Arizona State Head Coach Kenny Dillingham
On if ASU QB Jaden Rashada will come back this season:
“Potentially. it just depends on if he’s ready and healthy to get back in there. I’m not going to push him back, past the timeline until he’s 100-percent. But yes, he is. If he feels 100-percent then he could be in the football game. I’m not going to push him until he’s at that point. But we definitely could use him because it wouldn’t hurt his redshirt.”
On former Arizona State Athletic Director Ray Anderson Resigning this morning:
“Thankful for him giving me the opportunity to be the head coach here at my alma mater, my dream job. I’m very very thankful for him. He’s been supportive of me since I’ve gotten here. So best of luck to him and his future. We’ll look forward to what the future holds here. But best of luck to him in the future and I’m very thankful for the opportunity he gave me to be the head coach here.”
On if a change at leadership needed to happen:
“I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about things that I can control. I’m worried about finding ways to score against Oregon, stop Oregon. And figure out how you stop potentially the Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback so I’m worried about things I can control.”
On if a change at leadership could boost NIL:
“I think anytimes’ there’s change. Anytime’s there’s change some things fall through and more people get back involved, disengaged and so I definitely think anytime there’s change it rattles enough cages to get maybe some people involved and understand that there’s a direction we’re heading. I think in the last nine-to-ten months we’ve been put in the right direction that’s started with hopefully people believe Ray bringing me in here and hopefully that’s going to carry on for his predecessor and the direction that we want to go. We’ve got about a month, we’ve got to step it up and get rolling at a rapid, rapid, rapid, rapid, rapid rate in this next three-weeks to one month.”
On keeping players focused against Oregon this week as he faces his former team:
??“I’m focused on our players. Putting together the best plan for them to go versus Oregon’s football team. They have a really really really good football team. Arguably the best football team we face this year. Their defensive line reminds me of Georgias’ just in terms of the physicality and toughness of where we played them last year. Their offensive line is big. They’ve got what I believe is tied for the best quarterback in the country with Jordan Travis. I’ve coached them both so I have a bias for both of them, so that dynamic of having a really stout d-line, a stout o-line with an elite quarterback and elite skill at the wide receiver position is a very scary dynamic. We have a big task ahead of us.”
On game-planning this week against Oregon:
“I'm focused on our players, putting together the best plan for them to go versus Oregon's football team. They have a really, really, really good football team, arguably, the best football team we faced this year. Their defensive line reminds me of Georgia’s, in terms of the physicality and toughness from when we played them last year. Their offensive line is big. They've got, I believe, he is tied for the best quarterback in the country with Jordan Travis. Coached both, so I have a bias towards both of them, but both those have a dynamic of having a really, really stout D line, really stout o line with an elite quarterback, and elite skill at the wideout is a very scary dynamic. We have a big task ahead of us. We're gonna put our guys in the best position to be successful and that's gonna look different every week right now. Eventually you want to get to a point where teams have to change to stop you, you don't have to change to stop people, but right now we have to change a little bit to try to and create some numbers advantages and try to be creative.”
On if he was aware of Ray Anderson resigning today:
“I don't want to comment too much on the timeline. I mean, I was told this morning in a staff meeting. I found out this morning in the staff meeting, it was good before it got out. So I definitely knew before, before it got out to the media, that factor.”
On his relationship with Oregon QB Bo Nix:
“We have an unbelievable relationship. It goes back to Auburn when I got the OC job in Auburn. He was the true freshman quarterback there that I recruited towards the end of that cycle and we just built a great relationship, stayed in contact, got to Oregon and moved to Oregon because of our relationship essentially. So when you really think about that, that's a good relationship we had. Is he trusted me, his family, trusted me with their son for his kind of second chance at this deal. When nobody thought he could throw and now he's over here gonna be a top 10 pick, potentially winning Heismans. And it's just a testament to the character of Bo. Bo is an unbelievable person. One he's a, he's a great, great, great kid. He's got a great family. He's so competitive, he's uber competitive. He's super smart and intelligent. I had a scout ask me the other day, does he process because he throws the ball so quick. I'm like, yeah, that's why he throws it so quick because he knows exactly what's happening before the ball is snapped. That's one of his greatest strengths is he's gotten to a point for, he's gone from a guy who ran around a lot to a guy who literally has the quickest catch the throw, percentage or timing in college football. And that's a testament to just his intelligence, his work ethic and who he is as a person. He's somebody that anybody would want. He's married, but if he wasn't, you'd want your daughter to marry him like he is that type of person. I have nothing but positive things to say about him.”
