David Pollack shares memory from first time meeting Kenny Dillingham at Oregon

It’s been a lightning-quick rise through the coaching ranks for Kenny Dillingham, who’s now piloting a playoff-caliber Arizona State team. In fact, Dillingham has already reached the playoffs.

He’ll be hoping to do so again as he enters his third season in charge of the Sun Devils program. So far, he’s had nothing but success.

After inheriting a mess of a program, Dillingham won just three games in his first season. Then he won 11 and reached the College Football Playoff in Year 2. A truly remarkable turnaround.

What’s crazier for some? His age.

“He’s 34. Just turned 35,” David Pollack explained on the See Ball Get Ball podcast. “So I’ll never forget, we were in Eugene, Oregon, Dan Lanning’s first year on the job and this young, 12-year-old dude walks in the office and he’s walking around the office and he walks up and he’s like, ‘Hey, Kenny Dillingham.’ I was like, ‘Oh, you’re the offensive coordinator.’ I was like, ‘How old are you?’ Literally, I was like, ‘How old are you?’ And obviously, at the time, he was like probably 29, 30. I was just like, ‘Holy cow.'”

Dillingham has been on a number of staffs with major connections in the college football world. He was at Memphis when the now Florida State coach, Mike Norvell, was there. He spent time with Gus Malzahn at Auburn in 2019.

Then he joined Lanning’s staff at Oregon in 2022. The last stint came as an offensive coordinator, and it set the stage for Dillingham to land the Arizona State job.

Dillingham was one of college football’s youngest head coaches at the time. But Pollack, who met him back at Oregon, recalls being blown away by how put-together Dillingham was, even at a young age.

“I remember watching him draw up offense and I said, ‘I watched your tape, and I said you’re good,'” Pollack said. “I was like, ‘How do you do this, how do you that?’ He was just, man, people skills, lock in on the eyes. And you’re just like, OK, that dude’s going to be something. He knew what he wanted, you could tell. He had assertion, commitment, confidence.

“A confidence about him that… I mean, you walk in the room as a head coach at 30 years old, you’ve got to have something to you. You’ve got to be able to have the ability to relate and the ability to command, and that’s why he’s one of those guys, when he speaks, we listen.”

Dillingham clearly has it. Now it’s just a matter of how far he can get at Arizona State. The Sun Devils will be one of the favorites in the Big 12, eyeing another playoff spot.

The young Arizona State coach will have a chance to firmly cement himself as one of the game’s best coaches. Young or otherwise.