ASU Football: Dashaun Mallory finds freedom with Sun Devils

(Photo via Hailey Rogalski/WCSN)

Enduring yet another sweltering August day during a record-breaking heat wave, sluggishness filled Tempe’s Kajikawa Practice Fields.

Arizona State football was just four days away from beginning its 2023 season, and yet players looked slothful in their Sunday morning practice. They went through the motions without smiles or signs of energy, typically a practice staple established by first-year head coach Kenny Dillingham.

But if a casual observer switched their attention to the defensive line group, one player stood out. As the unit practiced a one-on-one rip-through drill, this 6-foot-1, 275-pound Sun Devil sprung off the line with graceful effortlessness. He swiped past the scout team lineman with quick hands and a burst of aggression. 

Later in the practice, he chopped his maroon-and-gold cleats in the grass as he approached a tackling dummy. As he swam around it, an audible, sharp and loud grunt could be heard. It was a consistent effort as opposed to his defensive line counterparts.

Dashaun Mallory, a graduate defensive tackle, stole the show at the Aug. 27 practice, just hours after vice president for university athletics Ray Anderson informed the team of ASU’s self-imposed bowl ban for the 2023 season.

“It’s just a smack in the face, honestly,” Mallory said.

Still, the news didn’t faze Mallory that morning, or shift his mindset leading into his final collegiate season.

“For me being older, I’ve been in this business for a little bit so I kind of understand what it’s like to be [at] a bowl game,” said Mallory, 24, a transfer from Michigan State. “I’ve been fortunate enough to (have) been to a couple. This time around, to me it didn’t really hit me that hard because it’s like, ‘Okay, I’ve already had the bowl game.’ 

“But for the young guys, I just tried to come out here and be an example of someone that just kept their head down, kept their composure, and just came out here and worked.”

If Mallory was tasked with the same obstacle at Michigan State, he might have handled it differently.

But this was ASU’s Mallory, who in his short time had already morphed into a dependable leader and contributor as a starting defensive tackle, a role that was scarcely granted to him during his five-year tenure in East Lansing. 

Across 27 games as a Spartan, Mallory had four starts. His stats featured 44 tackles, five tackles for a loss and 2.5 sacks. 

Even with expectations placed upon Mallory in Tempe, the weight on his shoulders was inversely lifted instead of pressed down. This is what he had wanted all along. He was finally detached from his past, and it was time to take advantage.

“I feel like when I put my hand in that ground, not to be all cliché, but I want to chase freedom,” Mallory said in August. “I feel like I’ve had a lot of years where I’ve been waiting for my opportunity to come out, so now that it’s here, there’s no time for me to mosey off the ball (and) be slow. These are my teammates, but at the end of the day, they’re all enemies. I just feel like when I’m out there I can’t be touched, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to win.”

The leadership and maturity Mallory showed after the bowl ban announcement might have impressed people unfamiliar with his character, but his reaction was indicative of how he’s behaved his whole life. 

Even as a middle child, Dashaun was always protective of his siblings, according to his mother, Donna Mallory. Donna said that her son started walking and talking at 10 months old, “not even walking first, he started running first.” Since then, he has always felt a need to be there for others.

“I’ve always told him, ‘It’s like [you] just wanted to grow up before your time,’” Donna said. “He was just so into everybody else’s stuff. He just wanted to know, just wanted to be there. He feels like he just has to protect everybody.”

A quiet-natured kid, Mallory was the type of person at school to notice a lonely student, introduce himself and invite the student to join his friend group. Donna said that he was a popular kid while attending Bolingbrook High School — playing on his varsity football team all four years — in Bolingbrook, Illinois, a suburb southwest of Chicago. Still, he didn’t act like he stood on a pedestal.

“Just because Dashaun is more of a popular kid, he’s showing attention to someone who may not get any attention,” Donna said. “Then, now this person may gather some friends that now were Dashaun’s friends. So he looks out for people like that. He’s always willing to help. He’s so polite, (and) I can rely on him all the time.”

Mallory’s first sport was wrestling. He didn’t start playing football until he was 12 years old and only put on pads as a way to hang out with his friends.

His father, Shaun Chambers, said Mallory was too big to play Pop Warner football. But when he finally stepped on the field, he assumed a protector role again.