On Oregon Head Coach Dan Lannings offense:
“Yeah. Well, hopefully they're not unstoppable on Saturday, but you know, they've been the best. They're probably the best Oregon offense since the Chip Kelly era, since the Marriota era. This is the best Oregon's been on offense, you know, in a long time and that's including me there last year. They're better than we were last year, and that's just me being completely honest. And…I think what makes it scary is you're good up front, you have good wide outs, you have a good running back and you have an elite quarterback. I don't know where the flaw lies. If you look at their offense and you look at their starters, there's probably eight guys that will play on Sundays. There's potentially 3 to 4 guys that can be first or second round picks…that are currently playing. If you have four, first or second round picks on one offense at the same time and one of those guys is a quarterback. So that's, that's a, you know, dynamic.”
On Bo Nix’s offensive ability:
“Super smart, knows where to go with the ball before the ball is even snapped. So he has a really good plan, quick release, good pocket movements, hard to sack in the pocket because he's so athletic, and has a really good feel for pump fakes. He's one of the best guys I've been around just using the pump fake to his advantage. Does not get sacked. Knows how to flip protections at a high rate, so very rarely becomes hot. If he doesn't have to become hot, gets out of bad play calls by checking runs. So, I mean, I could go on and on. He does it all really well, you know, throws the ball far, you know, there was a time last year, he didn't think he had a strong enough arm. He was over there throwing like 65 yards, so he started playing catch from his knees in pre practice, and I was like what are you doing? Your arm is plenty strong enough, but that's just the mentality he has, as he always wants to get better and then he's an elite leader. So you combine all of those skill sets. He is…really good.”
On the positive takeaways of players buying into the culture after beating UCLA:
“I just think…just the locker room after the game, you can feel it, just who's celebrating with who. That's always who I look at is, is it one friend group celebrating with each other? Is it one position group celebrating with each other or is everybody kind of co-mingling? And in the best teams I've been a part of it was commingling. And I could see the co-mingling of different position groups, different friends. I know which pods of people are friends with each other. When those pods are kind of crossing over to celebrate, that's really what you're looking for and I could feel that. I've always felt our team believed in what we're doing, even though I'm a little crazy, they know it, goofy, they know it. But I do believe they believe in the process and where we're going and what we're going to be. And I think this was a little bit of a validation, but, like I told them all along, the validation is not on Saturday. The validation is in, you see yourself getting better, you see our team getting better, you see our team growing together throughout the week. Now, it's a validation, you know, from a public forum. But, you know, what I said last week is, you know, if you care what other people think about you, you're gonna live a sad, miserable life if you care what that person on Twitter thinks about you, right? It's gonna be because they're gonna love you. They're gonna hate you, then they're gonna love you, then they're gonna hate you, then they're gonna love you, they're gonna hate you. You better just care about what the people in this room think about you. And that's really what we're trying to get accomplished.”
On the message to fans and the program this week:
“We're getting better, we're competing, we need support, we need help and we need to activate the Valley. The same message. Anybody who watches us play, you should be proud of the effort our guys are putting on the field. You should be proud of the fight. You should be proud of the discipline, the lack of penalties throughout the game. You know, our guys are doing the little things right for you to be proud of. They need a sold out crowd here versus Oregon. If we expect to beat a team like Oregon at home, well, we better have the best home field advantage in the country. We better have a sold out crowd, loud as can be at two o'clock. That's what we need. We need the support. So these guys, when these recruits show up, I can't mention a kid's name, but when he shows up and he visited Oregon last week and he shows up to our stadium, he goes, whoa, that's just as good of an environment as I was just at or similar.
We need that to take the step as a program and without it, it's all for not.”
On facing Oregon as an underdog:
“Yeah, we're always the underdog. That's my personality, I wanna compete versus people that people perceive as better forever. I don't care if we're ever a 30 point favorite, I’m gonna consider myself an underdog. That's just how I operate. It doesn't matter who we play, we're going to prepare the exact same way with the exact same mindset that we're going to go to win the football game. Anybody who doesn't think we're going to win the football game, don't get on the bus, don't go to the team hotel, stay home, have a cupcake and enjoy your day.”
