What Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham said about BYU showdown
Arizona State football is back.
At 8-2 and ranked No. 21 in the nation, the Sun Devils are in a position nobody expected. Well, nobody outside of the Sun Devils' locker room.
Now Kenny Dillingham's team has a chance to really "Activate the Valley" — and a national television audience — when they face No. 14 BYU (9-1) on Saturday at Mountain America Stadium. It's basically an elimination game for both teams, with the winner having a great shot at a berth in the Big 12 football championship game.
"We've already sold out [for the BYU game]," Dillingham said during his Monday press conference. "There's like a thousand person wait line for tickets. For The Valley to be able to experience what they get to experience, which is an unbelievable college football environment on Saturday, is what we need to get people bought back into here. That there's nothing that can replicate it. We haven't had one like this yet since I've been here. This is going to be the game that people can really feel 'Wow. This is fun. This is exciting.'"
Here are the highlights from Dillingham's press conference ahead of the showdown with BYU.
Dillingham on ASU Exceeding Expectations
"To say I saw us being at 8-2 and said 'Oh, this is what I expected.' You always expect to win. I don't know how to explain it. I don't look at the macro very much, like how many wins are you going to achieve? It's so hard. ... We're four plays away from having four losses. We're a couple plays away from having 10 wins. That's the nature of football. So I've never looked at it like that. I always look at it like 'Man, we could win every game on our schedule.' Now we could lose every game on our schedule too, but we could win every game. What I noticed, like I said, the Mississippi State game, the first half of that game when we came out and we were physical, we played hard, we played with a passion and then just the guys' camaraderie throughout it was when I was like 'Ok, these guys they've got something to them.' And I always knew that, but it was when you see it live in a game setting it kind of confirmed that 'All right we;ve got something about ourselves.'"
Dillingham on BYU's Mindset After 'Emotional Loss'
"I mean, they're ranked above us and they have one loss in the football season. They're very close to being undefeated on the season and it's a great challenge for our guys, especially at home, especially if we're coming off an emotional win. They're coming off an emotional loss. We both somewhat control our own destiny, so which team should actually have a little bit more vinegar in them, piss and vinegar in them ... probably the team that just came off some negative, not the team that's being told how great we are. It's the team that's being questioned right now. So they definitely have an advantage when it comes to mindset based off of the last week's game. They're going to come into this game like it's the Super Bowl, which it is the same value for both sides, but they're going to come into this thing with a really good head football coach and a really good team expecting to win and playing with a little bit of something extra."
Dillingham on BYU Coach Kalani Sitake
"He's one of the best defensive minds in football. I've played him multiple times. Phenomenal defensive coach. He's definitely in the top three of just best people in the profession from a head coaching perspective. You would want to have your child play for him. He's just an unbelievable person. You can just see his energy with the players, his connection with the players. That's why they play really hard for him. And they play extremely hard. I mean, this team plays hard and physical, because the connection that you can see that he builds.
"He's a phenomenal football coach. He's done an incredible job there. He's done an incredible job this year ... I think those guys really believe in him and really want to play for him, and when he says something they listen and they believe it and they go and try to achieve it."
Dillingham on BYU's Recent Offensive Struggles
"I don't really worry about people criticizing people. We were told last week we didn't play anybody and we sucked, so if you listen to what other people's perspectives of teams are you're going to get lost in the stuff that doesn't matter. What matters is their football team has one loss. They find ways to win. Their quarterback extends plays. He makes plays in big moments of the games. He's hard and slippery to get down. They run the football really well. In some football games they've been really, really efficient, and then they're really good with the turnover margin.
"So in terms of their offense, they actually run a lot of the things we run. There's actually a ton of similarities between schematically what they do on offense and what we do on offense. So I think the scheme is good, I think the players are good and there's a reason they were undefeated until last week. And it's hard to go undefeated in college football. There's a reason they're ranked above us right now. That's not an accident."
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Ben Sherman has been covering the sports world for most of his journalism career, including 17 years with The Oregonian/OregonLive. One of his favorite memories was covering the 1999 Fiesta Bowl - the first BCS National Championship Game - at Sun Devil Stadium.