Kenny Dillingham has started to activate the Valley. Now, it’s time for Arizona State to prove the sleeping giant that so many have described has awakened by retaining him.
Dillingham took over an ASU program ahead of the 2023 season while it was dealing with NCAA sanctions and coming off a three-win season. Year 2 saw a Big 12 title in ASU’s inaugural season in the conference and Year 3 included a seasonlong sellout, in addition to playing for a spot in the Big 12 title in the last regular season game.
Everything about how his coaching tenure has started — and everything about how he’s spoken about the place while being a top candidate for one of the sport’s premier jobs — screams proof of concept.
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If 19 (and potentially 20) wins in the last two seasons don’t show that, interest from LSU, Florida and Michigan certainly does.
Athletic director Graham Rossini told Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo that ASU and Dillingham are working through the details of updates to his contract to keep him in the Valley.
“Dillingham is the right leader for our football program,” Rossini said Thursday. “There’s a lot of things we want to solidify.
“I’m aware that we can’t just play these processes out, we’ve been hard at work at it for a long time,” he continued. “Coach and I have very open dialogue about the tools that can help the program grow. We’re finding those tools because it’s deserved … based on the job that he’s doing.”
The onus is on Rossini, ASU president Michael Crow and the businesses throughout Tempe and the Valley as a whole to step up to the plate and ensure the coach has what he needs.
Given that what the head coach has done to this point can be characterized as “doing more with less,” it’s unlikely that any amount ASU could give Dillingham would be viewed as too much.
So where is the money?
Where is the Valley equivalent of Crumbl CEO Jason McGowan committing to pay for BYU’s field-storming after beating Utah? ASU, meanwhile, is building field rushes into the football budget, according to Rossini.
What about a private equity deal akin to what Utah reached — with a New York-based firm at that — which could inject $500 million into the Utes athletic department?
The key to negotiations could also be football staff security, which Dillingham alluded to on Tuesday. Whether that’s raises for staffers already there, adding a general manager position that dozens of other programs already have or something else entirely, what ground does ASU have to stand on and tell the coach he’s wrong?
Before he was hired, Ari Wasserman wrote in The Athletic about why Dillingham was the must-hire candidate to wake the sleeping giant “from its coma,” and everything he described about how the coach would engineer it now seems prophetic:
Filling the staff with ASU ties — retained running backs coach Shaun Aguano (Chandler High School) and hired tight ends coach Jason Mohns (Saguaro High School) Taking lower-level Arizona recruits to pave the way for blue-chippers down the line — each Dillingham team has had at least a dozen Arizona players and ASU is positioned well to get high-profile recruits in the 2027 class Selling the Valley as a place to live after players’ careers end — Dillingham has done so every chance he’s gotten, and Cam Skattebo and Xavion Alford are among the players who have said they could envision living here after their careers are up.The biggest thing Wasserman wasn’t right about? “It’ll be a slow build.”
It wasn’t the first time the “sleeping giant” term was used, and if Dillingham does depart for Michigan — or anywhere else in the near future — it may become a common term again for whatever coach awaits ASU in its future.
But the Sun Devils have the coach that is starting to wake it up; why let him walk now? Why let a coach like Dillingham walk when you’d then be hoping another Dillingham comes along?
For now, it appears the next domino to fall in the process will be on Friday in Alabama’s first-round game at Oklahoma in the College Football Playoff. Kalen DeBoer has remained a Michigan candidate despite issuing a statement that was more of a firm denial than anything Dillingham has given.
Until given a situation he can fully get behind with ink on the dotted line, the temperature may continue to heat up.
If it’s not Michigan, it could be a DeBoer-less Alabama that ASU has to fend off.
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