On what he’s learned from Dan Lanning when he was offensive coordinator at Oregon:
“A lot. You know, I've known Dan for a long time. He was a GA here at Arizona State when I was a high school coach. So I've known Dan a long time and I just learned the toughness that was instilled when they were at the Alabamas and the Georgias in the practice structures that they used, we use some of those practice structures. I learned working for a defensive-minded head coach, how important install days are with formations and motions for a defense and how to get a defense prepared, not just an offense prepared. So it was a lot of good learning experience for me, for what defenses need in order to be top defenses in the country and how they need to prepare. Because with other staff, when were not offensive minded, but they were different. So to be able to combine those two philosophies of Mike Norvell, who I think is one of the best coaches in college football with Dan Lanning (14:10), who I believe is the same, one of the best coaches in college football, I think they're both proving it to kind of mesh that together was something that I've been lucky to have those guys that I've been around.”
On what the area of focus is for the defense this week against Oregon:
“Take away what we believe they're best at. What that is, I'm not going to tell you.“
On learning about the Swinging Gate formation:
“Well we've done unique things like that this year already. We ran the quarterback sneak from nobody out there, which was a former swimming game last year.
I did some of that, but to truly create a sound scheme around it, it just came down to the matchups. I told people in the post-game with the Jim Fossil scenario, I was looking at different ways to do it. We didn't copy-paste what Fossil did for Utah, but it was more the premise of how they did it. We kind of added our own flair to it, but teams have been running the swinging game for a long time. It’s not like we reinvented anything. People are acting like I just pulled this magical rabbit out of a hat. No, we've done something that people have been doing since the 1980s. Now, did we run it more than some people have done it? Yes, because it was working and it was sound but this is not like of anything special in my opinion, just maybe weird and not normal.”
On having ASU Special Advisor Marvin Lewis on the Staff and how he’s helped him this season:
“I just always bounce ideas off (Marvin Lewis). Like, where do you think our team is? How do you think practice is going or we're practicing hard enough? Are we practicing too much? How do I handle this situation? How do I handle that situation? So he's just been a really good sounding board for me in terms of stuff like that and then he always presents a little write-up for the offensive staff and the defensive staff. It’s basically a summary of the opponent in terms of their strengths, their weaknesses, and where he thinks you should attack. It’s not really scheme-related. it’s just more, what he sees from the people. So it's been really beneficial to have him.”
On if ASU QB Jaden Rashada will come back this season:
“Potentially. it just depends on if he’s ready and healthy to get back in there. I’m not going to push him back, past the timeline until he’s 100-percent. But yes, he is. If he feels 100-percent then he could be in the football game. I’m not going to push him until he’s at that point. But we definitely could use him because it wouldn’t hurt his redshirt.”
On former Arizona State Athletic Director Ray Anderson Resigning this morning:
“Thankful for him giving me the opportunity to be the head coach here at my alma mater, my dream job. I’m very very thankful for him. He’s been supportive of me since I’ve gotten here. So best of luck to him and his future. We’ll look forward to what the future holds here. But best of luck to him in the future and I’m very thankful for the opportunity he gave me to be the head coach here.”
On if a change at leadership needed to happen:
“I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about things that I can control. I’m worried about finding ways to score against Oregon, stop Oregon. And figure out how you stop potentially the Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback so I’m worried about things I can control.”
On if a change at leadership could boost NIL:
“I think anytimes’ there’s change. Anytime’s there’s change some things fall through and more people get back involved, disengaged and so I definitely think anytime there’s change it rattles enough cages to get maybe some people involved and understand that there’s a direction we’re heading. I think in the last nine-to-ten months we’ve been put in the right direction that’s started with hopefully people believe Ray bringing me in here and hopefully that’s going to carry on for his predecessor and the direction that we want to go. We’ve got about a month, we’ve got to step it up and get rolling at a rapid, rapid, rapid, rapid, rapid rate in this next three-weeks to one month.”
On keeping players focused against Oregon this week as he faces his former team:
??“I’m focused on our players. Putting together the best plan for them to go versus Oregon’s football team. They have a really really really good football team. Arguably the best football team we face this year. Their defensive line reminds me of Georgias’ just in terms of the physicality and toughness of where we played them last year. Their offensive line is big. They’ve got what I believe is tied for the best quarterback in the country with Jordan Travis. I’ve coached them both so I have a bias for both of them, so that dynamic of having a really stout d-line, a stout o-line with an elite quarterback and elite skill at the wide receiver position is a very scary dynamic. We have a big task ahead of us.”
