Arizona State Head Coach Kenny Dillingham Postgame vs. Kansas State
Saturday, October 24, 2026
Opening Statement:
“It was good. I thought we played way better. I thought we were sounding our fits defensively. We made tackles. Offensively, we had some explosive plays early. We wanted to do a little rut there in the middle, but at the beginning and the end of the game, we played pretty good football. So I thought our guys brought better energy. I thought that was clear to see, and I thought some leadership and some ownership of the team internally from the players was better. I thought you could see them step up. I don't know if there's any specific guys, but just the whole vibe felt different from our guys, from the start to the finish.”
On looking to freshman (QB) Jake Fette to step up:
“We just wanted some energy. We felt like there was a lull and you could see it with the guys on the sideline. We can't get into those lulls. We can be suffocated by them at times. So I thought Jake's got that look in his eye. Jake's got the swagger, the confidence when he moves around. And so I think we just wanted the spark there with Jake. And we already know how good of a player Jake is. You just want to do everything you can to protect a really good freshman at the quarterback position. You never want to put them in a position that can ruin them, which sometimes you can do to a quarterback. So trying to do whatever we can to protect them. But at the end of the game, we felt like it gave us the best chance to win because of his confidence, we know what he can do with his legs, and nobody really even saw that. And he made a great third down conversion, a great back shoulder throw. So he made some big time throws as well.”
On the other freshmen continuing to make an impact:
“(Cardae Mack), I mean, stud. Shows up every day to work. Great energy, keeps showing up. Julian Hugo as well. We're playing some freshmen here that are playing good football. (Daquwan) Dunn is in the game a lot, playing really good football. So I think we've a good amount of guys in there that are young bucks that are making an impact early. And I said this the other day, in media a week or two ago, I think that trend's going to continue the longer we're here and there's support and people are excited and we can recruit at a high level because there's an awesome fan base who's cheering for our guys and celebrating for our guys that recruits look at and say, ‘I want to be a part of that that culture.’ The longer we have that, the better players we're going to get like those guys and the better freshmen we're going to get, and we're going to get kids who choose to be Sun Devils for the right reasons through the highs and the lows, and they're going to be Sun Devils.”
On the decision to go with (ASU QB) Cutter Boley first after (ASU QB) Mikey Keene’s injury:
“Up to that point of the year from a football perspective, Cutter hasn't really done anything, other than the last game. There were some rough patches, right? But I thought he'd been operating at a decent level the first few games, so we just felt like the comfort of him going in there, and at the same time, you always want to be very careful when you just throw a freshman quarterback in the football game. You always got to look out for the kid and the kid's development. So I think it was a combination of a few things that led to it. But at the end of the day, we felt Jake was the guy, put him in there, and I think he created a spark.”
On if (QB) Jake Fette will be starting next week at BYU:
“Yes, he will be the guy next week. We'll see what happens with Mikey, and we haven't got all that set back. So maybe I spoke too soon, but I would anticipate that.”
On looking at the Big 12 standings after some big upsets across the board:
“I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about our football team getting better because we played better tonight. We played with better energy, but we can still keep getting better. And I thought we did get better. And I think that's the goal of football, right? It is to just get better, and you can't get worried about what other people say. You just got to go to work, and like Steve Nash said, “Whether you shoot 20% that night or 80%, you show up in the morning and you do your same process.” That's it. And repeat.”
On what he has seen from (ASU WR) Reed Harris:
“Reed is a superstar. Shows up every day with a smile on his face, with a great attitude to get better, and he does that, and he keeps making plays in games because that's what he does in practice, and nothing really rattles him. He's the definition of consistency, and I'm glad we have him”
On Fette’s development throughout the season:
“He just shows up every day and stays consistent, pays attention, tries to get smarter, and goes through the drills. The development is just the consistency. There's not a game to compare it to, so it's hard from that perspective. But I'd say the mental side of the game, you could see his poise and you could see how calm he was back there in the game. So I would just say getting prepared mentally week in and week out and preparing like he was gonna play, I think it showed up to me.”
On the importance of the mental game for Fette:
“It's huge. You’ve got to find a balance of putting enough on them to be schematically sound, not putting enough on them to not overwhelm them. And I think Marcus (Arroyo, offensive coordinator) did a good job of changing some things to give him a lot of flexibility in his own right there at the end of the game.”
