Latest news with #Dillingham
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Arizona State Unlikely to Return to CFP in 2025, per ESPN FPI
Arizona State Unlikely to Return to CFP in 2025, per ESPN FPI originally appeared on Athlon Sports. The Arizona State Sun Devils pulled off one of the most dramatic worst-to-first finishes in recent memory. The Sun Devils went from just three wins in 2023 to 11 victories last season, won the Big 12 title and got in the playoffs. Advertisement This season, the Sun Devils return almost all of their starters from last year's championship squad. Included among those returnees are starting signal-caller Sam Leavitt, pass-catching weapon Jordyn Tyson and 10 talented defenders. In addition, Arizona State suffered zero turnover on its coaching staff. Head coach Kenny Dillingham, offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo and defensive coordinator Brian Ward are all back this season. Despite all the returning experience and coaching stability, the powers that be at ESPN have ranked the Sun Devils with a Football Power Index (FPI) of 9.8 and a ranking of No. 24, projecting them to win eight games this season. That puts ASU well outside the criteria and threshold to earn a second consecutive CFP berth Advertisement ESPN has stacked the top ten with five SEC and three Big Ten programs. Take the defending national champs, Ohio State, for example. The Buckeyes lost a ton of experience and production to the NFL on both sides of the ball. In addition, Ohio State lost its offensive coordinator, Chip Kelly, to the NFL and the Las Vegas Raiders. Defensive coordinator Jim Knowles has moved on to Happy Valley and the Penn State Nittany Lions. Ohio State will start a new quarterback with little to no college game experience. Yet, ESPN ranks the Buckeyes at No. 4 with an FPI of 23.8 and a projected win total of 10 wins. Texas (28.5), Georgia (26.6) and somehow Alabama (24.2) hold the top three spots, respectively. Advertisement The Crimson Tide and Bulldogs both lost their starting quarterbacks from last season and will start new quarterbacks with little to no college game experience. Texas and Georgia are projecting double-digit victories. Alabama projects to win nine games. Of those eight SEC/Big Ten teams, six will start new, inexperienced quarterbacks. Two will start transfer QBs: Carson Beck moves from Georgia to Miami and Joey Aguilar from Appalachian State to Tennessee. Contrast all the above to a team like Clemson. Dabo Swinney's Tigers are essentially a mirror image of Arizona State. Clemson returns 20 starters from last year's Atlantic Coast Conference championship and CFP team. Advertisement Clemson returns QB1 starter Cade Klubnik, their top three receivers and pretty much their entire defense. ESPN ranks Clemson just outside the top ten, at No. 11, with an FPI of 17.3. ESPN is riddled with SEC and Big Ten bias and this is outright disrespect toward the Sun Devils. But that does not bother Dillingham one bit. He prefers his team to be labeled as an underdog or that they could underachieve this season. Dillingham wants his team to be hungry and not buy into the 'hype.' He wants 100 percent effort, to be the best they can be, in every game. With a wry smirk on his face, Dillingham and the Sun Devils have ESPN and college football right where they want them. Related: Kenny Dillingham Details 'Next Step' in Building ASU Football Program This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 4, 2025, where it first appeared.
