has a lot of respect for that program, a lot of respect for that place and he's told me that even through the whole process. Lyrik's been a great player for us. Obviously gained on the leadership council and I've got nothing to but positive things to say about that.”

On if its helpful going through an experience like Camp T every year with the weird travel and setup:
“Thats a reach. You can say it does but what simulates week three playing a road game and then packing a bag before you play a road game and then flying out after the road game across the country and trying to get on a time change. Nothing simulates it. People are going to say that it's not a complaint. It's just a fact. You just embrace facts. It is different and were managing it. I thought our guys had a good day of practice today. That's why we got out here when we did. If we would have had an extra day, we probably would have gone back home and had a normal structured day. If we would have played on a Friday, then we wouldn't have flown out here until after Wednesday's practice. Us playing that game Saturday, it was either fly out immediately or lose practice by flying in the middle of the week. We couldn't, I don't think you can afford to lose a practice when you're playing a good opponent, so we kind of just had to change our schedule, the best we could do. I think we have, I think the players have done a good job with it and I'm excited to be here.”

On any funny travel stories or things that have happened in the last three games:
“I didn't sleep the first 36 hours I was here. That was fun. Like I've said, early in weeks I get locked in a cave so that's probably a better question for somebody else to be honest. Not a good question for me. I've been locked in a cave.” 

On surprises with the trip, anyone not make the trip because of passport issues:
“No, we did not. Our ops team, Lexi and Brian did an awesome job. They contacted a lot of organizations. American Airlines did an awesome job in terms of how we managed passports and how we managed all that. I thought it all went really really smooth. They had a really good plan for our entire team.”

On what sticks out about Kansas on tape through their first few games:
“They can be explosive. They hit explosive runs. They're very sound on offense, they do a lot of things to put you in conflict and they throw a really good play action pass. If you can run the quarterback, run the ball efficiently, you can be good in the play action passing game and be creative, you're putting a lot of stress on the defense with their run game and their play action pass. It's never going to look the same, you can't just practice what they do because he's going to change it every week with different pictures and formations. Special teams wise, they play extremely hard and they do some interesting creative things on PBR with walking guys around and stuff like that which is unique. You saw that on defense for a little while where guys would just kind of walk around and then get into where they're going to rush from. I think they do some unique things on special teams but they play aggressive. Defensively they do a lot, but their sound with it. Their philosophy is to try and put stress on the opponent schematically. They do that in all three phases. They put schematic stress on everybody involved in the game plan so you've got to be extremely dialed in. I told our guys, when you face a team like this that's well coached, that puts schematic stress on all three phases, you have to be dialed in mentally. This week you have to be as focused but more dialed in to your keys and your clues because they're going to test how sound you are consistently. We have to be dialed in this week.”

On Kansas being a team that does some exotic things:
“Yes, I would say exotic but they're very fundamentally sound through their exotics. They are well coached and like I said, they've got some players. That quarterback can absolutely be dynamic. They've got guys all over the field. They're a good football team.”

On how this game grows college football:
“I think big. I'm gonna be honest. I don't know the bigger effect this has. I haven't really thought about all of that. I've just thought about how to play our best game mainly, but I definitely think about getting out and playing here. I think this is an opportunity for Arizona State University to grow, opening a university in London. I think for London to be exposed to Arizona State University and brand ourselves over here and hopefully have a sold out crowd of ASU fans would be awesome. If you're rooting for Kansas, you cheer as loud as possible when Kansas is on offense. If you're rooting for Arizona State, you cheer as loud as possible when Kansas is on offense. So that's the cheering rules that I hope get applied.”

On Junior Offensive Lineman Wade Helton’s Injury and how he expects Rob Lapuaho to step up:
“He's got to step up. He has to play in a mature fashion, which he did in the Duke game. I think he's just got to step up and be ready for his number to be called, and it's being called

On any potential new discoveries while watching film:
“No. With the IPads now, there's really not much that's new. When you watch the film, you regret it. You may have missed something. You saw it on the field as you should have and if you couldn't, you saw it on the iPad. You would say ‘okay, what's our plan for this 35 twist game?’ You don't see as much pop up as you used to. You get to see it during the game now. So watching film and grading it is definitely different now that you have the iPads than it was.”

On finding ways to win on the margins helps:
“I think it helps everybody. There used to be an advantage to being able to see something in real time though. It’s harder to adjust in the past. It’s harder to adjust in the era of there weren’t iPads, there wasn’t quarterback communication, all that stuff. It made it to where you had to see it, communicate it, and adjust. Because every coach in college football knows what they want to run. So now you watch the tape in the middle of the game, and you see the looks you want to run burst, you just make the adjustments and go. Everybody does that now. I think in the past, adjustments used to not happen as fast because people used to be like, “Hey let’s get into the locker room and let’s talk through this.” Other teams would adjust immediately. Other teams would have to adjust at halftime. I think now in college football, you see teams adjust constantly in real time. Teams are constantly having a chess match because of the iPads and the quarterback communications. It’s just a little bit different in terms of operation. 

On if he spoke to other coaches or mentors about navigating this game after Texas A&M:
“I;ve reached out to a bunch of people, not just one, but a bunch to give advice. I was given the get out there late, get out there early. Most of the teams that we spoke to that were on our side were saying get out there fast, especially if you have an away game before. There’s no point to fly home and then flying back out two days later. You still have to have an off day, you still have to do some things. So you might as well get there faster. So, that was the kind of advice I got. Get out there fast because we have an away game before and the away game was a two-hour flight closer and a two-hour time change closer. So flying back home would have lost us four hours. So that was our strategy there.”
  
