When Kenny Dillingham was hired in November 2022, his goal was not only to rebuild the Sun Devils from a talent standpoint but also to establish a team culture conducive to success. It may have been unreasonable to expect the latter to be effectively implemented early on in his tenure, but the Arizona State head coach is quite pleased that currently, the program's standards and the overall mindset of its players are at a level he is certainly content with.
Dillingham hopes that a formidable first true game week practice of the year will springboard a new psyche for ASU, one that naturally strives to showcase significant improvement over a 3-9 2023 campaign.
“I thought it was a really, really good first day,” Dillingham said of Saturday’s practice. “Now, can you sustain that? Can you continue to bring that effort? Can you continue to stay organized, stay focused? That's the challenge.
“This year's team is focused. Man, they love football. They absolutely love football. It's not just they like it when they're on the field. It's not just they like it when they post on social media. They love football. This year's team, they come out here and they work, and it's pretty consistently that they'll work. And the leaders of this team love football like this is what they do like all the time. They're texting me, they're up in the facility, I see guys with their cars parked outside at 6:30 am getting treatments. They just love everything that goes with football.”
ASU's head coach said that the dedication and organic affinity players show for the game, regardless of their talent level, are not facets that are a given by any means, but when your roster is largely made up of such players the byproduct is one that is can set a program on a better course.
“But when you have those leaders who love it (the game of football), it just raised as the standard for everybody else,” Dillingham commented. “I think going into the season, to be honest, we're right where I would have liked to be 18 months ago. I think we've got like-minded people on our team. We've upgraded the talent from when we got here, and I think we're a better football team from when we got That's all you're trying to be, is just consistently better than you were. And I feel confident that we're definitely a much improved football team.”
Like any fall camp in any given year, some practices carried a better energy level and effort than others. Team leaders can definitely dictate the type of session taking place, but the staff creating the requisite environment for effectual practices that will lead to a successful campaign is still at the core of the vital building block of a team.
“It's hard to convince people to love football,” Dillingham remarked. “You can create an environment that gets people to love it, but eventually, whatever environment you have, football's a hard game. We can have more fun than anybody, working harder than anybody in the country, but football is hard. It's difficult and challenging. We can make it fun, we can do competitions, but if you don't love the process, there's going to be days that you're down.
“I truly believe you have to recruit people that love the game. I know everybody says that, but do you actually do it is the hard part. Do you actually say, ‘Well, this guy's an inch taller, and this guy loves the game that much more,’ who do you take? And you have to be willing to take those guys that you think just love this game with a passion and that they're going to overcome maybe some of their physical obstacles because of their passion and their intelligence.”
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Going into fall camp, the advanced level of talent on paper of the running back position was impossible to ignore, and the practice performance of that unit undoubtedly validated that assertion. Dillingham is not only satisfied with the level of talent in that group but also with the availability to distribute assignments more effectively than last season.
“The depth in that room is a drastic difference from last year,” Dillingham described, “and that's going to keep us fresh throughout the end of games. Skat (Cameron Skattebo) had to carry the ball 28, 30 times games last year, and we're wondering why he's not hitting his top speed…well, there you go. We've got to be able to balance that workload for our backs. When you're getting a fresh carrying the football, it’s good not just from a running perspective but from a ball security perspective and energy as well.”
Former ASU offensive coordinator Mike Norvell, who was on staff while Kenny Dillingham was a graduate assistant with the Sun Devils, has been a mentor for Arizona State's head coach, who followed Norvell to Memphis and Florida State to serve as his offensive coordinator. The influence that Norvell has had on Dillingham, the youngest head coach in the college football FBS ranks, is hardly limited to X’s and O’s and is also a blueprint on how to rebuild a program Dillingham strives to do in Tempe.
“I saw him as a young offensive coordinator (at ASU), how he managed himself, and how he led. Then I saw him as a young head coach, how he led, how he adapted and changed to situations, how he was a little bit different as the OC than he was the head coach. And then I saw him change again at Florida State because it was a different team, and be willing to adapt to his new team. At Florida State, obviously, we didn't take over a good situation. We took over the program, which was as low as it's ever been since before (former Florida State head coach) Bobby Bowden was there. And it was the consistency he had in the process, the ever-waving process, that sometimes coaches would lose faith, sometimes players would lose faith, but he never did.
“And when you had that guy, that leader, who just showed the consistency…fans lost faith, we started 0-4 in his second year there. 0-4. We lost to a D-I AA school. People started to lose faith, but not him. He stayed the course because he knew what he was building. He knew the process that he was instilling and the things that actually were tangible and flipped it. I think that's what I learned. Is how to win. In order to do it, you have to stay the course. You can't keep going in different directions because there's pressure, because people don't like where you're at. You have to stay the course in order to get somewhere. You can't turn around.”