USA Today
3 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Kenny Dillingham turns heads with comparison of Arizona State, Oregon in 2020's
Kenny Dillingham turns heads with comparison of Arizona State, Oregon in 2020's For years, and perhaps decades, West Coast college football fans have wondered why Arizona State isn't a better program. The Sun Devils have been competitive in most seasons, but they have never been great or serious contenders for major bowl games or a national title. It's always been quite the mystery that not even Sherlock Holmes would be able to solve. All the pieces are there. The facilities are good enough. The stadium is good enough. But perhaps the only thing missing was the right man at the helm. But perhaps with Sun Devil alum Kenny Dillingham, ASU finally has the right man. He showed the promise of Sun Devil football last season as they won the Big XII in their first season in the conference and were in the College Football Playoff, where ASU took Texas to double overtime before going down 39-31. According to Dillingham, it was just the tip of the iceberg of what the Sun Devils can do with the program. He wants to emulate the rise of Oregon of the 2000s and Clemson in the 2010s. "You have Clemson this last cycle, from 2010 to 2020. They just showed up. People think they've been around forever," Dillingham told writer Pete Nakos. "You have Oregon from 2000 to 2010. You can go back in history and figure out which teams have shown up in which era. There hasn't been a team in this era, in the 2020s. The lifestyle you have in Arizona, if we can create some staff consistency, and then we're in a league where we can continually compete to win." Clemson won two national championships in the last decade, but have fallen off some. Oregon, meanwhile, is still in pursuit of its first national title, but the Ducks are usually in contention in most seasons. Dillingham's challenge in Tempe now is to keep the Sun Devils consistently in the playoff conversation. They're off to a good start. Contact/Follow @Ducks_Wire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oregon Ducks news, notes, and opinions.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Kenny Dillingham Cites Oregon When Making Bold ASU Prediction
Kenny Dillingham Cites Oregon When Making Bold ASU Prediction originally appeared on Athlon Sports. The Oregon Ducks will hope to continue their success in the 2025-26 season after an incredible first year in the Big Ten Conference. Formerly of the Pac-12 Conference, the Ducks ran through the Big Ten to an undefeated regular-season record. Advertisement After the Ducks narrowly defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes in a thriller, many thought they had what it took to win the College Football Playoff National Championship. After defeating the Penn State Nittany Lions in the Big Ten Championship, the Ducks were awarded the No. 1 overall seed. However, almost a month off proved to be too much, as the Ducks fell in a rematch to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. Kenny Dillingham cites Oregon when making bold ASU claim If things had fell differently, there would've been a slight chance that the Ducks could've matched up against one of their former Pac-12 rivals in the Arizona State Sun Devils. Advertisement The Sun Devils, coached by former Oregon offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham, also received a first-round bye for winning the Big 12 Championship, placing them on the same side of the bracket as Oregon and potentially setting up a semifinal matchup. On3's Pete Nakos interviewed Dillingham, who spoke on building something special at Arizona State rather than looking to be hired at a bigger school. In the interview, he used Oregon and Clemson as two main examples. 'You have Clemson this last cycle, from 2010 to 2020. They just showed up. People think they've been around forever," said Dillingham. "You have Oregon from 2000 to 2010. You can go back in history and figure out which teams have shown up in which era. "There hasn't been a team in this era, in the 2020s. The lifestyle you have in Arizona, if we can create some staff consistency, and then we're in a league where we can continually compete to win.' While turning Arizona State into a powerhouse like those programs, it's not out of the question that they could be a perennial power in the Big 12 Conference. Under the new College Football Playoff format, the Sun Devils wouldn't have received a top-four seed, as they did last season. Advertisement The Sun Devils making the College Football Playoff is a considerable achievement in its own right. But now, a question arises. Can Dillingham do it again? This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 1, 2025, where it first appeared.
Dominion Post
4 days ago
- Sport
- Dominion Post
Arizona State's Kenny Dillingham talks Big 12 competitiveness, mentions Rich Rodriguez's impact
MORGANTOWN — The SEC meetings started off last week, and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey made his opinions heard about the current state of the College Football Playoff and how his conference wasn't getting the respect it deserved for how difficult the schedule is. Sankey indirectly took shots at the Big 12 and ACC without both conferences being able to retaliate, but later in the same week, the Big 12 had their meetings. Big 12 coaches met together to discuss the transfer portal, and more importantly, the future of how the national champions will be crowned each year. Defending Big 12 champion coach of Arizona State, Kenny Dillingham, took the podium with Kansas coach Lance Leipold to prove the conference is competitive. Dillingham's argument centered around the caliber of coaches in the conference. There are a lot of notable coaches, who've had historic careers, like TCU's Sonny Dykes, Colorado's Deion Sanders and Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy. Dillingham didn't mention those names and focused on the newest coach to the Big 12 this season, West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez. 