On game-planning this week against Oregon:
“I'm focused on our players, putting together the best plan for them to go versus Oregon's football team. They have a really, really, really good football team, arguably, the best football team we faced this year. Their defensive line reminds me of Georgia’s, in terms of the physicality and toughness from when we played them last year. Their offensive line is big. They've got, I believe, he is tied for the best quarterback in the country with Jordan Travis. Coached both, so I have a bias towards both of them, but both those have a dynamic of having a really, really stout D line, really stout o line with an elite quarterback, and elite skill at the wideout is a very scary dynamic. We have a big task ahead of us. We're gonna put our guys in the best position to be successful and that's gonna look different every week right now. Eventually you want to get to a point where teams have to change to stop you, you don't have to change to stop people, but right now we have to change a little bit to try to and create some numbers advantages and try to be creative.”
On if he was aware of Ray Anderson resigning today:
“I don't want to comment too much on the timeline. I mean, I was told this morning in a staff meeting. I found out this morning in the staff meeting, it was good before it got out. So I definitely knew before, before it got out to the media, that factor.”
On his relationship with Oregon QB Bo Nix:
“We have an unbelievable relationship. It goes back to Auburn when I got the OC job in Auburn. He was the true freshman quarterback there that I recruited towards the end of that cycle and we just built a great relationship, stayed in contact, got to Oregon and moved to Oregon because of our relationship essentially. So when you really think about that, that's a good relationship we had. Is he trusted me, his family, trusted me with their son for his kind of second chance at this deal. When nobody thought he could throw and now he's over here gonna be a top 10 pick, potentially winning Heismans. And it's just a testament to the character of Bo. Bo is an unbelievable person. One he's a, he's a great, great, great kid. He's got a great family. He's so competitive, he's uber competitive. He's super smart and intelligent. I had a scout ask me the other day, does he process because he throws the ball so quick. I'm like, yeah, that's why he throws it so quick because he knows exactly what's happening before the ball is snapped. That's one of his greatest strengths is he's gotten to a point for, he's gone from a guy who ran around a lot to a guy who literally has the quickest catch the throw, percentage or timing in college football. And that's a testament to just his intelligence, his work ethic and who he is as a person. He's somebody that anybody would want. He's married, but if he wasn't, you'd want your daughter to marry him like he is that type of person. I have nothing but positive things to say about him.”
On Oregon Head Coach Dan Lannings offense:
“Yeah. Well, hopefully they're not unstoppable on Saturday, but you know, they've been the best. They're probably the best Oregon offense since the Chip Kelly era, since the Marriota era. This is the best Oregon's been on offense, you know, in a long time and that's including me there last year. They're better than we were last year, and that's just me being completely honest. And…I think what makes it scary is you're good up front, you have good wide outs, you have a good running back and you have an elite quarterback. I don't know where the flaw lies. If you look at their offense and you look at their starters, there's probably eight guys that will play on Sundays. There's potentially 3 to 4 guys that can be first or second round picks…that are currently playing. If you have four, first or second round picks on one offense at the same time and one of those guys is a quarterback. So that's, that's a, you know, dynamic.”
On Bo Nix’s offensive ability:
“Super smart, knows where to go with the ball before the ball is even snapped. So he has a really good plan, quick release, good pocket movements, hard to sack in the pocket because he's so athletic, and has a really good feel for pump fakes. He's one of the best guys I've been around just using the pump fake to his advantage. Does not get sacked. Knows how to flip protections at a high rate, so very rarely becomes hot. If he doesn't have to become hot, gets out of bad play calls by checking runs. So, I mean, I could go on and on. He does it all really well, you know, throws the ball far, you know, there was a time last year, he didn't think he had a strong enough arm. He was over there throwing like 65 yards, so he started playing catch from his knees in pre practice, and I was like what are you doing? Your arm is plenty strong enough, but that's just the mentality he has, as he always wants to get better and then he's an elite leader. So you combine all of those skill sets. He is…really good.”
