As Arizona State inches closer to its first season in the Big 12 conference, the team will be met with a number of new experiences. One aspect awaiting ASU is offensive and defensive alignments that are more prevalent in their new conference than what they have been accustomed to in the Pac-12.
Iowa State was one of the first schools to use the three-high safeties defensive look in the Big 12, a formation that is more widespread in this league. On offense, “12” personnel, where the team uses one running back and two tight ends, and “21” personnel, featuring two running backs and one tight end, are the alignments that define many of the teams in the Big 12.
In fact, three of the top four returning rushing leaders in all of college football, Oklahoma State's Ollie Gordon (1,732 yards), Texas Tech's Thaj Brooks (1,538), and UCF's RJ Harvey (1.416), and their teams' run-dominating schemes will all face the Sun Devils this year.
“The league has changed a lot,” ASU Head Coach Kenny Dillingham said. “We’re going to see a lot of 12 personnel and 21 personnel and we’ll also see some three high safety stuff which hasn’t been in the Pac-12 in the past. Football is just a system of responses, and the offenses are responding to their systems of defense in the league.”
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Dillingham, along with coaches and players, hosted a camp today for grades 1-8, an event that featured over 100 kids in the Dickey Dome. The program takes a lot of pride in this event and sees it as a formidable sign of support for cultivating kids to join the Sun Devil fanbase.
“We didn’t have a youth camp last year because we went through some other organizations that wanted to do youth camps,” Dillingham explained. “This year, I wanted to make sure we do one ourselves, and this is year one of it. Hopefully, this continues to grow and grow and grow, but it’s great to see our guys coming out here.”
Among the players who volunteered for the camp were senior offensive lineman Leif Fautanu and sophomore defensive lineman C.J. Fite, who were joined by senior quarterback Trenton Bourguet and other Arizona State teammates.
Fautanu will take on more of a leadership role in his senior year, not only for the front five but also for the team as a whole. With the Sun Devils being extremely active in the transfer portal, Fautanu knows that returning veteran players such as himself will need to step up and assist in achieving the newcomers’ acclimation.
“I definitely think of myself as a leader for the team,” Fautanu commented. “There’s a standard that needs to be met inside the locker room, and coaches don’t really have control over that. It’s up to the players, so being a leader raises the importance of getting to know your teammates better and setting a standard for the team. How we ended last season left a bad taste in our mouths. We all have a chip on our shoulder and a lot of people are underestimating us, and that’s what’s driving us to excel this season.”
Fite is one of the more significant returning pieces of the defensive line, and even as a sophomore, he will be heavily counted on in this ASU group. The lineman is optimistic about the upcoming season in part because he lost a considerable amount of weight after playing his freshman year at 315 pounds.
“I feel much more comfortable,” Fite remarked. “Now that I have that first year done, I can focus on fine-tuning things about my game. I also feel more explosive and lighter. I got down to around 295 to 300 pounds, so I feel like that can help my pass rush more as well.”
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Dillingham and the coaching staff pulled a prank on the team after yesterday’s practice. It started with a plank competition to win the new EA Sports College Football 25 video game, which will be released in July. The last four players to still be planking would receive an early edition copy of the game.
When the players received the game and opened it up to see the disk, it was a fake disk. The three “winners” stood there shocked as the rest of the team surrounding them and jumped around laughing.
“We have a really good relationship with our guys,” Dillingham noted. “If they can play a joke on me, they’re going to. If I can play a joke on them, I’m going to. That’s part of the culture we’re building here … That’s what sports are about. It’s about experience, about things that you remember. Is it funnier for me than the guys who won? Oh yeah, but it was funny for the other 110 guys that didn’t win. There’s only four guys who didn’t think it was funny, and they still loved it.”
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One of the recent additions Dillingham acquired from the spring transfer portal is quarterback Jeff Sims, who spent last year at Nebraska and three years at Georgia Tech before that. Sims is coming off a rough 2023 campaign with the Huskers, passing for only 282 yards, one touchdown, and six interceptions. Dillingham said that he sees the raw talent Sims possesses, and the task that lies ahead for the coaching staff is how to control and shape that element into disciplined talent.
“He’s got a huge arm, talented, and he’s had a lot of success at times,” Dillingham described. “But there’s also been a lot of, to be honest, horrible plays at times. If you play 60 games and 55 of them are really good, how do you limit those five catastrophic games … You have to do it five plays at a time and have a plan every snap. Take a deep breath and go through your reads whether it’s third-and-seven, first-and-10, or fourth-and-goal from the two. Every play is the same play; you just gotta put together the circumstance.”
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Last year, ASU faced Oklahoma State and got a small taste of what other Big 12 opponents will look like. In a conference where the passion level is high, and football could be considered a religion, the Sun Devils know that there will be plenty to adjust to in their new surroundings in a season where they seek to record their first winning season since 2021.
“You can feel the (ASU team) culture changing,” Dillingham admitted. “I think the hardest part is going to be do we know how to win. The only way to learn how to win is to go through the games where it’s close and you can compete. You can have the talent to win, but at the end of the day, you have to make a play when the game’s on the line, and that’s a skill acquired over time."
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