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The evident enhancement in depth and talent has not been reserved for only the running back room, as the ASU defense has experienced its own wave of quality player additions. Defensive coordinator Brian Ward, who arrived shortly after Dillingham’s hire in Tempe, has been pleased with the progress his group has exhibited in the preseason.
“It really does feel like a second-year growth,” Ward said. “If I were to count our day one install, this is our fourth time with our day one install,
and then we're able to add little wrinkles to that. So you just put all the installs together and I really feel like our guys are grasping it, and we're ready to put the pads on against somebody else.
“It's not just the talent, it's the want-to, and it's the experience too. I know that for a lot of these guys, this is their first time putting on a Sun Devil uniform. But we have a lot of guys who have a lot of playing experience. So it's not going to be the bright lights for these guys. Our goal is just to keep these guys comfortable playing fast and doing what they know how to do.”
Considerable playing experience, though, isn’t an aspect that can describe the cornerback group as a whole. Washington State transfer Javan Robinson, who played one year under Ward, redshirted his freshman year in Pullman and, in 2023, played in only seven games. Keith Abney II, a fellow sophomore, saw action as a reserve in eight games for the Sun Devils last year. LSU defensive back transfer Laterrance Welch is the most veteran player in the group, seeing action in 22 games in the first two years with the Tigers. All other players in the two-deep or those vying for a spot there are true freshmen.
Nonetheless, Ward is confident in the unit’s abilities.
“We got two guys who are really, really savvy and high IQ players that have played different positions,” Ward said of Robinson and Abney, “who are incredibly good cover guys. And then we have the third guy (Welch) who's very experienced. We have really talented fourth and fifth guys. The two guys that we do have starting, Keith and Javan, along with LT, all those guys have played a lot of football before, but they maybe haven't started. But Keith played for us last year. Javan played at Washington State, and was a third corner for them up there last year, and the two guys that he was behind are both in the NFL.
“We feel really good about that position right now and the growth. The competition has really driven the performance in that room as well. So I’m excited to see what those guys are going to do.”
Dillingham confessed that the cornerback position was a question mark going into fall camp, but the performance of that unit, especially its starters, has shown the potential of this group.
“I think those two guys, Keith and Javan, have really separated themselves in terms of doing a nice job,” Dillingham said. “They're both just such intelligent players. They both care about the game and at that position, split indicators and route recognition are so important that both those guys play the game with an extremely high IQ. Then you have guys like LT, who's been out a little bit, but he was back today (Saturday), who's a veteran. You have young bucks. So we've got some good balance there.
“But what I like is that position is not just based off of the talent level. Those guys are really, really savvy football players. And savvy football players create tip balls, savvy football players create takeaways.”
Ward’s familiarity with Robinson, in particular, especially in light of senior Ed Woods's unexpected transfer in the late stages of spring practice, is providing him with a sense of comfort since the unknown element of his game is virtually non-existent.
“I saw him when he was a true freshman when we were up north together,” Ward recalled. “Seeing his development, we always knew the talent was there. And he can obviously run like the wind, but he has a high football IQ, and he's really hungry for this moment right now. I'm really excited to see what kind of year he has, and it starts next Saturday.”
The departure of nickel corner Macen Williams earlier this month has caused a shifting of players. Safety Shamari Simmons has been taking first-team reps and safety Kamari Wilson has been elevated from the bench to start alongside safety Xavion Alford. Ward feels that the rotation of both the nickel and safety positions isn't quite settled and that the abundance of talented players in those roles is contributing to this.
“That position (nickel), there's a lot of competition right there with Myles Rowser,” Ward described. “Xavion Alford has played both the strong and the free (safety). Shamari has played the free and the nickel, but they all have interchangeable abilities. So trying to develop our packages so we can put those guys in the right position in terms of matchups and how we're going to use those guys from week to week is going to vary.”
According to Ward, Having a considerably higher level of depth and skill and with a good number of returning players won't necessarily have the defensive playbook modified or become more complex.
“I think we're pretty creative, and we find ways to break our own tendencies,” Ward stated. “We really want to do what we do, and obviously add little wrinkles and try to be in the right calls in specific situations, and that's really up to me and the coaching staff. But our goal is to make it as simple as possible so our guys can use their ability without their minds slowing their feet down.”
The new helmet communication rule the NCAA enacted this year, that on defense allows coaches to relay a play to one designated player, is a procedure that all FBS teams will need to implement effectively in their in-game coaching, and perhaps it’s another reason to keep play calls more basic without significant modifications.
“It's a work in progress, “Ward said of the new rule. “It's kind of exciting. it gives you the ability to talk to your players and make them aware of situations and what to look for. I think there are some advantages and disadvantages, so we will see. It's going to be week to week, and this first year, there's going to be a lot of growth, and there's going to be probably a lot of regret, too. So, we're just going to try to use that to advantage if we can.”
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