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The last time the Arizona State football team played at AT&T Stadium, it was on its way to a spot in the 2013 Pac-12 title game.
The last time the Arizona State football team won 11 games, it played for a national championship in the Rose Bowl following the 1996 season.
Both of those teams were great stories, but coach Kenny Dillingham may just have authored the most memorable season in the program’s 127-year history.
The 2024 Sun Devils were less than a year removed from NCAA sanctions levied against the program from the Herm Edwards years. The Sun Devils were coming off back-to-back three-win seasons. In a preseason media poll, the Sun Devils were picked to finish 16th in the 16-team Big 12.
None of that mattered on a special Saturday in Arlington, Texas. Just as it did one week earlier in Tucson, ASU (11-2) put away its opponent early in the third quarter, setting off another raucous celebration.
If ASU’s 45-19 win against Iowa State in the Big 12 title game doesn’t activate the Valley, nothing will. This was storybook stuff that should put Dillingham on the coach-of-the-year pedestal, and running back Cam Skattebo on stage in New York when the Heisman Trophy is presented.
It was only possible because Dillingham connected with his players like no coach in this program has ever connected. It was only possible because Dillingham trusted his players like no coach has ever trusted them.
“When your players run your program, you’re good, right?” Dillingham said. “You can force coach-led leadership, which is needed at times, but at the same token, if your players aren’t feeding your team the same vision, the same message, you’re gonna be capped at how good you can be.
“I think these guys have an unbelievable maturity about themselves to lead their team.”
There was concern heading into this game. The Sun Devils were playing without their top receiver, Jordyn Tyson, who was lost for the season in the team’s 49-7 beatdown of rival Arizona a week ago. How would ASU respond without one of the two playmakers who had accounted for nearly 60 percent of the team’s offense this season?
The other half of that duo had a answer, but so did quarterback Sam Leavitt, a big-play defense, and a cast of next-man-up receivers who filled Tyson’s absence seamlessly with a pair of dazzling catches and three receiving TDs.
Leavitt completed 12 of 17 passes for 219 yards and three TDs. Xavier Guillory made an absurd TD catch in the third quarter to turn the game into a rout, and the defense forced three turnovers in the same quarter — all of which ASU converted into TDs — while keeping Iowa State’s vaunted receiving corps in check.
(Getty Images)
All of those efforts complemented Big 12 Championship MVP Cam Skattebo, who had 16 carries for 170 yards and a two rushing TDs, plus two receptions for 38 yards and another TD to make his case for the Heisman Trophy, which will be presented on Dec. 14.
“Nobody respects the fact that I’m the best running back in the country. And I’m going to stand on that,” Skattebo said. “I’m going to keep proving people wrong. And whatever NFL team takes me is going to get a gem.”
It’s up to the College Football Playoff Committee to determine just how much the Sun Devils should rise after this impressive showing in the conference title game. But it’s already clear in Tempe that the detritus of the Edwards era is gone, replaced by a renewed sense of hope.
ASU has long been called the sleeping giant of college athletics. The idea comes from the fact that the school sits in one of the nation’s top 10 greater metro populations, theoretically making it a fertile recruiting ground for athletic talent. It is also the nation’s largest university by student population, theoretically making its potential for donations larger than any other school.
It’s a fun dream for fans, but the respective population advantages have not translated on a recruiting level, or on a donation level.
To anyone who has been around this athletic department for more than a minute, the sleeping giant moniker generally elicits eye rolls. We’ve heard it all before, and yet, with every successive coach who replaced Frank Kush, the idea gained fresh steam.
We wondered if John Cooper and Bruce Snyder were on the cusp of establishing a national power after Rose Bowl berths and flirtations with a national championship.
We wondered if Dirk Koetter’s high-octane offense would elevate ASU above its Pac-10 brethren. We wondered if Dennis Erickson’s national championship pedigree could translate to Tempe. We wondered if Todd Graham was speaking victory in more than words. We wondered if Edwards’ pro style approach might be just what the program needed to break its tired mold.
It is fashionable to believe that Dillingham, college football’s second youngest Division I coach, might be the guy to break the cycle of rapid rises and rapid falls. The Sun Devil alumnus and Valley product has injected a desperately needed breath of fresh air into the program.
You can see it in the way his players interact with him in postgame interviews; like he’s just another one of the guys. You can see it in the raw and unfiltered emotions he displays after games. You can see it in the youthful mistakes he makes, like the clock mismanagement at the end of the BYU game that nearly turned into tragedy.
But it’s important to remember just how much went right for the Sun Devils to reach their first college football playoff. The BYU game was one of many examples.
Sun Devil Source publisher Chris Karpman suggested that if you were to run ASU’s entire 2024 schedule through a simulator a second time, the Sun Devils might come up with just seven wins. That’s how parity-riddled the Big 12 is with powerhouse staples Texas and Oklahoma having departed for the SEC.
On the one hand, that’s encouraging for future Sun Devils teams. There is no Oregon or Oklahoma with which to contend. On the other hand, it’s also encouraging for teams such as Iowa State, BYU and Colorado.
And then there’s Dillingham’s transfer portal success, embodied in Leavitt, a redshirt freshman whose eyes never seemed to widen no matter how big the stage or moment became.
It’s unreasonable to believe that Dillingham can maintain that level of success in a college athletics world gone full mercenary. And it’s unreasonable to expect the Sun Devils to keep pace with the big boys in the SEC and Big Ten when it comes to NIL money. At last check, the Sun Devils ranked 40th among Division I schools in that department.
An entire community wants to believe that Dillingham can wake the sleeping giant, but none of that matters right now. This moment is what matters.
It’s rare that any fan base gets to enjoy such a feel-good season, but it’s nearly unique in Valley sports lore. So soak it, Sun Devils fans. This has been a season to savor.
“We were predicted last,” Sun Devils DB Javan Robinson said. “This feels amazing.”
Top photo via Getty Images: The Sun Devils celebrate a Big 12 title
Follow Craig Morgan on Twitter and on Bluesky
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