On how the defense played today:
“Played man coverage, made people win, and they were getting us with some curl flat there on some second-and-low and third-and-mediums, and we kind of got attacked by that quite a bit. But we challenged people and played a lot of man coverage and had really sound run fits. And the game's not hard. Know where to fit, tackle the person, cover the person. If you get beat, you get beat. Tackle them, go to the next play, and we had two or three pass interferences in the game, and that's fine. It's going to happen when you play challenging defense. You can't get upset with that. You've got to say, okay, if those are their plays, if they are big plays, our PIs, we don't want to do that. But at the same token, it's better than you know free access 15 yard comebacks. So I think we challenged them. We committed to it. I think the guys on the back end held up, and then I thought we had great fits, and we made the tackle.”
On the contributions from (ASU DL) Julian Hugo:
“A Star. He's an unbelievable player. He's playing great. Another sack, another big play. Feel the energy when he's on the field. Another guy who’s just consistent, who wanted to be a Sun Devil. Like a lot of people were trying to flip him, just like Jake, just like Cardae, just like a lot of these guys. And these guys just wanted to be Sun Devils. They chose to be Sun Devils because they show up. They showed up and they saw sold out crowds, and they saw people cheering for our football team. They saw a football team that played hard. They saw positive energy in the city. They see all that, and that's why college football is the way it is. You need everything going in the same direction to stay, to try to push in directions. You're gonna have highs and lows, but the challenge is how do you get through them? You get through them together, and I think those guys stayed with it through the highs and the lows, and now they're here and they're reaping what they sow. Because for the first time in adversity, they didn't just go crazy; they stayed strong, and they stayed with the vision, and they wanted to be Sun Devils.”
On the passion he saw from the players during the game:
“Thought it was really good. I think you guys could feel it. It was way different, and it wasn't from me. I was probably the calmest I've ever been on the sideline. I think the guys stepped up. It also helps when you make plays, right? We've had two straight games where it's just like boom, game over. So it's kind of hard to get juice. I don't care who you are. So for us, I think our guys being in the football game early and continuing to fight and fight, you could feel that passion, energy, and these guys didn't quit. There's people who have said a lot of things about this team, and next year- we don't care about next year. Of course, it's our job as coaches to prepare for everything at one time. That's the nature of college. But we're focused on right now, focused on getting this team to the best team that they could possibly play. And I think our team is focused on that as well. And I think you could feel that with how they played, I think they just feel a little bit disrespected, and it's fair. It's not a false disrespect. It's real. We've earned that. You reap what you sow, and we've reaped that, and now we've got to respond from it. I think they did a nice job tonight.”
On Keene’s performance up until his injury:
“I thought he played nice. Thought he played good football. That he gave guys chances. There were a couple times like it was so ready. I got excited and he pulled it on the third down. We had a chance, but that's part of it, right. He was juiced. He was out there. He's playing football in his hometown, right? 20 minutes from where he grew up. He's out there. He scored 14 points early. We're moving. We feel the vibe, and so I thought he played really well. I thought his leadership was good. His leadership all week was really good, getting our guys to prepare well. So I just thought, all in all, I thought he did really well.”
On the decision to go for it on fourth-down towards the end of the game:
‘Well, 14 points doesn't change the amount they have to score. Kick a field goal, get a two-point conversion to tie us. We don't lose in that scenario. So the only way they beat us is two touchdowns in that scenario. Kicking a field goal, they still need two touchdowns to beat us. They need two touchdowns to beat us at 11. Also, kicking a field goal changes the field position for them to the 25 yard line. Whereas if we get a fourth and five, or a fourth and three, or a fourth and two, it’s on the half yard line or whatever, the game is over. If we don't get it, they have to go 99 yards. If they go 99 yards with two minutes left, then they still have to get an onset kick guaranteed from that perspective. So I wanted them to have to drive the field further to get points on the board if we didn't score. So it was just a math deal with 11. If it would have been a six-point game, we would have kicked it 10 out of 10 times.”
Arizona State Freshman RB Cardae Mack
On what was going through his mind as the only player with a touchdown:
“Just following the game plan that Coach put in and my O-line executing everything that they needed to do.”
On what he has observed on each quarterback that played:
“They're all amazing quarterbacks, they all do their job. They work hard at practice and they are ready when their time comes.”
On the positive momentum coming from the game:
“It's a blessing honestly. We work hard every week in practice, and to see it pay off today was truly a blessing.”
On how (ASU WR) Reed Harris leads the team:
“Hes not a talkative guy but he leads by action. That's one of the best types of leadership you can have.”
Arizona State Junior LB Martell Hughes:
On what was said in the huddle when Fetter came in:
“Coming off the field I just told him to protect the ball, we are right behind him. Same speech every time.”
