Arizona State Head Coach Kenny Dillingham Postgame
Friday, September 26, 2025:
On ASU’s resilience in big moments:
"It's amazing. I don't know, never seen a strip fumble in a two-minute drill on our own 3, and then a quarterback sneak that works that doesn't work because it's a false start, and then there should be 30 seconds on the clock at the end of the game because there's a holding flag. It gives them a free time out again like Mississippi State. So now there's 1 minute and 10 left instead of 30 seconds on their final possession. It's like, holy cow. It's like the ebbs and flows of the game. It's incredible that our team continues to find ways to get it done in the big moments and is a  testament to the character of the guys we have on the team."

On Martell Hughes’ performance:
"He goes to work every day, he's Barrett Honors, so he's a smart person. He's mature. We talked about it, when we were watching the Cardinals game last night, me, him, and Keyshaun, and we were like, hey, you know, 'Tell, next year you're the dude. He's like, man, we're gonna be young. And, Keyshaun was like, You're gonna be a junior. It's not young. You're an upperclassman. That's how fast this goes. So even though he's young, he's growing up in front of our eyes, and that's what is awesome about college football."

On ASU not yet playing to their potential:
"We're all around it. It's like we're dancing in circles around the potential, like we're winning games and not playing our best football. That's the thing I feel best about, is we haven't quite clicked, full cylinder, and we're winning versus really good football teams, like really good teams. If you would have told me we'd be 2-0 to start the league to start this year, I would have been so fired up. I know the expectations and all the external, but just looking at who we're gonna play, I would have been one of the happiest people saying, oh my gosh, we escaped 4-1 these first five games, and to be 2-0 in the league at this point is absolutely a testament to our players. And we're still not even playing up to our potential."

On the sell-out crowd:
"They showed up and they were loud. I loved it. Through the rain, I was like, man, are people not gonna come because they're worried about the start time? No. Right when they opened the student section, those students sprinted in. I think we're starting to create a demand that if you're not at the football game, where are you? And that's what good programs are. When we say activate the valley, when I said that from day one, that's what it is. It's the demand to want to get in the building, and I think we're creating that demand to want to be in this building, because people tomorrow are going to say, man, were you at the Arizona State football game? You see the Arizona State football game? And if we can create that buzz, now we got to get the people who are coming to show up. Now we got to get the big businesses here to get more involved in our program, more involved in our players, more involved because that's our advantage. And if we want to win a game by more than 3, that could help."

On how the team has been more successful this year:
“They're starting to learn how to rush together. Our twist games are really, really good, they're showing up. We're starting to learn that it's not the person who goes first, who gets the sack, it's the wrapper most of the time, it's the contained player. Whereas in the past it was, man I'm on the wrap. Why do I got to be on the wrap, why can't I be in the game, or why can't I have the two way? The group has matured and they're understanding that when you team rush, it opens everything up. We're starting to team rush, and then when we have solo rushes, people are expecting games, so they intersect. That's how it all works together. You team rush and then you don't team rush, or you team rush. Put some guys on one-on-ones and they're playing the twist games and you're just playing one-on-ones on the edge to the big gaps. Our guys are learning how to play together.”

On (QB) Sam Leavitt and (WR) Jordyn Tyson dealing with close game situations:
“Winners win. I can't give you a real answer, how they find ways. Some people in the biggest moments are the best. Some people love the ball with the game on the line, some people don't.  Sam's (Leavitt) somebody who loves the ball with the game on the line, so is JT (Jordyn Tyson). Hopefully we can not have the game on the line as much, but if we do, I hope it's in their hands.”

