What Kenny Dillingham said about Arizona State's rivalry game vs. Arizona
Arizona State got embarrassed against rival Arizona last season.
In Kenny Dillingham's first season as head coach, the Sun Devils lost to the Wildcats 59-23 at Mountain America Stadium in the final game of a 3-9 season.
And they remember that feeling.
"We got our butts kicked last year and got embarrassed, so it's a game that matters," Dillingham said during his Monday press conference. "If you weren't here, the other guys on our team got embarrassed, I got embarrassed, so you better have a little bit about yourself when somebody embarrasses you like that. They've got the same quarterback, returning the same wide receiver. They've got a lot of the same players returning off that football team off a team that picked us apart."
The tables have turned this season. Arizona State (9-2) enters Saturday's game in Tucson needing a victory to earn a berth in the Big 12 football championship game. Arizona (4-7) is playing for pride in year one under Brent Brennan.
Here are the highlights from Dillingham's press conference ahead of the Arizona game:
Dillingham on ASU's Approach to the Arizona Game
"It's about us going and playing and preparing like we do. Like I've said to the team since I think week three, every game you win makes the next game the most important game. And the more times you win the next game is more important. It doesn't matter who you play, doesn't matter where you play. It's the most important game because you won the last one. And if you go and win, then the next game is more important than the game you just played. This is the most important game on our schedule because we put ourselves in position for it to matter, not just from a rivalry perspective but from a bigger perspective of achieving other aspirations."
Dillingham on A Failed 4th Down Play vs. BYU
"Cam went the wrong way. ... We were in a huddle for three minutes there ... are we going to call this, are we going to call that, we're going to call this, we're going to call that. I think I kind of confused our guys a little bit in that scenario. And when you don't have everybody doing the same thing, not everybody's on the same page. And when not everybody's on the same page I think that's a reflection of coaching. It's our job to make sure people execute. We didn't execute it poorly, but like I said we should never not execute a play poorly coming off the sidelines. So I've got to do a better job. We've got to do a better job coming off the sideline making sure we're on the same page. I mean it's fourth and one we can't not be on the same page and that starts and ends with me."
Dillingham on ASU's Second-Half Struggles
"I brought up that with the team today because I think when we play with a chip on our shoulder, we play really hard. I think sometimes when we think we're ready to knock somebody out, and they hit us back, well we thought it was just going to continue to go this unbelievable way. And then they get us against the ropes and we've struggled to kind of bounce back. At the end of the day credit to our guys. They found ways to win the games, but we've had two opportunities in two straight weeks with three-possession leads to go up four possessions with the ball in the middle of the third quarter. We fumbled one, we dropped the ball in another and we're just that close. And then we've given up two 90-plus yard drives in the second half in quick amounts of time."
Dillingham on Putting Teams Away
"We've got to find a way, similar to winning on the road. How do we find a way to put a team away? We didn't put Mississippi State away when we could have. We've had opportunities to put teams away and we're just trying to find out how to do that. I know it's kind of weird because we're winning some games, but we're still in year two and there's still a lot of things that we're learning how to do. We're learning how to win on the road, which we did. We still haven't learned how to close out, or really step on an opponent when we have some momentum in the second half. We've learned how to win at the end of games. We've learned how to fight back if we get punched in the face early, but we haven't learned how to fight back if we get punched in the face right after we've had success."
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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.