“Dashaun is more defending himself (when he plays),” Chambers said. “He’s very, very aggressive. When he figures you out, you’re going to have a problem. Off the field, you wouldn’t know he’s aggressive like that. He’s very humbling. But once he puts those cleats [on], he puts that helmet on and he turns into ‘The Incredible Hulk.’”

Whenever Mallory participates in something, he has an innate willingness to learn and master the task, with Chambers saying “he turns into whatever it is he’s focused [on],” on the field and off.

“He imitated me so much, he used to be so funny,” Chambers said. “The way I walk, he’d try to walk like me. If I hold my cup a certain way, he would try to do it. It’s funny because I still have videos (of him) doing this type of stuff. Growing up, he’s watching Ray Lewis, he’s watching (Troy) Polamalu. He’s watching all these guys and he’s like, ‘I want to do that.’ And once he says this is what he wants to do, he’s going to do it.”

The determined mindset was immediately evident on Mallory’s 12U football team, the first organized football team he played on. His Bolingbrook squad, called the Patriots, reached the national championship game in Florida and lost. Mallory’s teammates cried following the defeat, but Dashaun stood in front of the stage as the opposing team received its trophy. The players came down and congratulated him, impressed by how he handled the moment.

“I’m standing here watching [Mallory], and he’s standing there looking at me like, ‘I’m going to be back. I’m going to be back.’”

Next year, Mallory played on the 14U team as a defensive lineman, quarterback, running back and tight end. The Patriots returned to the championship game once again, this time bringing home the hardware.

Those innocent childhood football days soon faded away at Michigan State. Mallory played in the highest division of Illinois high school football and left Bolingbrook High School as a top-three ranked defensive tackle in the state. He then made the 3-hour, 45-minute drive to East Lansing, where he was literally reshaped into a different player. 

Mallory left home as a 6-foot-1, 265-pound 3-star recruit. By the start of his freshman season in 2018, he was listed at 331 pounds. 

“That wasn’t Dashaun at Michigan State,” Chambers said. “He was way more aggressive (in high school). [Michigan State] put 100 pounds on him. He couldn’t play his style of football. That was not him.”

As a Spartan, the heaviest Mallory weighed at one point was 350 pounds. 

“Michigan State wanted him to put on some weight and he put on more weight than he should have, in my opinion,” Donna said. “And then he was challenged to play at that weight, and it was difficult for him.”

Dashaun redshirted his freshman season and played in just two games with 25 total snaps the following year. In the COVID-shortened 2020 season, he finally saw trickles of meaningful playing time, playing in all seven games and registering two starts. Despite recording 15 tackles with three tackles for loss and two sacks on the year, things still didn’t feel right for the defensive tackle. 

“I definitely went through a mental battle to (the point) where I definitely wanted to quit football,” Mallory said. “I definitely didn’t think I could compete anymore. I never knew why I wasn’t really playing there.”

At the same time, he kept his parents in the dark about his personal struggles. Chambers, who Mallory says calls his phone more than anyone else, didn’t hear from his son for extended periods of time. All he could do was be frustrated by what he saw on the field.

“[Michigan State’s] defensive line is struggling but when he comes in a game, it’s a big play,” Chambers said. “It’s a sack, it’s a fumble, it’s a tackle for yards loss and then once [the coaches] see that, they take him completely out of the game. That’s hard to deal with, that’s hard to watch as a parent. So I can imagine as a kid that’s out there playing, that’s hard for him to deal with.”

“There’s certain things that of course he still hasn’t told me that he had to endure there to get to the next level that was a little bit probably traumatizing,” Donna said. “A lot of stuff that he had to deal with (by) himself. Of course when we talked to him, we’re thinking everything is okay and little did we know that he started going through his own little battles there at the school, but of course they’re only allowed to tell us so much.”

In February 2021, Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio announced his retirement, and the Spartans quickly hired former Colorado head coach Mel Tucker to fill the position. At this point, Dashaun was already back at home as Michigan State tried to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Once he heard the news of the new hire, he knew his playing time wasn’t guaranteed.

Mallory quickly made a mental switch and set a goal to lose weight. Chambers said he ate meals from Chipotle two to three times a day, with “straight water, no pop, no juice, no candy.” He put himself through even more.

“On top of that, it was what he was doing,” Chambers said. “He put his body through a lot. Right down the street from his house there’s a ski hill … This dude was running up that ski hill every other day. Then he was running in sand, running up the ski hill with parachutes on, and the sled with the weights at the bottom. He put himself through a lot to lose that. Like I said, once he’s determined, he’s going all the way in.”