'This league is so competitive,' Dillingham said. 'How many guys in our league have won a national championship? It's unbelievable. When you look at the [Leipold] sitting to my right, you look across, and it's Rich Rodriguez. That's a guy who could go into the Hall of Fame. He changed the entire game of how to play offensive football for an era. Our league is so competitive because I think the coaches in the league are phenomenal. I think we have one of the best-coached leagues out there.' The competitiveness of the Big 12 hasn't captured the eyes of the committee in the same way as the bigger conferences like the SEC and Big Ten, which helps Sankey's argument. However, the Big 12 is more competitive in some ways compared to the Big Ten. The Big Ten is top-heavy with teams that roll a lot of the weaker ones like, Penn State, Ohio State and Oregon. Whereas last year, the Big 12 had seven teams that were one game out of making the conference championship. Within the conference, the Big 12 is pretty competitive. Outside of the conference, the story changes. The Big 12 had just one team make the playoff, Dillingham's Sun Devils, and they were knocked out in the first round by the SEC's Texas. Dillingham agreed that maybe they were seeded too high, and welcomed the new seeding change that gives byes to the best four teams. 'It was a great change,' Dillingham said. ' Even though it would have negatively affected us last year. We lost two games going into it, so I think that would have been the right thing to do. I'm about, you should get what you earned that season. Last season, maybe we didn't earn the right to be the fourth seed. Maybe we earned the right to be the eighth seed. We finished ninth, 12th, whatever that was. I believe you earn your way to those seeds.' Dillingham liked the idea of the proposed five-plus-11 model that has five automatic qualifiers and then 11 at-large teams. Dillingham said he didn't care if there were more teams added, either. 'I really don't care,' Dillingham said. 'It's football. Football is fun. Sometimes we lose focus, and everybody focuses on the negative of college football and the negative of what all these things create. They don't focus on the positive. They don't focus on the fact that the experience our guys went through was one of the best experiences they'll ever have in their lives. It's just something they'll remember forever… If we add teams, it's an opportunity for those guys to be a part of something that they'll remember forever.' From the short 15 minutes the media received of Dillingham and Leipold, it sounded like they don't care about what happens to the College Football Playoff. They didn't complain or request a change to the system. All the Big 12 coaches want is to play football and for the games to be close. 'We just want competitiveness,' Dillingham said. 'We want the fact that you play games every year, and who knows who the best teams are going to be every year. I think that was more of the conversation of automatic qualifiers versus whether we just want to see the best teams every year. I think the coaches in our league, our ADs, just want the best teams. Whoever those best teams are in college football that year, let's have the best teams go for a championship.'
NBC Sports
6 days ago
- Sport
- NBC Sports
In college playoff debate, the Arizona St coach with everything to lose says he'll take his chances
When it comes to the future of the College Football Playoff, there were as many opinions as there were coaches on hand at the Southeastern Conference and Big 12 meetings in Florida this week. Perhaps the most eye-opening came from some of those with the most to lose — Kenny Dillingham of Arizona State and Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark. The consensus at their meetings, which wrapped up in Orlando on Friday, was a preference for a format, starting in 2026, that would include 16 teams — five of them automatic bids to the highest-rated conference champions and the other 11 awarded as at-large spots. That would be paired with a straight-seeding model that has already been adopted for next season's playoff. Had last season's playoff used straight seeding, the Big 12 champion Sun Devils would have been seeded 11th, not fourth. Instead of a bye, they would have been stuck with a first-round road game at eventual national champion Ohio State. But Dillingham said the change for the upcoming season is fine with him, and if the increasingly popular 5-11 model takes hold for 2026, that's fine, too. 'Last season, maybe we didn't earn the right to be the fourth seed. Maybe we earned the right to be the eighth seed,' said the coach, whose team was ranked 12th, but still received the fourth seed and a first-round bye before losing to Texas 39-31. 'I believe you earn your way to those seeds, so I'm also in support of the 5-plus-11, that same thought process.' The SEC and Big Ten will decide the format for the playoff starting in 2026, which is when ESPN's new $7.8 billion contract kicks in. Yormark said the SEC and Big Ten 'have a great responsibility that goes with it to do what's right for college football and not to do anything that just benefits two conferences. And I have a lot of faith in the process.' The 5-11 system could be less advantageous for the Big 12, which would get two automatic bids under the other system being floated, the 4-4-2-2-1 model in which the SEC and Big Ten each would receive four and the Big 12 and ACC would get two. The best argument for that plan might have come from Florida AD Scott Stricklin at the SEC meetings: 'I think anything we can do to make the postseason more objective and less subjective is going to be better,' he said, pointing to the notion that the more at-large berths there are, the more the preferences of the selection committee come into play. Yormark said the Big 12 would be willing to take its chances with more at-large bids. 