What Kenny Dillingham said after Arizona State's win over UCF
Survive and advance.
That's exactly what Arizona State (7-2, 4-2) did on Saturday night without Cam Skattebo on the field.
In a game where they were outgained by 146 yards — and largely outplayed — the Sun Devils somehow pulled out a 35-31 victory over UCF to keep their Big 12 championship game hopes alive.
"We shouldn't have won that football game," Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham said after the game. "We played horrible. We didn't coach great. We shouldn't have won that game, but guess what? Good teams find a way. We found a way and kudos to our guys."
The Sun Devils scored on special teams — a scoop and score touchdown by Montana Warren on a blocked punt — and defense — a pick six by Laterrance Welch — to offset their offensive struggles, which weren't surprising considering Skattebo, their Heisman Trophy candidate, did not play.
Redshirt freshman quarterback Sam Leavitt passed for 161 yards and 3 touchdowns, including the game-winning 13-yard TD pass to Jordyn Tyson with 4:55 left, to lift the Sun Devils to victory.
Here are the highlights from Dillingham's postgame press conference:
Dillingham on Sam Leavitt and Jordyn Tyson
"It's an unbelievable connection right now. ... JT has two more years, Sam has three more years. That could be an exciting combo here for the future of Sun Devil football."
Dillingham on Sam Leavitt's play
"He's a dog. That's it. He's a great player. The fact that that dude has three years left, every company in the state should be calling him for an NIL deal. People should be throwing cars at him, they should be throwing condos at him, they should be throwing whatever they can throw at him to be excited about the fact that you have an NFL level player in your state in the flagship school, in the town, for three more years. That should be exciting. People should rally behind that."
"Taking care of the football, that's a game changer. That was the difference in the game is the turnover margin. ... There was a couple of times that [Leavitt] saw ghosts, and there was a couple of times there was a person there. It wasn't a ghost. ... Kudos to coach Williams over there on defense. ... He's a really, really good football coach ... that's a staff with a lot of future head coaches on it. ... Like I said, I thought that staff outcoached me. I don't think I did a great job preparing our guys to play the football game. And they found a way to win, and that's the fun part."
Dillingham on ASU's lack of intensity
"I thought I did a bad job getting our guys to come out with an edge. ... I wanted our guys to see my intensity ramp up. ... I can't go play, but what I can do is I can try to create some juice with getting into it a little bit in a respectful manner. I felt like our team needed some juice."
Dillingham on Montana Warren's scoop and score
"I gave Montana the game ball because that dude shows up and works. He would start for a lot of football teams, We're just good at safety and nickel. ... The team went crazy when I gave him the ball because those are the guys that you should get fired up about. The people that are doing all the things and nobody's really talking about them. And then all of a sudden they make a play, him and [Laterrance Welch], and it changes the game. And that's pretty cool."
Dillingham on UCF running back RJ Harvey
"That kid's really good. He's really, really good. He's probably the best back, well he is the best back we've faced. Dynamic, explosive. They did a great job running the football. We got dominated on the ground. If you just look at the statistics it's not pretty. That's a good learning lesson for us, that we just can't line up and stop the run, we just can't line up and run the football. We've got to practice like that. Like I told the guys, I thought we got a little confident and that's my fault for letting them get to that mold."
"We've gotta get back to that edge, that dog. We play with a chip on our shoulder way better than we play like we're good. We've got to play with a chip on our shoulder next week [at Kansas State] because we're probably gonna be 7.5 to 14 point dogs on the road at night in Manhattan where it's gonna be 35 degrees."
More Arizona State & Big 12 Analysis
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.