Inside Kenny Dillingham’s first in season press conference of 2025

(Photo: Grace Johnson/WCSN)

TEMPE — With the 2025 season opener against Northern Arizona Saturday at Mountain America Stadium, No.11 Arizona State football head coach Kenny Dillingham kicked off his third year of Monday press conferences — a now-familiar ritual since 2023. Similarly to last season, Dillingham fielded questions for more than 20 minutes, offering insight into the state of Sun Devil football.

Entering the season as reigning Big 12 conference champions, the first Monday press conference of 2025 carried a noticeably different tone from the two seasons prior. Just two minutes into the first Monday press conference of 2024, Dillingham was asked about ASU’s last-place projection in the Big 12 preseason media poll. Fast forward to this past July, the Big 12 decided to scrap the same poll altogether.

Dillingham, while acknowledging the poll, ensured that ASU’s identity wouldn’t revolve around silencing outside noise in 2024. Heading into this season, a prominent outside narrative is how the Sun Devils have been unable to start and finish inside the top 15 of the Associated Press poll for over 50 years. With ASU ranked No.11 in the nation, Dillingham’s attitude toward this narrative is identical to how he viewed the preseason poll a year ago.

“Every once in a while, there’s things that pop up that I just want to put to bed for our players,” Dillingham said. “All these funky stats that they hear. ‘Yeah, here it is. Now who cares? You know how to solve it? Go to work today.’”

Saturday night will mark the second time in four years that the Sun Devils have opened their season against the Lumberjacks — the first being their 2022 matchup. That game drew 13,615 students, the third-largest student home turnout since 2010. Last season’s home opener against Wyoming surpassed it, drawing 13,873 students and claiming the second spot.

The top spot currently belongs to a 2014 matchup against UCLA, which drew 14,084 students. Throughout the offseason, Dillingham has stated his expectation of a 14,000-student crowd against NAU. On Monday, Dillingham once again pointed to the number 14,000 as his benchmark for the season opener.

“We’re supposed to hopefully have 14,000 students out there. We’re almost at 98% renewal right now,” Dillingham said. “I hope our guys run out of the tunnel and they’re like, ‘Holy cow, there’s 14,000 students.’”

A consistent theme throughout Dillingham’s press conference was the team’s ongoing pursuit of improvement. In addition to expressing hopes for a larger home crowd than last season’s opener, Dillingham outlined his vision for growth on both offense and defense.

Offensively, Dillingham highlighted two areas for improvement: early-down passing and generating explosive plays. In football, most chunk gains come through the passing game — meaning Big 12 preseason offensive player of the year, sophomore quarterback Sam Leavitt, will carry even more responsibility this season.

“If there’s one thing you could say about our offense last year, is we weren’t overly explosive,” Dillingham said. “We didn’t have huge plays. We didn’t have one-play touchdowns very often.”

Offensively, the elephant in the room is clear: who will step up to fill Cam Skattebo’s shoes? Since spring, ASU has hosted a three-way competition at running back between juniors Kanye Udoh, Kyson Brown, and Raleek Brown. During his press conference, Dillingham noted progress from the latter two.

Regarding Kyson Brown, Dillingham described him as a completely different player from when he first arrived in Tempe — no longer just a fast guy, but a fast guy who now weighs 205 pounds. As for Raleek Brown, Dillingham indicated he’s added 20 pounds and made significant strides in ball security. What the splits will look like for the running backs on Saturday remains to be seen.

“Those guys are really close, so I think it just depends on what the early calls are,” Dillingham said. “They’re both really good players. I’m excited to see them both play in a live setting.”

The Sun Devils enter the season with largely the same defensive personnel as last year. The one major injury update from Dillingham came on this side of the ball when he announced on Monday that redshirt sophomore lineman MyKeil Gardner will miss the 2025 season with a ruptured Achilles tendon. Gardner was already dealing with a prior foot injury when he arrived in Tempe.

Defensively, Dillingham has pinpointed three areas for improvement: disguising coverages, aligning coverage schemes with offensive route concepts, and generating more of a pass rush. He believes that progress in all three will lead to more disruption — and ultimately, more takeaways.

“We should be able to disguise things more, we should be able to rush the passer more, and we should be around the ball more,” Dillingham said. “I expect more explosive plays from the takeaway department because of those three things.”

Another theme of Dillingham’s press conference was the enduring constants, even as the team evolves across multiple facets. One example is his unwavering commitment to an aggressive approach on fourth downs, even with growing confidence in the kicking game — particularly in newly acquired redshirt senior Jesus Gomez, a transfer from Eastern Michigan.

Ever since stepping into the role of ASU head coach, Dillingham hasn’t hesitated to roll the dice on fourth down. In his first season, the Sun Devils averaged 1.5 fourth down conversions per game — eighth most in the nation that year and a noticeable jump from the 1.0 figure the season prior. That aggressiveness held steady in 2024, with ASU averaging 1.4 conversions per game.

“We have a philosophy in terms of how we want to be aggressive, and that’s going to stay consistent,” Dillingham said. “Are we going to try to be smart with it? Of course. But does that mean that we’re going to be scared of it? Absolutely not.”

Another constant is Dillingham’s mindset entering the new season, even after ASU’s dramatic turnaround from 3–9 to 11–3. With expectations mounting ahead of 2025, his approach to the season opener remains as intense as ever — only this time, there’s no preseason poll to serve as bulletin board material.

“Do I feel the exact same that I felt when we were three and nine? Unfortunately. I wish there was a reprieve. I wish I could be like, ‘Oh, I feel great. This is awesome.’ No, not at all. I feel the exact same,” Dillingham said.