After nine days off, Arizona State (11-2) has returned to the practice field. Their College Football Playoff quarterfinal is just over two weeks away, and their Peach Bowl opponent will be revealed this Saturday. With so much time before the Sun Devils take the field on New Year's Day, preparations to stay sharp and vigilant are well underway.
For ASU head coach Kenny Dillingham, orchestrating a plan that allowed the players to keep their conditioning up before their opponent was revealed was critical to their first couple of sessions this week. Correspondingly, the players have shown their hunger to be ready for the upcoming contest by staying grounded and continuing to focus on the little details that pay dividends between the lines.
“They came back and they were all in the meeting room like 11 or 12 minutes early,” Dillingham said about the Sunday evening team meeting. “Our standard is five minutes early, and we started our meeting 11 minutes or 12 minutes early. That was yesterday, so that’s how they came back—twice as early as they normally would—and to me, that was a sign that they were hungry to get back here. The energy level and the want-to level today was really good.”
When overachieving to a tremendous degree already, it's only natural for many ASU fans to be content with all that has been achieved this season. However, for the players—including senior linebacker Caleb McCullough—the effort poured into the 2024 season is far from over.
“Even though you got a game on January 1st, sometimes it can get like you can get a little complacent, get a little like, ‘Oh, we got time,’” McCullough said. “You don’t really get a lot of time, so it is just about using this time now to get as back to regular-season form as we can, and that’s just the most important."
“If you’re satisfied when you have a chance to be one of eight teams left in a sport that started with over 130, and you’re like, ‘Oh well, we made it,’ that’d be disappointing to me,” Dillingham remarked. “I think we’re different than that, and I think the fact that they showed up shows that they’re different than that. You know, we’re going to game by game, day by day, and we’re going to be the very best versions of us and see how far we go.”
Unsurprisingly, the team had some rust to shake off during Monday’s practice despite coming back to jolted levels of intensity. Numerous dropped balls and other mishaps were evident on a team that had to overcome a week-plus hiatus from football activities.
“It’s going to be sloppy, but the intent was there. The energy was there," Dillingham described. "All that was there, so I was happy with it, but obviously, we knew it was going to be a little sloppy today. I think they had a good little break there, mentally and physically, so it’s time to get back at it. We’re preparing for us; we’re trying to fix some things that we got to get better at, trying to fine-tune some things from our perspective, and get our conditioning level back up.”
“We started practicing effort today, and we’ll do that the next two days, trying to flush the system and get back to a good mindset. We haven’t played a four-quarter football game. By the time we play in the Peach Bowl, it would have been six weeks since we played four quarters of football. Our starters didn’t play in the last quarter of the Arizona game, and they didn’t play the last quarter of last week’s game (Big 12 championship contest), so it’s going to literally be six weeks since they played four full quarters of football. That’s the number one thing I’m trying to balance right now.”
The players shared Dillingham’s sentiments about the quality of the practice, but understanding the process behind the work has been integral for the defensive unit since returning to Tempe. Monday’s session consisted of more contact segments than usual, as the players got a chance to hit each other and go full speed with little breaks or having a more leisurely pace to drills.
“Today we felt like it was high energy and stuff, but it wasn’t our better practices for details, stuff like that,” senior defensive back Xavion Alford commented. “That’s why we come back out here, have these days. We’re trying to really get back to work as soon as possible, really, so we felt like today was the day that we had to kind of work the kinks out, things like that. But everybody focused. Everybody knows what games we’re going into, you know what’s at stake, so we really just focused on, like I said, attacking the process each and every day the same way and getting ready to come back out here on Wednesday and go to work.”
There’s no doubt or apprehension that the players will be well in tune with their fitness and preparation well ahead of the impending Peach Bowl matchup on New Year’s Day. Sophomore cornerback Keith Abney II has already begun watching wide receiver film for both of the potential matchups during his time away from Tempe.
“Now we see who we could potentially play, so I’ve been watching Texas and Clemson, just you know, seeing what they have, just little things,” Abney said. “It’s cool, though, just a great experience, and we are happy to be here.”
Abney’s drive to watch the film during his time away from the field is a small fraction of an overarching change in culture for ASU, which is developing at an exponential rate compared to the 2023 season. It’s clear that all the new additions drastically aided the process on the defensive side of the ball.
“I think the competition that we have makes people better around them. I think the standard and the competition around the rooms only elevates people,” Dillingham said.
For McCullough, his experience in Tempe is unlike anyone else on defense. As a senior and five-year Sun Devil, his time with the program has dragged him through the downs of treacherous and difficult seasons. Staying motivated through his own desires to improve and become the best player he can be. Now, as a senior, his role is larger than it’s ever been, with the third-most tackles of any player on the roster. McCullough’s perseverance has resulted in his favor now playing for more than just himself.
“When you don’t have a head coach and when all your boys are leaving, you for sure think about things like that,” McCullough said about potentially leaving ASU in the past. “But I trust in God, trust in my family, and honestly, I trust in coach Dillingham, so I’m just glad I stayed.
“I always felt like football was a perfect game for me to put my family in a position to win. To take care of them, so honestly, I think about my family a lot and how like I could use my football career now to better them in the future, and that’s really what pushes me on hard days and hard times.”
When playing in the College Football Playoff, the game is about more than just the individual players in between the lines for 60 minutes. With life-altering moments occurring every second of each snap, the players understand the two weeks of preparation leading up to the Peach Bowl are unlike anything they’ve faced in their careers thus far. For Abney, leaning on his family to compartmentalize these moments has aided him thus far, and his perspective is one of the common themes amongst the ASU players.
“It hit me the day after when we came up to do the seeding and stuff. It hit me; I got a little emotional, man. It did hit me, I ain’t going to lie,” Abney admitted. “So it’s just, it’s great. I’m just happy that we’re in this position, that all the hard work that we put in is starting to pay off. And we’re going to keep going, trusting the process, working every day. You know, coming in doing the workouts, hard, hard days, long days, just coming in and working. This team cares. We really care about this, and we just trust in the process.”
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