When a dramatic roster turnover took place last year with the arrival of head coach Kenny Dillingham, having a team come together in short order with nearly 50 newcomers on the roster was anything but a remedial task. Nonetheless, the culture parameters that the first-year ASU staff established were able to achieve the glueyness that was necessary for the team.
While there may have been significantly fewer new faces in Tempe in the spring, with a 50% reduction in newcomers compared to last year, the harmony that the team demonstrated throughout spring was anything but an aspect Dillingham took for granted.
“I've said this before, I would say our team's pretty tight,” Dillingham remarked. “The majority of our guys have grown together. I think you can hear that with some comments just from people who show up, whether it's a recruit or an alumni who comes around our building and feels the culture that's built on.They can feel that. It's just natural, comfortable. Guys have relationships, they feel like they can be themselves here.
“And I think that's showing up when you take the field and guys communicate with each other. Somebody's having a bad day, and seven guys go up to him. All that stuff matters to these 20-year-olds. It's such a different age of college sports that to say I had like an exact science that in year two or year three, we should have that (culture established). I feel good about where we're at, from where we were 18 months ago. Culturally, talent level, just top-to-bottom recruiting…I feel like we're trending in the right direction.
"I'm also fully aware that a lot of bark with no bite doesn't matter. Eventually, we have to show on the field that we are improving to reflect on everything else that's improving. That has to show up on Saturdays; we have to be competitive. We got to be in games; we got to win games.”
Between the revolving door of the transfer portal and a NIL element that fuels the majority of players seeking new homes, the ire of fans everywhere, not only in the Valley of the Sun, has been consistent and vociferous. Yet, Dillingham knows that he has no other alternative but to put those two significant facets of today’s college football landscape in perspective and not have them steer him off the course that he has set in his efforts to better the program.
“It's not a matter of adapting or getting used to,” Dillingham stated. “It's just you control what you can control. Like I said the other day, everybody who's worried about all this stuff that has no effect on what I do today, or it may have an effect, but I can't control it...so why would I waste an ounce of energy on anything that's not gonna make us better? Every second I waste talking, feeling, whining, and complaining about something that doesn't get us better is wasted. I want everybody, our team, our players, our coaches, our community, and the valley to focus on what can get us where we want to go, not what has stopped us in the past from getting there. That’s something everybody can do.
“You never know what the difference is. And you never know the value you truly have somewhere. Whether you're the smallest role, the biggest role you don't know, and everybody in this community has a role in getting this program to where everybody thinks it can be.”
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More often than not, and this isn’t exclusive to ASU, players who enjoyed a formidable 2023 campaign have chosen to leave their teams even after just one year due to the lucrative NIL opportunities and lax transfer portal rules. Running back Cam Skattebo, who arrived in Tempe from FCS program Sacramento State, is certainly the exception.
Following a season in which he registered 1,074 all-purpose yards and scored ten touchdowns, Skattebo arrived at spring practice leaner and quicker and used last year as his springboard to become, according to Dillingham, one of the most outstanding performers over these March and April sessions.
“It just shows the direction we're going,” Dillingham said. “If you look at the guys that we brought in as a staff, I think we've lost one guy that our staff has brought with the last 70 something guys we brought in. The guys that we’re signing trust us because we don't lie to them. We don't promise them. We give them the hard truths, and they take those hard truths; they grow from them and get better. And they see that maybe when some people will just tell me what I want to hear, that'll hinder their growth. But here, you're gonna get the truth, whether you like it or not.
“For a guy like ‘Skat,’ he took that (truth), and he challenged himself. He got in the best shape of his life. And he's been one of my top three MVPs of camp because of his mindset and attitude. This spring ball has been (for Skattebo) absolutely night and day. I told him after last season in our exit interview, ‘I don't know if you're a Sunday guy.’ I told him about a week and a half ago, ‘I think you're a Sunday guy.’ And that's just because his mindset is working.
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The next to last practice of spring can be anti-climatic in nature, and Dillingham said that at the beginning of Wednesday’s session, things were headed in that direction, but to the players' credit, the pace did pick up, and the goals of that practice were achieved even in an abbreviated session.
“We banged a lot,” Dillingham said of spring practice, “so these last two days, I wanted us to learn how to practice. We do something called a Fast Friday in-season with just helmets on. And last year, our Fast Fridays were atrocious because they weren't fast. We got to learn how to be able to practice full speed with helmets on. So, I made that an emphasis from last fall that I wanted to fix in spring. And today, I actually thought we did that. It was high tempo, good energy, guys chasing the ball, and without pads on. You have to be able to do that if you want to play in games that matter at the end of the season.
“Our guys want it. They want to be good. Today's warm-ups weren't great. (Safety) Xavion Alfred brings everybody in and gives them a little talk, ‘Hey, we got to snap out of this. We gotta go practice. Let's maximize today.’ And then we went out and had a really good day to day. I told our guys after practice, ‘We can't always be the coaches. You guys got to look at each other and get yourself out of a hole. And today, we were about to fall into a hole, and our own team stopped us from falling into it.”
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Admittedly unable to stand disorganization, Dillingham used Wednesday’s practice as a dress rehearsal for Friday’s Spring Game. The same mix of players lined up during 11-on-11 segments on Wednesday. However, Friday’s event won’t be limited to the traditional extended scrimmage.
“It's not just going to be a scrimmage; there are going to be a lot of competitions,” Dillingham described. “We're gonna have a punt competition, O-linemen and D-linemen have to field punts. We're going to have a kickoff competition, a field goal competition, one-on-one competitions, wideouts versus defensive backs, linebacker versus running back. And then we'll do a little bit of 11 on 11.
“I think we got the majority of our work in; now it's time to showcase some of the guys, like our Leadership Council, that don't always get to be on TV. It's time to showcase those guys, and on the Pac-12 Network for the last time, let those guys be seen a little bit, let their parents, and let their community see them go out there and be the face of it. We need every guy on our team to be bought in. So we're gonna get those guys involved at a high level.”
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