"This is not a fallback plan": Dillingham talks recent recruiting success

Despite the setback of losing its 2023 game-one starting quarterback, wide receiver, and a key depth piece at the tight end just a week ago, Arizona State has managed to turn the tide of disappointment into a wave of optimism as high as “A” Mountain, and as fast as a Ferrari.

The recent announcements of four commitments to the Sun Devils under the leadership of head coach Kenny Dillingham, positioning ASU in the Top 25 2025 recruiting rankings, are a testament to the team's effective recruiting efforts and the attractiveness of ASU as a destination program.

“Absolutely trending,” Dillingham said regarding the latest recruiting news. “People want to be here. This is not a fallback plan. There are people all over the country who want to be here. This isn’t ‘Let me check out things and see if I’ll fall back here.’ This is a place that I take a lot of pride in, and a fallback plan is not one of those points of pride. For me, this was the plan. And we’re going to sign people here that this is their plan—one hundred percent.”

Noting his hometown school as his dream job throughout his early days on campus, Dillingham wants to do with ASU as he built himself. As he personally rose up the ranks in several different assistant spots across the country, the main objective remained to return to the Valley and bring Arizona State football to prominence the same way Dillingham built his profile. Of course, the Sun Devil lifer isn’t taking a decade-long climb into creating this program, and a haul of a recruiting weekend makes that evident.

In the last few days alone, Arizona State has been stockpiling high-profile commitments for the 2025 high school class. Four-star wideout Adrian Wilson headlines a group of three-star defensive backs in Rylon Dillard-Allen, Benjamin Alefaio, and Isaiah Iosefa, who have all given their pledge to the maroon and gold. Off this productive weekend, paired with previous pledges, the Sun Devils now hold the 21st-best class nationally, good for a top-three group mark in the Big 12 Conference.

The contingent of defensive backs signals an overhaul into a position group that had been gutted of talent, losing leaders such as Ro Torrence and Jordan Clark.

“We’re in a great place with our room compared to where it was last year,” cornerbacks coach Bryan Carrington said. “Our job in the 2025 and 2026 season is just continue to climb, evaluate, and bring in better student-athletes.”

“We’re 18 months into this process,” Dillingham noted. “I say this is our first real class. You’re two years behind, naturally. If you’re not recruiting sophomores, something’s wrong. I feel we’re starting to get people to understand. It’s a community of people that all have to get behind this cause to get this place where we all know it can go.”

Part of Dillingham’s recruiting pitch of “Activate The Valley” doesn’t just keep local kids home but also establishes connections into football-rich territories elsewhere. This is a point of recruiting that Carrington emphasizes in how one signing can snowball into several more, with Arizona State in particular, dipping into talent pools out west and down south.

“Texas to Tempe, the Poly Pipeline, Louisianimals, CaliSunDevils, you name it,” Carrington described. “It’s important nowadays because every kid is on their cell phone, and the world is smaller. You’d be dumb not to try to build a national footprint. All it takes is one kid to establish a pipeline. One kid becomes five kids, and in three years, it becomes 12.”

Considering its current class, outreach across the country, and the plethora of recruits who observe spring practice each week, an objective mind would say Dillingham's alma mater is moving in the right direction.

As much optimism as such an incoming group provides, the cycle of college football roster building has its other side. ASU was reminded of that with the loss of redshirt senior Ed Woods. As a starting defensive back the previous two seasons, Woods’s abrupt entry into the transfer portal wasn’t as forecasted as other previous departures in Tempe, leaving a significant void in the secondary.

“I didn’t know that for sure (if he was transferring),” DIllingham admitted. "That was still up in the air when we took practice. Obviously, I have a lot of respect for Ed. He’s a good player; I really want Ed to succeed in life.”

In usual Dillingham fashion, he and his staff are already eyeing his other options.

“It’s the reality of college football today,” Carrington added. “We wish him the best, but first and foremost, we have to take care of Arizona State.”

“That is a loss for us, and it's a position that we got to get a guy,” Dillingham remarked. “I think our defensive back room is really talented. We have to go back and go. Is it moving Keith Abney back to the corner, signing a transfer, or rolling with some young bucks faster in the rotation? I don’t know. That’s something our staff will get on and talk about.”

It may be a challenge and a long process for the future to outweigh the loss of the current today, but to Dillingham, the power of positivity is the driving force toward a Sun Devil revival that he knows he can’t complete alone.

“Let’s stop with the negative,” he implored. “Stop with the things in our past and what we are doing to get to where we want to go. That is the vision, but we need everybody involved."

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