On what allowed them to flip the switch after Kansas State scored first:
“Before every drive starts I just go out there and tell them to respond. I know that was the biggest thing for Coach Dilly, he was preaching response, how are you going to respond when you get punched in the mouth.”
On what allowed them to stop Kansas State from going on a run:
“Trusting the guys around you, doing your one-eleventh on defense. That's what we live by.”
On the outside noise coming into the game:
“We just take it on the chin and just show up on Saturday and prove that we’re a good team.”
Kansas State Head Coach Collin Klein Postgame Press Conference:
Opening statement:
“We’re very frustrated. Tough situation, tough football game. We did the things that you can't do when you want to win on the road. We lost the battle at the line of scrimmage, we ran for 84 yards, not gonna work. They almost doubled that, not going to work. We had our chances, at times. We're not good on 3rd down offensively, 4-of-15, not going to do it. Kicked the one field goal there, we had two good red zone drives in the first three quarters there. We were able to find some short fields, but weren't able to capitalize enough on short fields. I thought the defense in the first half, minus the go route and then throwing it up in one-on-one situations, did a decent job. And in the second half we just weren't able to. On a couple of those critical conversion downs, you know, we had a couple of critical errors, on most of those, conversion downs down the stretch, which, ultimately that's gonna be the difference in that one score game at that time, if we can find it, or we can't. I was very proud of (Kansas State QB) Jacob Knuth, and he stepped up. He battled, fighting through it himself a little bit and his toughness and competitiveness, that he gave his football team and put it out there for them today. There's a lot of things that we're doing that we've got to get fixed and for us to become the football team that we can be.”
On not being able to run the ball:
“When you rush for 84 yards and you've got a young quarterback from a starting experience standpoint, that was critical, and I thought we lost the line of scrimmage, on both sides, and that was the difference in the game.”
On his message to (K-State QB) Jacob Knuth leading up to this game:
"To be himself, he prepares and he works so hard and has waited for this opportunity for a long time. His passion for this place, his passion for and his love for his teammates is second to none, I'm sorry we couldn't get it done for him today.”
On changes that need to be made to win on the road:
“It starts with us as coaches. Obviously we have to put them in some better positions in some areas. I don't think it's one thing. We've got to grow up and we've got to mature and we got to have the competitive edge and the competitive maturity that winning teams do on the road and championship teams do on the road. You're not gonna do that if we don't win the line of scrimmage on both sides.”
Kansas State Junior CB Zashon Rich
On how the game got away from the team:
“I think we just didn't have the same focus level of energy. It just comes down to the little details, they just executed their plays. We just have to just focus on the details, lock into them, and just do what we know we're capable of.”
On preparing for Colorado next week:
“Like I said, we watch the film on it, we know our corrections, what we have to do better, and then come Monday, we have to get the practice field running.”
Kansas State Fifth Year OL Mekhi Mason
On what has to be different for future road games:
“We just have to keep our heads up and keep attacking practice every day. Like, we got to remember this feeling that we had, you know, a rogue game, another road game that we lost. We just got to have, we just got to take, you know, bring our own energy, keep our energy going through the first and second half and keep attacking mentally.”
On the momentum shift during the fourth quarter:
“Defense didn't have a momentum shift. We were still excited to get on the field, and ready to play defense. We were preparing to blow up, and things did not go our way.”
Kansas State Fifth Year QB Jacob Knuth
On getting his first start:
“It was a dream come true, honestly. God is good all the time, and this is a moment I’ve waited a long time for. And so going out there today and being a starting quarterback again, super fun. Obviously not the outcome we wanted, but it meant a lot to me.”
On how he’s stayed ready to play as a backup quarterback:
“Really just leaning on my faith, and knowing that there’s a plan for everything. I’m here at Kansas State for a reason, and I love this university. I'll do anything for this university and my teammates and coaches. So that’s what’s kept me going.”
Kansas State Senior WR Jaron Tibbs
On how he thinks Jacob Knuth played in his first start:
“I’m super proud of him. He battled through to the end. I know he took some hits and there was a little adversity, I'm just so proud of him. The way he played, the way he was trying to give us chances even when the odds seem slim. He kept fighting until the last snap of the game. The way he fought through and had determination and the way he led the offense. It's not easy coming in, he has some pretty big shoes to fill. I'm really proud of him for taking that leadership role and leading the offense and instilling confidence in the whole offense.”
On where he think the game slipped away with offense in the second half:
“I don't think it really slipped away. It was a lot of stuff in our control that we messed up. We’re going to go back tomorrow and fix what we can fix. We made small errors here and there that are easily fixable. We are going to go watch film, get it fixed, and try to improve next week.”