LONDON – A disheveled Kenny Dillingham slumped against a wall, waiting to be called to the podium for his second press conference in an hour. 

It had been a long week and a half for the Arizona State coach and his Sun Devils, who will finally head home after trekking more than 5,000 miles to College Station, Texas and London in successive weeks. 

“I’m tired,” Dillingham said. “Our players are going to be tired when they get home. We need to go get some rest.”

The Sun Devils capped off their two-game road trip with a 24-17 win over Kansas on Saturday in the Union Jack Classic at Wembley Stadium – the first-ever college football game in England between two FBS teams. It wasn’t pretty, but that’s kind of how these international games tend to play out and Dillingham seemed to understand. 

“It wasn’t clean on all three phases, but it was clean enough to come away with a victory,” he said. “That’s really what happens in football. It’s the teams that find ways to win (that) win.”

See North Carolina’s 15-10 win over TCU earlier this season in Ireland for the latest international example before Saturday. Whether it’s the travel, the time change or all the unfamiliarity, international college football games have struggled to deliver a quality product on a consistent basis. 

It wasn’t much different in London, as the play mirrored the look of the gloomy weather hovering above: ugly.  

But following a week in which ASU topped then-No. 8 Texas A&M across multiple lines on the stat sheet, but lost 48-20, Dillingham was ready to take a win however he could get it. 

“Give me losing the stats and winning the game 100 times out of 100,” Dillingham said. “I was glad that we found a way to win, even if it was ugly.”

And it was ugly. 

Between Kansas’ three turnovers, ASU’s 95 passing yards and both teams’ combined 11 penalties for 105 yards – not to mention the endless teaching tape on special teams kick coverage – there was plenty of room for improvement on both sides. 

Normally, Dillingham would be harping on the mistakes his team made postgame. Sure, his team generated a special teams touchdown, but it also allowed Kansas to run a punt back for a touchdown of their own. His defense played great, but the offense? Not so inspiring. 

Given the circumstances, though, he was just happy he didn’t have to think about a loss on the long journey back to Tempe. 

“It would have been a miserable flight home to think about this whole process,” Dillingham said. “We would have flown 10 hours home after a loss. To go into a bye and have to sit on it for two weeks, that would have been absolutely miserable.”

He didn’t mind calling out his offense’s ineptitudes, but he found a silver lining in the fact that the Sun Devils won the turnover battle handily by maintaining a clean sheet.

“The clock was turning. We didn’t turn the football over. We didn’t make any catastrophics,” Dillingham said. “Even though we couldn’t move the ball, we were playing complementary bad football.”

After a sluggish start which saw ASU score just three points for most of the first half, the Sun Devils scored 21 unanswered. They got a bit of help from some Kansas miscues.

With under 30 seconds left in the first half, the Jayhawks, backed up against their own end zone, punted the ball only 17 yards. It allowed the Sun Devils to capitalize on advantageous field position, with ASU quarterback Cutter Boley finding wide receiver Reed Harris on a 25-yard touchdown strike across the middle. 

Later, Kansas’ kicker Martin Connington missed a 44-yard field goal attempt that would have put the Jayhawks within two scores at the time. 

“When we just stick to our keys, play our game, not let what the opponent does affect us and we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot, we’re amazing,” said senior wide receiver Jaren Hamilton, who ran back ASU’s 100-yard kickoff return touchdown.

The Jayhawks also turned over the football three times, coughing up two fumbles and tossing an interception to ASU junior linebacker Owen Long. 

Long, a Colorado State transfer, had a hand in all three turnovers, nabbing the interception, scooping up a fumble and later forcing one himself. His breakout performance led the way in an impressive effort for the Sun Devil defense. 

“Our defense as a whole played great,” Dillingham said. “I’ve known all camp that I think this is going to be one of the better defenses we had here. They did an unbelievable job of creating takeaways and stopping the run early.”

While Arizona State didn’t deliver a flawless performance, it did accomplish all of the goals it set ahead of its week in London. The game, which university leadership made clear was secondary to the opening of a new school in London, ended in a Sun Devil win. 

ASU didn’t play a perfect game against Kansas, but it accepted that it wasn’t going to be perfect when it signed up to play across the pond. 

Along the way, ASU players enjoyed exploring a new setting with their teammates, providing a bowl-like experience in the middle of the season. Throughout the week, Dillingham implored his team to take advantage of the circumstances and bond as a team. 

“You’re bringing them out here to not just play a game,” Dillingham said. “You’re bringing them out here to get a once-in-a-lifetime experience with their teammates.

“We let our guys go out Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. They had free rein and they did a phenomenal job in managing it and handling it.”

The players seemed to appreciate the freedom.

“It was incredible,” sophomore defensive lineman Hyrum Vaeono said. “Being in London, across the pond, being with my guys in a hotel, just going at it day by day, and then we’re here and got the win.”

The Sun Devils (2-1, 1-0 Big 12) now head into their bye week, earning a much-needed rest following the long road trip. With some time off, Dillingham will have a chance to reflect on the rare in-season international experience. 

Although he admitted that he regrets locking himself in his room to prepare for Kansas and not exploring more with his team, he looks forward to hearing about the memories his players made on the historic trip. Those memories are a major reason why he agreed to the game in the first place.

“For me, it’s more just being able to reflect on their stories and how much fun our players got to have here and the experience our players got to have,” Dillingham said. “We had multiple players that are like, ‘Man, I want to come back now. I love this place.’”

This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.