The lowest weight Mallory reached was 245 pounds. The transformation was stunning.

“He tortured himself,” Chambers said. “He really was like, ‘I’m not coming back here and getting cut. I want to show that I can play.’ And this is crazy — the only publicity that Michigan State gave him was when he came back with the weight loss.”

By the start of the 2021 season, Mallory weighed a comfortable 285 pounds. Despite feeling lighter like his former self, he still didn’t find favor from the new coaching staff, logging just 12 tackles and 0.5 tackles for loss across 10 games.

Chambers said the coaches were constantly critical of Mallory’s play, saying, “They made him feel like everything he was doing was wrong.” Donna said the staff programmed Dashaun to play a certain way, turning him “robotic.”

Perhaps the most heartbreaking part of Mallory’s 2021 season came in the Spartans’ Peach Bowl win against Pitt. Mallory was put in the game towards the end. Afterwards, he cried and didn’t celebrate with his teammates on the field.

Another season and another opportunity was gone.

“He got in, but they played other people over him,” Chambers said. “And these guys basically went to the (NFL) draft after that. Dashaun missed two drafts. So you tell me how frustrating is that for a kid, and then how frustrating is that for a parent.”

Unfortunately, Mallory’s struggle with playing time is a harsh reality some players face at the onset of new coaching regimes. 

Kevin Vickerson, a Michigan State defensive tackle and 11-year NFL veteran, was an assistant coach and defensive analyst while Mallory was a Spartan. He noticed Mallory at a NIKE football camp and told defensive line coach Ron Burton about Dashaun’s skills, and Burton then heavily recruited him. Vickerson said Mallory is almost like his nephew. With his experience as both a player and coach, he can empathize with both parties.

“Some coaches might not like you as much as the last coaching staff did,” Vickerson said. “That type of stuff happens. All we got to do with that part is control what we can control.

“At times, it’s his story and it’s their story. It’s one of those deals where now, you got to figure it out. It’s like, what’s the next move?”

The following spring semester, Mallory graduated from Michigan State with a major in Interdisciplinary Studies/Global Citizenship and Social Sustainability. He was at a crossroads in deciding his next move — stay at Michigan State for his fifth year of eligibility or enter the transfer portal.

But before he reached a verdict, Chambers convinced Mallory to stay with him at his home in Minnesota, where he had lived since 2010. 

“I told him, ‘Look, I know you’re going to go home. I know you’re trying to figure out what you’re going to do, but I just need one week with you.’”

So Mallory came to Minnesota, where he finally told his dad details about his true experience in East Lansing.

The weight loss. The love lost for the game. The lack of clarity about his playing time. Getting “challenged” in practice. Sometimes, Mallory would get first-team practice reps but didn’t know if he would even play come game time.

“Just so much stuff that I didn’t know, [Dashaun] just opened up like a book,” Chambers said. “I cried like a kid.”

Chambers finally understood why his son never wanted to talk about football over the phone. All of it was buried inside him.

“You put your trust in somebody and then that’s the person that hurt you,” Chambers said. “So it’s like, how do you trust anybody? And that’s what happened.”

The week in Minnesota was the longest Chambers had spent with Mallory in some time. When it was time for Dashaun to leave and head back to Michigan State, he closed Chambers’ garage and gave his father a hug. At this moment, Chambers bawled into Dashaun’s burly chest.

“That’s when I told him, I’m like, ‘You’re going to have to give them hell this year and if it [doesn’t] work, you have to go in the portal,’” Chambers said.

When Mallory made it back home, he gave Chambers a ring. He told him he cried too as he was driving back. 

“He was like, ‘Man, I miss you,’” Chambers said. “He just didn’t want to cry in front of me, but he was like, ‘Man, that drive was hard.’”

So Dashaun returned to Michigan State for one more year, and it once again left more to be desired. He made a position switch to defensive end, where Chambers says “he was way more explosive,” and earned two starts on the season. He missed four total games due to injury, including the first three weeks due to an unexpected blood clot issue that kept him out for all of spring football earlier in the year. 

“You got to understand, Dashaun had some severe blood clots,” Vickerson said. “And that piece was scary for all of us because they left and they came back. I know a lot of coaches didn’t know how to handle that piece. 