On the positive takeaways of players buying into the culture after beating UCLA:
“I just think…just the locker room after the game, you can feel it, just who's celebrating with who. That's always who I look at is, is it one friend group celebrating with each other? Is it one position group celebrating with each other or is everybody kind of co-mingling? And in the best teams I've been a part of it was commingling. And I could see the co-mingling of different position groups, different friends. I know which pods of people are friends with each other. When those pods are kind of crossing over to celebrate, that's really what you're looking for and I could feel that. I've always felt our team believed in what we're doing, even though I'm a little crazy, they know it, goofy, they know it. But I do believe they believe in the process and where we're going and what we're going to be. And I think this was a little bit of a validation, but, like I told them all along, the validation is not on Saturday. The validation is in, you see yourself getting better, you see our team getting better, you see our team growing together throughout the week. Now, it's a validation, you know, from a public forum. But, you know, what I said last week is, you know, if you care what other people think about you, you're gonna live a sad, miserable life if you care what that person on Twitter thinks about you, right? It's gonna be because they're gonna love you. They're gonna hate you, then they're gonna love you, then they're gonna hate you, then they're gonna love you, they're gonna hate you. You better just care about what the people in this room think about you. And that's really what we're trying to get accomplished.”
On the message to fans and the program this week:
“We're getting better, we're competing, we need support, we need help and we need to activate the Valley. The same message. Anybody who watches us play, you should be proud of the effort our guys are putting on the field. You should be proud of the fight. You should be proud of the discipline, the lack of penalties throughout the game. You know, our guys are doing the little things right for you to be proud of. They need a sold out crowd here versus Oregon. If we expect to beat a team like Oregon at home, well, we better have the best home field advantage in the country. We better have a sold out crowd, loud as can be at two o'clock. That's what we need. We need the support. So these guys, when these recruits show up, I can't mention a kid's name, but when he shows up and he visited Oregon last week and he shows up to our stadium, he goes, whoa, that's just as good of an environment as I was just at or similar.
We need that to take the step as a program and without it, it's all for not.”
On facing Oregon as an underdog:
“Yeah, we're always the underdog. That's my personality, I wanna compete versus people that people perceive as better forever. I don't care if we're ever a 30 point favorite, I’m gonna consider myself an underdog. That's just how I operate. It doesn't matter who we play, we're going to prepare the exact same way with the exact same mindset that we're going to go to win the football game. Anybody who doesn't think we're going to win the football game, don't get on the bus, don't go to the team hotel, stay home, have a cupcake and enjoy your day.”
On what he’s learned from Dan Lanning when he was offensive coordinator at Oregon:
“A lot. You know, I've known Dan for a long time. He was a GA here at Arizona State when I was a high school coach. So I've known Dan a long time and I just learned the toughness that was instilled when they were at the Alabamas and the Georgias in the practice structures that they used, we use some of those practice structures. I learned working for a defensive-minded head coach, how important install days are with formations and motions for a defense and how to get a defense prepared, not just an offense prepared. So it was a lot of good learning experience for me, for what defenses need in order to be top defenses in the country and how they need to prepare. Because with other staff, when were not offensive minded, but they were different. So to be able to combine those two philosophies of Mike Norvell, who I think is one of the best coaches in college football with Dan Lanning (14:10), who I believe is the same, one of the best coaches in college football, I think they're both proving it to kind of mesh that together was something that I've been lucky to have those guys that I've been around.”
On what the area of focus is for the defense this week against Oregon:
“Take away what we believe they're best at. What that is, I'm not going to tell you.“
On learning about the Swinging Gate formation:
“Well we've done unique things like that this year already. We ran the quarterback sneak from nobody out there, which was a former swimming game last year.
I did some of that, but to truly create a sound scheme around it, it just came down to the matchups. I told people in the post-game with the Jim Fossil scenario, I was looking at different ways to do it. We didn't copy-paste what Fossil did for Utah, but it was more the premise of how they did it. We kind of added our own flair to it, but teams have been running the swinging game for a long time. It’s not like we reinvented anything. People are acting like I just pulled this magical rabbit out of a hat. No, we've done something that people have been doing since the 1980s. Now, did we run it more than some people have done it? Yes, because it was working and it was sound but this is not like of anything special in my opinion, just maybe weird and not normal.”
On having ASU Special Advisor Marvin Lewis on the Staff and how he’s helped him this season:
“I just always bounce ideas off (Marvin Lewis). Like, where do you think our team is? How do you think practice is going or we're practicing hard enough? Are we practicing too much? How do I handle this situation? How do I handle that situation? So he's just been a really good sounding board for me in terms of stuff like that and then he always presents a little write-up for the offensive staff and the defensive staff. It’s basically a summary of the opponent in terms of their strengths, their weaknesses, and where he thinks you should attack. It’s not really scheme-related. it’s just more, what he sees from the people. So it's been really beneficial to have him.”