On if the false start in the fourth quarter was situational based on the game:
“100 percent. It was completely, you have an opportunity to get a free sneak, you take it. If it's not there, I trust our guys aren't going to snap the ball, which means you take a delay. You take the delay and you create a better kicking angle anyways for your kicker, then you kick the ball. The worst comes to worst, he sneaks it and it doesn't work. All right, worst-case scenario is you have three time outs. They're on their one yard line with a minute and 20 seconds left. You get a three-and-out, they punt the ball out of their own end zone, you get the ball at the plus 40. You're right to a field goal range again, you really don't give them another full possession. That situation was different than Mississippi State because Mississippi State, we only had two timeouts.”

Arizona State QB Sam Leavitt
On what stood out the most about tonight’s win:
“Just our fight, man. Down 17-0, things just weren't going our way. We still played terribly in the red zone - a lot of that's on me. Got to play my guys on the back line, but we're just a really tough team and we just compete, make adjustments, and execute. We always play better in the second half because we do a great job just communicating and trusting each other, so we did well working out some early jitters and we just do a great job finishing.”

On how much the crowd helped:
 “The crowd's going to play a major factor in every single home game. For me, playing on the road when you can't communicate, they can't hear cadence, you can't give a hard cadence, but a big shout out to the crowd.”

On what he saw on the touchdown to Jordyn Tyson: 
“It’s a play we’ve been running since I first got here and we really haven't hit it once in a game yet. We've been talking about it for a long time. It’s a really good, low red zone, high red zone concept. We've been repping ‘Bang’ for two years and it’s the first time hitting it at the biggest moment. So, it's a fourth-and-goal, bread and butter.”

On winning close games:
“It’s just what we do. We’ve been doing this since last year. I didn't [convert] in week two, and honestly I thought that was the biggest blessing that we had because if we got that one, maybe we don't get this one and obviously league play is more important. It's just what we do, big props to the defense coming up big every single time. On that last drive, if you put a heart monitor on me, there’d be no beats. So, just cold-blooded play from the defense seeing them out there.”

On stepping up in the clutch moments:
“I think partially it's just like who I am and the way I trained growing up. I trained really intense and always wanted the ball in the biggest moments, last shot in basketball, things like that. So when you get out here, you kind of just calm down. I do a fair amount of meditation and the other thing too is you look at the guys around you and I have nothing but faith in them and that calms you down.”

On how close he thinks the team is to playing its best football:
“We got a lot of red zone trips. We’ve got to come up with some better points. I’ve got to play backline more and understand window throws more in the red zone, but once it pops, it's going to be pretty fun. We should have probably put up over 45 points that game.”

On whether a win like this will put ASU back in the Top 25:
“We ain’t worried about it.”

Arizona State LB Keyshawn Elliott
On (LB) Martell Hughes:
“It’s a big time for him. Super proud of him, really, he should be up here. But, I’m blessed to be here, blessed to be able to mentor him and kind of show him the way. These past two games, he's really stood up and made some key plays versus Baylor and in this game. He's going to be a heck of a player for ASU.”

On adjustments defensively in the game:
“I think we understood what they're trying to do. We were winning on first downs early in the game and they were getting us on second down and third down. We cleaned some stuff up, went back to our base techniques and what we were doing, not overcontemplating anything. We just got everything together, everybody was on the same page.” 

On his faith in the linebacker group:
“Our relationship with each other and even with our coaches, it's tremendous. This is our second year all playing together. We all transferred here, we've been in this defense for 2 years so we have the utmost confidence in each other. We know we rock with each other.”

Arizona State WR Jordyn Tyson
On what he saw on the touchdown:
“I run a lot of slants from the field, so he plays a lot of inside technique, and that was the first time we ran a fade ball.”

On being halfway to the program’s single-season receiving touchdown record in only five games:
“It’s a testament to my team. I can't do without them and God above.”

On what was going through his mind on the sideline with the defense making plays:
“I had full faith in them even before they got the sacks. I knew what they were going to go out there and do. It’s great to see Prince [Dorbah] out there. Every time I looked up he had a sack, but he and Keyshawn [Elliott] made a great play on the sack. I love those guys, going to war with them every day and practicing with them, so I knew what they were capable of.”