“Dealing with that, as a coach, you got to protect the guy from himself as well. Having that in the back of the mind every time he touched the field — ‘Is he alright? Is he going to fall down or if he gets hit this hard and bleeds out’ … So that piece was something that Dashaun had to deal with too — understanding the safe limits of just him.”

In addition, Mallory thought the coaching staff was going to make him a captain for the season, according to Chambers. But his hopes were soon dashed, and the coaches gave someone else the captain spot.

“They were playing mental games with him and I just told him, ‘Look, just do what you got to do,’” Chambers said. “‘We just got to get up out of there.’”

Chambers even accused Burton — now the Spartan’s former defensive line coach — of lying about Mallory being injured at one time, saying Burton inflicted “mental abuse” on Mallory.

Burton left the program in January 2022 to “look for new opportunities,” with rumblings of “issues behind the scenes,” according to a report from 247Sports reporter Justin Thind. 

After the 2022 season ended, Mallory entered the transfer portal and committed to ASU in January, but still had a few assignments he needed to complete in order to transfer. By the time he found out, he had missed the enrollment period at ASU. Chambers questioned how Dashaun was ruled academically ineligible despite already graduating.

Michigan State also mailed Mallory memorabilia of his individual accolades while he was in the portal, ones he didn’t know for which he was being awarded. The objects included a framed jersey and game ball that acted as “player of the week” honors for specific games. Vickerson reasoned that the school might have miscalculated how many years Dashaun had left, thinking that the defensive tackle was out of eligibility. 

“I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’” Vickerson said. “‘How can you do that?’”

Since being at ASU, Mallory hasn’t dove into specifics about his time at Michigan State, and actually feels like he left the program on good terms. Once again, he showed maturity in light of a challenging time.

“No disrespect to my old school but again, they got an 18-year-old kid and were able to tell him to do whatever they wanted him to do,” Mallory said. “I’ve grown into my own man, I understand life a little bit more and since I’ve been here (at ASU), it’s been easier to step outside and really just enjoy the process.” 

Despite his transfer being delayed, Mallory stayed in contact with ASU throughout the process and was finally able to join the Sun Devils for summer workouts. 

Instead of complaining about the lack of publicity and playing time he received at Michigan State, Mallory put his head down and went to work. The 2023 season meant more than just doing it for himself — he selflessly dedicated it to Bolingbrook. 

“I’m from Chicago and I’m a long way from home,” Mallory said. “There’s a lot of kids looking up to me from back home, so just being here in Arizona, I know it’s a party school (and) whatever the case may be, but I’m really here to work. I go to practice, I go to the weight room, I go to meetings and I go right back home, and I study. I’m locked in the house because it means more to me. 

“So when I say ‘chase freedom,’ if I can show the kids back home (that) no matter where you’re at — no matter what you try to do in life — you can get it done as long as you believe in yourself.” 

On the field, Mallory has played with his “chase freedom” mindset thanks to his coaches, who have displayed the trust that Mallory never felt at Michigan State.

A central trusting figure has been defensive line coach Vince Amey, who said that he and Dashaun “almost have a father-son bond.”  

“I give him the freedom to speak,” Amey said. “But when it’s time to dial in, I can tell him to shut up. And he’s not taking it personally, he understands.”

“I don’t [have] to go out there and not necessarily feel like a coach will yell at me if I mess up,” Mallory said. “They look me in my eyes, (and) they trust me. And I feel like being a starter here actually means something to me. Being an older guy, being a vet in the room, there’s something else that they see besides a football player.”

The new position has allowed Mallory to reclaim the leadership role he once had growing up. Redshirt freshman defensive tackle Tristan Monday said that Mallory, redshirt senior defensive tackle Anthonie Cooper and Amey have all combined to teach him how to play as a three-technique interior defender. Despite being a soft-spoken, lead-by-example player, Mallory has his moments of speaking up.

“He likes to keep to his own until you get to know him and then he opens up a little bit,” Monday said. “It’s always just pulling me aside when I’m frustrated or I did something wrong. He’ll tell me how to do it or help me get my mind right for the next play.”

Beyond his leadership, Mallory has taken full advantage of his starting opportunity to be the Sun Devils’ defensive anchor. With one game left in the season, he already has as many tackles (44), 3.5 more tackles for a loss (8.5), three more pass breakups (4) and 0.5 less sacks (2) than what he had in four seasons with the Spartans.