'We want to earn it on the field,' Yormark said. 'The 5-11 might not be ideal for the conference, but it's good for college football, and it's what's fair.' Dillingham was on the same page. 'Every year is a new year, and you never know who's going to be good in college football, especially with the volume going through the (transfer) portal,' he said. 'So anything that creates an open platform for teams like our guys last year to prove that they do belong, I'm in support of.' Expanded March Madness NCAA President Charlie Baker made his most definitive statement yet about expanding the men's basketball tournament from its current 68 teams to 72 or 76, saying it's a decision that needs to come in the next few months. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has long been in favor of that expansion, so long as it's done a certain way. His model would bring more at-large teams – presumably from big conferences -- into the main draw of 64. It would push more automatic qualifiers from weaker leagues into what would be an increased number of so-called 'play-in' games, what's known now as the First Four. He used the example of North Carolina State in 2024 as a team that was seeded 11th (the Wolfpack didn't have to play a play-in game but often an 11th seed does) and made the Final Four. 'I don't think all the 10- and 11-type seeds should just be placed in the First Four,' Sankey said at the SEC meetings in the Florida Panhandle. 'That's my opinion. You could go ask my colleagues in the AQ conferences what should happen and I'm certain they'd want the split to continue.' Walk-on walk-outs A few SEC coaches hedged when asked what they were telling walk-on football players who were in jeopardy of losing their roster spots under terms of the multibillion-dollar lawsuit settlement that is hung up on the issue of roster limits. 'Certainly it's challenging for us to manage our roster,' Texas A&M coach Mike Elko said. 'But it's more challenging for a 19-year-old to not know what his place on a football team is as we head into the summer.' Under terms of a reworked agreement, football rosters would be limited to 105 players, all of whom would be eligible for scholarships, though walk-on players who had roster spots before would not count against the limit. Kansas coach Lance Leipold conceded that many decisions had already been made regardless of how the settlement works out. Indeed, some of his walk-ons had already left, as the Jayhawks made preparations for the upcoming season with the expectation the settlement would be approved. 'When a walk-on maybe decides that now that their roster spot might be in jeopardy, he has a chance to go somewhere else where he may see more real playing time in games, you got to be happy for him,' he said. 'I guess we all wish we had a little bit more clarity sooner.' One window too many From locker rooms to the commissioner's office, the Big 12 is unified in its stance on transfer portal timing. Rather than two transfer windows, including a 20-day slot with the college football playoff in sight in December, the Big 12 is pushing for one window in January. 'As coaches, we unanimously support one portal window, and that is in January,' Leipold said. 'You're signing most of your guys in December. You know what your roster will be like to start the second semester, and you have the opportunity to work and develop and build those relationships and evaluate your team and get ready for the next season.' Coaches can find solace in knowing their commissioner will fight for the cause. Adjusting the portal windows is one of many items on the list of topics Yormark will discuss with fellow Power Four commissioners in the coming weeks. 'We discussed the portal window with the coaches,' Yormark said. 'We know what their preference is. We'll discuss that amongst the Power Four commissioners here shortly, but I advocate for their position. They want a January portal, and we'll discuss that again with our peers and see where we can land this thing.' The Power Four wants more There are plenty of ongoing disputes between the NCAA's most dominant conferences, but a desire for more control isn't one of them. Rumors of the SEC separating from the NCAA may have gained momentum, but Sankey is willing to settle for more autonomy, at least for now. Instead of the original 65%, Sankey argued that the Power Four conferences owning 68% of the vote in the proposed NCAA governance model is more optimal. Yormark was on the same page. 'There is an appetite and desire to have a little bit more autonomy, a little bit more control in decision-making,' Yormark said. 'In what's currently being discussed, I think we will land in a very desirable place. We understand the importance of being part of the institution and also being very collegial with our peers. But at the same time, we do feel that when it comes to control and autonomy, that there needs to be a little bit of a shift to the A4, at least more so than what currently exists.' By the sounds of it, the Power Four may have the NCAA president on their side. 'Charlie Baker has been terrific throughout the process. He has listened to all the key stakeholder groups, but he does recognize that not everyone looks the same, operates the same, and there needs to be a bit of an adjustment and a modernization of what's being done there in the NCAA as a whole is, like you said, but also as it relates to the power four,' Yormark said.