Arizona State DT Prince Dorbah
On his strip fumble recovery at the end of the game:
“We knew all game that we had an advantage up front, so we liked our matchups. Coach just told us to go rush and communicate with each other. My mindset was just to trust my teammates, go out there, give it all and at the end of the day, we're gonna come out on top. That's just my whole mindset. I'm just playing football, man.”

TCU Head Coach Sonny Dykes
On not being able to keep the momentum going after a hot start:
“We kind of kept shooting ourselves in the foot a little bit. (We) had some penalties and things in the first half that got us behind the chains. Our inability to run the football hurt us the whole night. We just couldn't get anything going in the run game and had to abandon it. When you do that, people can really come after you, and I think we put our quarterback in a hard spot. So we've got to be able to run the football much better than we did. That was probably the biggest takeaway is the inability to run the ball and now those guys were just teeing off. We couldn't block them and turned the ball over three times. Obviously that's the difference in the game, the three turnovers.”

On what he attributes the problems to the run game:
“We didn't block them up front. They're a team that's built to stop the run. There's always that extra guy in the box, so it's hard to run the football. That's why I think we had a lot of success throwing it. And then we got ourselves into too many long yarded situations. We had more drops than we normally have. I never felt like we ever really executed particularly well offensively the whole night. It just seemed like we were having a hard time. We never really got settled in and comfortable like we normally do. Have to give Arizona State some credit for that. They did a good job of mixing things up and we just got to do a better job taking care of the football.”

On the message to the team following this loss:
“I told them we have to go one day at a time and play better. I think we can build off of this effort, as disappointed as we all are. We played really hard on defense with our back against the wall most of the night. I thought it was a great effort by us defensively and it just goes the same thing we've talked about over and over again. You turn the ball over three times, you're not gonna win football games, and that's what happened. That was the bottom line. It came down to turning it over three times. We throw an interception going into the end zone. You can't turn it over in the red zone like that. You can't turn it over in a critical situation at the end of the game like we did. We just can't afford to do that. So we've just got to do a better job of getting ahead of the chains. Staying out of as many third downs and longs as we can. Got to be able to run the ball better. We have to be able to protect when we get into passing situations. We didn't do that down the stretch.”

TCU Quarterback Josh Hoover
On what happened offensively after their 17-0 start: 
“We kind of got behind the sticks a little bit, put ourselves in trouble, bad plays on first down, penalties, etc. Things that just don't help you with football games. Had an unfortunate turnover down in the red zone. Our third drive of the game, I felt like we could have scored there. So just a lot of opportunities that were missed and (we’ve) just got to play better and figure out ways to not do that in the future.”

On early down attempts and that they’re finding themselves in third down situations:
“It’s just bad offensive play. I mean it's unbelievable that we scored as many points as we have considering how many third and longs we have been in. The fact that we scored 17 points from overcoming four 3rd and 15’s is unbelievable. It seems like we were just behind the sticks all day. We just have to find ways to be better, putting me at the top of the list. I have to do better on first down, get some better plays, and get the ball to guys that need to get the ball. I just have to go back and watch it, learn from it, and figure out what I can do better to help our team.”

TCU Linebacker Kaleb Elarms-Orr
On his 13 tackles and what went well for the defense:
“Starts with the way we practice. I feel like on those two padded practice days we really get after it, really fight, we strain – the standard is very high throughout the defense. I feel like we really showed up, and I'm proud of what the defense did today; I'm proud of my boys. Like I said, those practices are tough and I feel like it makes the game kind of easier. Things were just clicking. We just have to be better on those late penalties defensively, giving up crucial fourth downs. It has to be better overall.”

On his message to the team following the loss:
“It's one game. You have to make the corrections and just move on to the next. We have a lot of big games coming up and I feel like if we overcome this loss and learn from our mistakes, we're going to be a very dangerous team going forward.”