On if there should be rules on even rest for international games:
“That’s kind of the unwritten rule to be honest. It’s one of those things that is just kind of understood. I don’t think there needs to be a rule. Like I said, it is what it is. We’re going to play our best football game. There’s no excuses. But I definitely think that’s kind of common sense . When you play unique games on the most similar schedules from that perspective.”

On if this game is similar to other neutral or bowl games in terms of preparation:
“It’s a little bit different because when you’re at a bowl game, bowl games have changed a lot in the last five years.  So I don't even think you could go back to older bowl games. But I guess you could say there’s some similarities to bowl games from that perspective in terms of the guys are all trapped in the same place. Like I told them today, they’re not hostages here. If you want to go do something, do something. Just make sure we get what we need to get accomplished. Make sure you get your schoolwork done.  Make sure you study how you’re supposed to study. Get your treatment how you’re supposed to get it. So I told our guys whatever, if you normally go to the mall on a Tuesday, and you want to go to a city and go out and walk around, I don’t care. Just be smart, be with your teammates, make good decisions. 

On whether or not he has anything fun planned for the week:
“I’m playing a football game. The other people that have time, and can go do things and go in and experience it, awesome. That’s why we came out here. There’s no advantage from a football perspective, for week three of a season to fly across the country to play a football game. There’s zero positive from a football perspective. The only positive is that our kids get an experience that I wasn’t going to rob them from. Does it hurt? Yes, that’s not a positive for my ‘personal career’. Like no way would I want our team to fly across the country week three to play this game. This is an experience. And I wasn’t going to rob them from an experience to fly them across the country, go see London, go be able to experience things, and play in a stadium. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’m not going to rob them of that, but my job is to get the best job in plan. And I’ve got to do the same process throughout the week. So no, I’ll be rocking and rolling. I think on Thursday, we have an event, so instead of date night with my wife we’ll go to the Thursday event that we have down there in London. But I don’t plan on doing anything, other than being in this hotel.”

On what he’s expecting at Wembley Stadium:
“I’m expecting a fun crowd. An unbelievable stadium. An unbelievably fun crowd that’s excited to watch college football. A place that’s loud, I anticipated it being loud. When I went to a World Cup game, and that environment was unbelievable. Not saying it’s going to be a  World Cup environment, that’s as good of an environment you can get. But I expect the fans to be fired up, excited to cheer. Like I told our specialist, this is the loudest you’re ever going to get cheered for when you get an extra point. So you better dial it up, and we better have the best field goal block unit. Kansas just blocked two field goals last week. So we better not make it back-to-back weeks. That was a huge key in the game for Kansas last week, field goal block unit and kick that thing through the uprights.”

On Kansas’ new quarterback:
“He’s a good player, athletic. He throws the ball. There’s times he throws absolutely unbelievable throws. Did y’all see the play that he jumped, 360-ed and threw the ball for a completion? That was incredible. I don’t really go on social media this time of year but that has to be in ESPN’s top 10. I would think that’s number one. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a guy do that. Near the sideline, do a full 360 and throw it and catch it. That was an incredible play. That was one of the best plays I’ve seen all year. So he can do some really dynamic things. And he can make you pay if you're not sound. So we have to make sure we’re sound. We have to make sure we capture him. We can’t let him get loose.”

On preparing for Kansas’ offense compared to Texas A&M:
“The offenses are so different, so it’s so hard. You have to be able to contain the quarterback as part of your defensive plan to stop the football team. So the two offenses are very different in how they operate, how they utilize theory quarterbacks and how they run their systems. So you have to be able to create a completely different plan based on stopping their football team. And within that plan, how do you contain their quarterback? So obviously there’s a little bit of help from playing a guy who’s athletic. But we’ll face a lot of athletic guys this year. That’s kind of what college football has gone to, a lot of athletic guys back there. It’s what the NFL has gone to, like athletic people that can make plays and extend plats. Cutter [Boley] extended a lot of plays last week, so I think that’s the nature of the quarterback now. There’s a lot of guys who can extend plays. So I think we’ll always have to have a contain the quarterback play.”

On Reed Harris as a starter:
“He’s been really good. He’s a really good player. We thought he was a really good player. He’s been a really good player.  What people don;t see is his consistency. And I think that's the thing.  My take away from Reed is that he shows up every day with a smile on his face. He does everything we ask him. He goes full speed. He has one of the higher workloads in every single practice we’ve had. We have to tell him, 'Hey, hey, hey,' a lot. And I think that shows up on game day with not just how he catches the football, but I think that shows up with his effort, with how he blocks. And I think it’s an all-inclusive reflection of him, his mindset and how he prepares every single week. I think that’s starting to show up on tape. And I think it showed up on tape the first two weeks. It’s not just the talent that everybody sees. It’s his mindset, and it’s how he approaches every single day. That’s why he’s having that success.”

On (QB) Cutter Boley’s start to the season:
“He’s played well. He definitely got voted on the leadership council for us, and he’s had a really good first two games. I think he’s communicated well. I think he’s been what we thought he was going to be, super instinctive. I think him and (LB) Martell [Hughes] had a really strong start this season, physicality wise. I think both those guys play bigger than their weight. They’re both really good athletes, but I think they’re playing physical. And because they're so athletic, I think they're playing heavier because they're a step faster. And they’re really explosive right now. So we have to keep them playing like that.”