What better way to end your first year as a head coach than against your former employer and your most hated rival? While the schedule gods seemed to bless Kenny Dillingham with a potential storybook ending to what’s been an overall ugly season, Arizona State’s season-closing matchups with Oregon and Arizona are a trip down memory lane for the Valley native. Before securing his dream job with the Sun Devils this year, Dillingham spent 2022 as the offensive coordinator for the Oregon Ducks, who come into Tempe this weekend looking to clinch a spot in the Pac-12 title game and keep their college football playoff hopes alive. While it hasn’t even been a year since he was on their sideline, Dillingham knows his old friends will look completely different when they meet this weekend.
“There’s a balance,” Dillingham said of the team’s preparation. “I can go and tell them certain things that I know that I instilled in them last year that they still do. But they know I know that. They’re not gonna let Bo (Nix) go to the line and do the same thing that they do. So, there’s a little bit of a chess match that I need to get away more than I need to get involved. I need to talk about personnel, strengths, weaknesses, and what they do well.”
There’s one player who dons the green and gold that Dillingham will be focused on in particular. Oregon quarterback Bo Nix has broken out in his second year in Eugene, and a lot of his improvements are due in part to Dillingham. Having been Nix’s offensive coordinator both at Oregon and previously at Auburn, Dillingham and Nix’s relationship is more than just a player and a coach. Since their split last year, though, the one constant of the Oregon offense to Dillingham is the continued progression of his former protege.
“There are some similarities,” Dillingham said regarding the Oregon offense. “Just because they play to Bo’s strengths. I think they’re playing better. I think Bo is just a better version of what he was last year. We got comfortable with him getting the ball out quickly last year. Now, he’s doing it on steroids. I just think everything that that offense was, I think they’re just better
then they were last year.”
It’s not just Nix, but the Ducks’ offense as a whole is what makes them so dangerous.
“It’s a very tough challenge, to be honest,” Dillingham noted. “I don’t know if anybody has done it all year. They’re the number one or number two offense in the country in passing, rushing, third downs, almost every statistical category. It goes back to two running backs that have returned. Five O-linemen, three of which, maybe four, are gonna play on Sundays. They have a quarterback who’s the front-runner for the Heisman. They have a wideout who’s a first-rounder and two other wideouts who are gonna get drafted. They have a team on offense, a ton of returners at the skill positions, and is filled with NFL guys. That’s a very good combination.”
As successful as they’ve been on offense, the Ducks defense has also been a force to be reckoned with. Under the mentorship of head coach Dan Lanning, who was responsible for the construction and execution of one of college football’s greatest defensive units ever at Georgia, Oregon currently stands in the top 25 of the nation in total defense and first downs allowed. Being forced to go way outside the box offensively against UCLA, Dillingham and the team know the task will be tough against another fearsome, ball-stopping opponent.
“Their defensive line is stout,” Dillingham emphasized. “They’re getting their defensive line built like a Georgia defensive line, coach Lanning’s background, which is big, big people that are physical and a couple of guys you can pass rush. But they wanna stop the run and play all the match coverages behind it.”
“They’re a great defense, another great defense in the Pac-12,” Trenton Bourguet added. “Super solid up front with great rushers and run-stoppers. Linebackers do a great job of flying around. DBs do a good job of playing press technique, playing off. It’ll be a great test for us.”
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To combat their efficiency on defense, wide receivers coach Rashaad Samples emphasized the need to play up to the Duck’s level of physicality.
“They’re gonna be physical,” Samples mentioned. “They’re gonna get hands on our guys, battle, and test your physicality. They’re gonna try to push you and reroute you. We just gotta be strong within our routes. We gotta come off the ball and match that physicality.”
Knowing how tough of a task is on their hands this weekend, Dillingham made the call earlier this week to Sun Devil fans to show up and show out for their second-to-last home game of the season. While the support from that standpoint is wait-and-see, positive signs are already being shown. Following the resignation of Ray Anderson as the Arizona State athletic director on Monday, the “Sun Angel” NIL collective saw its highest single-day uptick in membership since its inception. Dillingham couldn’t be more pleased with the support his program is getting in a time of need.
“It’s what we need,” Dillingham stressed. “Can we keep that momentum going? That’s the challenge. Can we, every day, set a new record? How many days in a row can we, as a valley, as an ASU community with over 100,000 graduates, can we set a record whether you give ten dollars a month or you give 250 dollars a month, it doesn’t matter. How many days in a row can we break that record?”
Dillingham related his urge for participation in the NIL space to ASU’s search for a new athletic director as well, citing a candidate who is familiar with the rapidly growing and highly-important landscape.
“The way college athletics is going, the changing of college athletics, somebody with a background that’s been at one of these big institutions recently or is still there,” Dillingham noted. “Because he understands the changing of this landscape, he understands how they’re changing and how we need to maneuver and change. You almost have to get somebody of that background that is in it and part of the change at a high level.”
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Speaking of change at a high level, Jalin Conyers has experienced just that on the field. Having been the Sun Devils main offensive weapon coming into the season, Conyers hasn’t put up the same gaudy numbers, albeit under much more difficult circumstances. Where his role has increased, though, is in what the box score doesn’t tell, as Conyers ' improvement in the blocking game has been vastly improved. Having been uninterested in that side of things when he first came to campus, Conyers sees his role change this year as a reflection of his initial reversal as a newcomer.
“I try to remember where I started when I first got here,” Conyers remembered. “I wanted to play tight end, but I didn’t wanna block. I kinda had to grow a pair and grow up. If you wanna be a tight end, you’re gonna have to eat it.”
What’s come out of that acceptance is national recognition not only as a legitimate threat at tight end but as a blocker as well.
“Probably the coolest thing that I’ve ever had happen to me was making that PFF team, and I didn’t catch a pass,” he said. “I never thought I’d be in that situation.”
Perhaps a situation that ASU could’ve envisioned them in comes this week with a chance to spoil the season of a national contender. Having pulled off an upset over Oregon of similar proportions in 2019, with a middling ASU squad hosting a playoff hopeful, the team will hope to rekindle their old magic for another monumental victory over the Ducks.
“That was super exciting,” Bourguet recalled. “Great atmosphere. Hoping the atmosphere is like that again. It’s pretty much identical. I think they were ranked sixth at the time; now they’re sixth again. They had Justin Herbert; now they have Bo Nix. It’s gonna be another great opportunity for us to put on for the home state in front of our home crowd. Gonna be super exciting.”
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