Arizona State has reset the expectations with its run to the Big 12 title and College Football Playoff last season.
Kenny Dillingham’s 2024 team set a standard but for 2025 returns premium talent to the roster, starting with quarterback Sam Leavitt and receiver Jordyn Tyson.
And therein lies the priority for ASU football’s coaching staff when it comes to recruiting. That priority is about retainment.
“Guys can leave whenever they want, so when your best players are really still recruits. They have a choice to be there or not,” Dillingham told Arizona Sports’ Bickley & Marotta.
“When your best players are choosing to stay here, it means they have real relationships, they really actually enjoy the school, they actually enjoy the city, they are actually members of the community of the Valley. They’re one of the people, they’re one of us.”
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One of us is what Arizona State has created in its coaching staff, too. To this point and despite last season’s success, the Sun Devils haven’t been gutted with departures there, either.
It took a little movement last offseason for ASU to find stability. Most notably, there was turnover at offensive coordinator and receivers coach after Dillingham took on play-calling duties midyear in the 2023 campaign.
Arizona State last offseason hired former UNLV head coach Marcus Arroyo. Dillingham gave him the play-calling keys and the team’s success ended with Arroyo landing an extension after his first year on the job.
The Sun Devils also lost recruiting guru and receivers coach Ra’Shaad Samples to Oregon but pivoted with a splashy hire of long-time NFL receiver Hines Ward to replace him.
Dillingham has spoken highly about how well his staff has bonded and learned to move in the same direction, even though newcomers like Arroyo and Ward didn’t have first-hand experience with him before 2024.
“One person can ruin a culture,” Dillingham said. “Like, you could take the most beautiful, the best-made ice cream — I’m an ice cream guy as you can probably tell … and you can take a little bit of Tabasco and put it in that thing and it’s over. And I love Tabasco. But it’s over. The ice cream sucks now.”
Getting around town unnoticed isn’t as easy for ASU football coach Kenny Dillingham anymore
Dillingham’s second season — with a bit more success — put him in the spotlight much more than his three-win season to kick off his head-coaching career.
And with that comes a little more recognition, a little more fame and a little less time in public where the spotlight isn’t shining on him, Dillingham admitted Wednesday.
“I can still sometimes go incognito but I definitely get recognized more,” he said. “I would say my space is probably more limited now than what it was in terms of being able to just go and disappear. But that’s all a positive.
“At the end of the day, the longer you’re somewhere, they’re going to recognize you for sucking or recognize you for being good. I’d much rather somebody come over and want to take a photo than somebody look and snap a photo and say ‘this guy sucks’ and text it to their friends.”
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