The Michigan State transfer has also been a standout in the Pro Football Focus (PFF) play-by-play grading metrics. Mallory’s 73.7 grade in run defense is the highest for a Pac-12 interior lineman and 37th in the FBS. 

And when the play matters in the trenches, Mallory meets the moment. He ranks fifth among FBS interior linemen with 24 defensive “stops” on run plays.

“I feel like I’m very, very capable of dominance,” Mallory said before the season. “And like I said, being at Michigan State, I feel like I’ve always been this type of player. I just didn’t get the type of exposure that I wanted.”

Mallory’s peak exposure came on Nov. 11 at UCLA, in which the defensive tackle earned Pac-12 Defensive Lineman of the Week with a season-high nine tackles, two pass breakups, 0.5 sacks and multiple stops in short-yardage situations. The performance prompted Dillingham to give strong praise to Mallory’s journey up to that point.

“That’s a kid who coming to Arizona State has changed his life,” Dillingham said postgame. “No, it really has. He didn’t play at Michigan State. They didn’t really want him. He transfers to Arizona State. Nobody knows who he is. And literally, he’s going to get probably drafted now. He came here as the most quiet kid you could ever imagine. He didn’t really know who he was. Now he’s out there smiling. He found himself. Literally, him coming here changed his life.” 

Mallory admits that it’s hard to ignore the rankings and put aside a potential future in the NFL while maintaining focus on the season at hand. After all, he thought he was “league-ready a long time ago.” Regardless, he falls back on his true character and knows it’s not about him.

“I’m trying week in and week out in front of my teammates,” Mallory said. “And I think I’m doing a great job of not being selfish. I’m not out there trying to force any plays. I’m not out there trying to mess up our defense.”

As Mallory looks back at his outing against UCLA, it’s as if he brushes off its magnitude. He recalls that he was just in a “different flow state.”

“I remember Coach Amey kept asking me, ‘What did you see out there?’” Mallory said. “I was like, ‘I don’t know. I just get the play call and line up.’”

When he hopped on the team bus after the game, his dominant efforts didn’t hit him until he opened up his cell phone, which started blowing up. 

Above all else, it made him feel something that an 18-year-old kid longed for: to belong.

“I was just sitting there like, ‘Man, I knew I could play at this level,’” Mallory said. “I know it’s not the Big 10 (Conference), but it’s still Power 5 and I’m going against the best of the best every week. It was just a silent but short, surreal moment.”

Yet there’s one more thing. The game takes him back to Friday, Jan. 6 — Mallory’s first visit with ASU. He remembers flying into Phoenix late in the night with his mom and dad to meet Amey and defensive coordinator Brian Ward. He could tell they were tired.

Not far into the conversation, Chambers started showing film of Mallory’s high school playing days. It triggered Amey to ask, “Why did you put on so much weight at Michigan State if you used to play like this?”

The question brought Mallory to tears. His mind immediately flashed back to the weight transformation and sitting in the Spartan locker room, surrounded by lime green and his future looking equally sour.

“A brand new coach that I’m possibly about to play for — it sounded like [Amey] cared,” Mallory said. “It hit me that he saw me, I guess within that moment. That was the first time … a coach asked me a genuine question. 

“I think that just sparked interest in me to where it’s like, ‘Man, he actually cared.’ That was cool. But then, he told me right away that he never wanted me to change, and that’s where the whole ‘being free’ thing keeps coming from about me wanting to be like that, because he likes who I am.” 

In that singular moment, the weight was lifted off Mallory’s shoulders. He knew he would commit to ASU.

“That first night was definitely something special,” Mallory said. “I’ll always remember that. I will never forget that. I told [Amey] that actually after the game. We were on a plane after UCLA and I told him that, like, ‘I gave my heart and I remember crying to you bro. I will never forget that, (and) I appreciate you bringing me here for the opportunity.’”

Mallory gave his heart to Amey and ASU. In return, his heart is now full.

There’s only one more thing left to do. In his final collegiate game — after six years — against No. 16 Arizona Saturday, Dashaun will be his classic self and make it about someone else.

“I know I’m going to empty the tank before my time is up,” Mallory said. “I feel like what I’ve done all this season is really just my reciprocation of what they’ve done for me. I can’t be more grateful. I’m very honored to be here and hopefully I can leave a legacy. I owe everything to the coaches.”

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