Could Arizona State be the next Clemson or Oregon? Kenny Dillingham thinks so

Kenny Dillingham is still not comfortable being viewed as a top coach in college football or a preseason favorite entering 2025. But in his second year on the job, he led Arizona State to the College Football Playoff in 2024 as the program won its first conference title since 2007.

Being a preseason top-15 team and the CFP expectations take some getting used to for Dillingham. Just a year ago, he was coming off a 3-9 season.

“That means I have the top 10 to 15 players; that’s usually how that works,” Dillingham said when asked about the preseason buzz.

Finding this level of success is what Dillingham dreamed of as he climbed the coaching ranks quickly, landing the Arizona State job at 32 years old. Speaking to On3 when he was traveling to the Big 12 spring meetings this week, Dillingham did not want to dish off opinions on the transfer portal or CFP formatting. Weighing in on hot offseason topics isn’t creating any clarity, he said.

Dillingham returns one of the top quarterbacks in the sport in Sam Leavitt, a former Michigan State transfer. Leavitt transferred in following his freshman season and threw for 2,885 yards and 24 touchdowns last season.

Along with Leavitt, the Sun Devils return a core of 15 starters across their offense and defense. Bringing back that much talent in the transfer portal age of college football is a heavy task. Dillingham points to the culture his players are building.

Can Arizona State prove 2024 was not a fluke?

“The whole cliche is complacency and the first sign of failure and all that stuff,” Dillingham said. “For us, it’s just very simple: Why would everybody choose to come back if they want to be the same? Did people come back to do the same thing again? Was that really the goal? That shouldn’t be the goal. If everybody came back to accomplish the exact same thing, then why don’t you go take more money elsewhere? Why don’t you go to something else?”

The key piece of the 2024 roster not returning is running back Cam Skattebo. The 5-foot-11, 215-pound bowling ball running back rushed for 1,711 yards and 21 touchdowns last year, averaging nearly six yards per carry. Dillingham said his absence can’t be filled by just one running back, he’s looking at multiple to step up, including Army transfer Kanye Udoh and former top-100 recruit Raleek Brown.

But if Arizona State can improve on last season’s 11-3 record and be in the playoff hunt come November, Dillingham will be the hottest name in the upcoming coaching carousel. He signed a contract extension through 2029 in January. However, that will not stop Big Ten and SEC programs from calling.

Dillingham says he has no plans of leaving because he envisions Arizona State becoming the blue blood of the 2020s.

“You can build something very, very unique,” he said when asked about the possibility of offers from programs. “Every 10 years, a team shows up on the map, and they’re a blue blood to the next generation. They’re not a blue blood to the people my age, but they’re a blue blood to the 10-year-olds, the 11-year-olds and the 12-year-olds who you’re eventually going to recruit.

“You have Clemson this last cycle, from 2010 to 2020. They just showed up. People think they’ve been around forever. 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.”

Arizona State returns the most returning production in college football next to Clemson. But he is also quick to point out that he has not used NIL in a recruiting pitch for a top transfer or recruit yet. He’s worked to flip the typical recruiting mindset inside his program from talent acquisition to talent retention.

“Our method is we don’t recruit or acquire talent,” he said. “We retain talent. We’re a talent retention organization, not a talent acquisition organization.”

Dillingham also admits that the program is not where he wants it to be in NIL, but it is in a “much better spot” than when he took the job. With revenue sharing expected to begin on July 1, the reigning Big 12 Coach of the Year believes ASU will be on a more even playing field in the future.

“We’re back at home, for my family and our little guy,” said Dillingham, referring to his 3-year-old son. “You can create some sustainability here. In a world full of volatility, we can be one of the schools that the coaching staff wants to live here because they have kids, and they don’t want to move around because the kids want to go to school there. And if your coaching staff stays the same, then you’re probably not going to lose as many players. If you don’t lose as many players, you have continuity, which means you have a competitive advantage.

“The more opportunities that we hopefully get, the more we can show players that we want to be here. Look, we turned down this, we turned down that, we turned down this, we turned down that. That only stamps the message that we’re trying to build something.”

Dillingham has other sources of motivation preparing him for 2025. On top of proving that 2024 was not a once-a-decade performance from Arizona State, there is the heartbreaking double overtime loss to Texas in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals.

The Sun Devils scored with five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, tying the game at 24. A no-targeting call in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter sent the game into overtime. Dillingham said he’s not watched the targeting play much outside of social media, but “everybody knows what it was, so what do you do?”

The moment that sticks with him is having Texas at 4th-and-13 in overtime and allowing a touchdown. That image will never leave Dillingham’s memory.

“It obviously bothers me,” he said. “I’ll always have that moment of, it’s 4th-and-13. You look across the field, and you can see the vision of [Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian] Sark calling the play. You hear our play called in slow motion, and I’m processing what’s happening. They get in the formation that you want. You’re like, ‘OK, we got them.’

“And then they check, and you’re like, ‘Oh, no, we got to get out of this.’ It just happened too fast. Ball snapped, and then dang. That’ll never change.”

Proving that Arizona State can get back to that College Football Playoff stage and close out is what is fueling Kenny Dillingham. It’s the same type of hurdle Clemson overcame when it lost to Alabama in the national title game in 2016 and won the whole thing the next year.