Kenny Dillingham knows the value of staying home as ASU prepares extension

For weeks, Kenny Dillingham’s future was treated as a foregone conclusion just not in Tempe. Across the college football landscape, his name became shorthand for the next domino to fall. Betting odds made him the favorite for LSU. Auburn rumors resurfaced with familiar nostalgia. And when Michigan abruptly fired Sherrone Moore, Wolverines fans flooded the internet, convinced that Arizona State’s head coach was theirs for the taking. The evidence was thin social media follows, anonymous “reporters,” shifting odds, but the confidence was absolute.

Arizona State, many insisted, was only a bridge. The resources wouldn’t be enough. The pull of a blue blood would be irresistible. And Dillingham, like every coach before him, was surely saying the right things while planning his exit.

Except that narrative never aligned with what Dillingham himself was expressing or doing. After Arizona State’s win over West Virginia earlier this season, when LSU speculation reached its loudest point, Dillingham didn’t hedge.

“I was never leaving,” Dillingham remarked at the time. “I never said I was leaving. This is home.”

Even then, doubt lingered. But now, with Arizona State having sent a contract extension to his agent and all signs pointing toward Dillingham remaining as head coach, the noise is finally giving way to clarity.

“(ASU) sent my agent one after the last game at some point,” Dillingham noted. “That was the week that I had about a billion and a half meetings. So I’m not really involved in that. That’s kind of my team. I coach football.”

That division between football and business has been central to Dillingham’s approach. While speculation swirled around Michigan and nearly every other major opening, he maintained that he had not engaged in conversations during the season.

“Yeah,” Dillingham responded when asked if that was still the case. “I had one conversation with a school because the AD kept calling us right after the season and said, listen, I appreciate it, but that’s not something for me, but I respect you as a person. But it wasn’t for a job. It was more out of respect for somebody. Other than that, I still have not had any contact, myself, with anybody.”

Michigan, however, was impossible to ignore. Dillingham didn’t downplay the stature of the job or the weight of the brand.

“I think that’s cool, I guess,” Dillingham observed. “That’s one of the best programs in the country. It’s one of the best logos in the country. I think everybody can agree there. In today’s era, I think it’s one of the best jobs in the country, and I think everybody can attest to that.”

But admiration, he made clear, does not equal temptation.

“That doesn’t change how I feel about here,” Dillingham emphasized. “That doesn’t change that my sister’s my neighbor. That doesn’t change that my parents live three doors down. That doesn’t change that my son’s best friend is my sister’s daughter. So none of that changes, but it is one of the best jobs in America. It’s an unbelievable brand.”

When asked whether the constant speculation is tiring, Dillingham responded with humor and perspective.

“Episode 14, right?” Dillingham joked. “Episode 14. We suck. We’re good. You’re good. You’re bad. Fire everybody. Your coaches suck. You failed at this. You’re good at that. Episode 14, Season 3, to be continued.”

When the conversation returned to Arizona State’s willingness to work on his contract, Dillingham acknowledged he hasn’t immersed himself in the details.

“I haven’t dove in too deep in it, so I don’t even really know what that looks like in great detail, to be honest,” Dillingham explained. “I looked at it originally after the season. A lot of that stuff gets done in the season. Ours got done after the season.”

Dillingham, who owns a 19-7 record over the last two seasons, including a Big 12 Championship, a College Football Playoff appearance, and the revival of football in the Valley, has always prioritized his team and their needs over his own. Saturday was no different. His focus quickly returned to coaching.

“And then I go into what’s next mode,” Dillingham described. “And as you can look out here, we don’t have as many players out here. And I want to coach football, so I went into, like, football coaching mode, meeting with my players mode. And that’s kind of where I’m at.”

Moments later, his voice caught as he spoke about the place, an emotional beat that gave way to a joke in classic Dillingham fashion.

“I love this place,” Dillingham reflected. “Like I said, my… Whew. Was that a long enough pause? But this place is just, it’s a special place to me.”

When asked what message he would send to Arizona State fans who have ridden the emotional roller coaster alongside him, Dillingham turned the attention away from himself.

“I think it’s a testament to what the president’s done, what the AD’s done, the city’s selling out, the kids who chose to come back here when they could have gone other places,” Dillingham stated. “I think it’s a testament to everybody. I know every coach says that in this scenario, but it actually is.”

He framed his decision-making not as personal ambition, but responsibility.

“When you’re the leader of a group of people, you’re not making individual decisions,” Dillingham asserted. “You’re making group decisions. You’re making group thought. And I think for me, I know where I stand. I know what I want.”

“And, you know, as a leader of a group, it’s my job to take care of groups of people and to do right by groups of people, not just, you know, Kenny Dillingham.”

The backdrop to all of it, Dillingham emphasized, is a college football landscape that has fundamentally changed.

“The state of college football, you can call it what it is, it’s an arms race,” Dillingham remarked. “There are haves and have-nots. It’s an arms race.”

Asked whether Arizona State has what it needs to keep building at a high level, Dillingham offered a blunt assessment of modern college football economics.

“That’s not a possible question because that changes every day,” Dillingham explained. “We could have everything we need today. We could be $10 million short tomorrow.”

Still, as he has for months, Dillingham continues to express confidence in a management group that some outside the program argued lacks the resources to keep him. He remains certain the university is doing everything possible to compete at the highest level.

“I will say, I believe the university is fighting, scratching and clawing to stay not just competitive, but try to stay a program that can compete for championships,” Dillingham affirmed.

Through all the speculation, he said his relationship with his players has remained unchanged.

“They know what my heart is,” Dillingham shared. “They know what I believe. And they know where my heart’s at.”

When asked what brings out the emotion that still surfaces when he talks about the job, Dillingham didn’t hesitate.

“Just this place,” Dillingham revealed. “Everything.”

In an era defined by movement, leverage, and constant recalculation, Kenny Dillingham is on the verge of doing the thing many assumed he wouldn’t: staying. Not because the opportunities elsewhere weren’t real. Not because the chaos isn’t exhausting. But because, for him, Arizona State was never a bridge.

It was home.

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