ASU coach Kenny Dillingham embodies the energy and vision that helped transformed the Sun Devils from 3–9 to College Football Playoff contenders. (Photo by Anthony Chiu/Cronkite News)
PHOENIX – Two years ago, Arizona State football was in the middle of its worst two-year stretch – winning percentage wise – in program history. ASU fired head coach Herm Edwards midseason after an embarrassing loss to Eastern Michigan, the Sun Devils finished the season 3-9 and the university was in the middle of a recruiting scandal.
ASU searched for a new coach at a time when the football program wasn’t much more than a laughing stock. Who would want that job?
Kenny Dillingham, and his ability to turn the program into a national powerhouse in record time came thanks to five key ingredients: strong relationships, proper strength and conditioning, full player effort, talent and psychological flexibility.
The early years
The Arizona native grew up loving ASU. The Chaparral High School alum played football until he tore his ACL his senior year and began coaching with the junior varsity team.
Dillingham coached the varsity quarterbacks at Chaparral for five years under coach Charlie Ragle before he was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2013.
“I saw an ambitious young man who had a fire, was extremely bright – components that are going to give you an opportunity to be successful in any endeavors in life,” Ragle said. “He wasn’t scared to speak up. Once he really got going, you saw his dedication and work ethic.”
After a year as OC at Chaparral, Dillingham became an offensive assistant under offensive coordinator and assistant head coach Mike Norvell at ASU. Two years later, Norvell took the head coaching job at Memphis and Dillingham followed, as a graduate assistant. During Dilligham’s three years at Memphis, he rose from a grad assistant to a quarterbacks and tight ends coach to the offensive coordinator while still working with the quarterbacks.
“You can sit there as a coach; you can have all the desires, all the dreams of what you want it to be, but you have to go make it happen. I never gave Kenny anything. He earned all that he ever got,” Norvell said. “You embrace opportunity. There’s plenty of people that desire for more, but aren’t always willing to do what it takes to gain more.
“Whatever your role and responsibility is, you have to approach every day as if you’re the next – as if you’re already living the promotion of what you desire and what you want to be. You have to do a great job in the tasks that you have, but if you put that type of ownership in it, then you’ll be ready for what’s ahead.”
In 2019, Dillingham took the offensive coordinator and quarterback’s coach position at Auburn under Gus Malzahn, where he met Bo Nix. After a year, Dillingham reconnected with Norvell at Florida State in the same position. The offensive guru turned heads with his development of FSU quarterback Jordan Travis, who spent two seasons with Dillingham before he led the Seminoles to a 13-0 regular season in 2023.
“I thought Kenny did a great job of helping Jordan realize potential things that he could do to help him walk through some of those challenging moments where maybe even Jordan doubted himself,” Norvell said. “They formed a great relationship and he continued to help Jordan take the positive steps, which eventually he continued on and became one of the best players in college football.”
After two seasons with Norvell at FSU, Dillingham reunited with Nix at Oregon. In 2022, Nix threw for more than 3,500 yards, rushed for more than 500 yards and accounted for 42 total touchdowns under Dillingham’s leadership.
Running back Cam Skattebo was the engine of ASU’s offense in 2024, racking up 1,735 rushing yards, 605 receiving yards, and 25 total touchdowns. (Photo by Dani Trujillo/Cronkite News)
A year later, Dillingham jumped at the opportunity to be a head coach. Not only was it his first head coaching opportunity, but it came at his favorite university – the ultimate dream job.
“This is literally home. So, I say that because this place is special. This state is special. The people in this room are special. I’m going to be fired up to be here, fired up to be a Sun Devil,” Dillingham said in his introductory press conference. “I am all in. That’s my family right there up front, pretty cool. When you talk about a person, and a family that’s rooted here, that’s me, right? This is my dream job.”
In his first season, mulled by pending NCAA sanctions and a self-imposed bowl ban from ASU’s recruiting scandal by the previous regime and mountains of injuries, ASU finished 3-9 for the second straight year. Dillingham talked about trusting the process and success taking time. But, by the performance on the field, there wasn’t much belief.
In 2024, Dillingham and ASU took the college football world by storm and shocked the country. The story has been told many times. ASU was picked to finish last in its new Big 12 conference, its season win total set at four and a half, and nobody believed the Sun Devils would look much better than the two previous 3-9 seasons – except Dillingham and the players in his locker room.
“Nobody believes in you, you should have a little bit of a chip on your shoulder from that perspective. But, great teams are not built off of what the media’s perception of them is,” Dillingham said before ASU’s 2024 opener. “Great teams are built because they’re wired in a way to just get better throughout the process every single day, and that’s what we’ve been focused on.”
We don’t need to highlight each moment throughout the season because everyone knows what happened next. Dillingham and Co. proved every doubter wrong. ASU finished 11-3, which was its best finish since 1996, when Bruce Snyder took the program to the Rose Bowl. The Sun Devils made the College Football Playoffs for the first time in school history, and took the Texas Longhorns to double overtime in the Peach Bowl.
It’s safe to say, any college football fan across the country knew about Dillingham and ASU football by the end of the first week of 2025.
Quarterback Sam Leavitt received arly 2025 Heisman hype. Receiver Jordyn Tyson’s stock rose to become one of the best receivers in the country, and running back Cam Skattebo had many believing he was the best back in the country.
Leavitt threw for nearly 3,000 yards, 24 touchdowns and ran for an additional 612 yards. Tyson reeled in 1,101 yards and 10 touchdowns in just 12 games, and Skattebo collected 1,735 rush yards, 605 receiving yards and 25 total touchdowns.
With Skattebo’s departure to the NFL, there are many skeptics of whether ASU can build on the success from 2024 or if it was just a one-off. However, Leavitt is only a redshirt sophomore, Tyson’s a redshirt junior, and the Sun Devils have many returners on the defensive side along with a deep running back room.
Every coach has a recipe for success, and finding the right ingredients to implement it is the key to being the next college football powerhouse.
What are the essentials to a successful football team and how has Dillingham implemented them at ASU?
Trust between players and coaches
Former ASU women’s basketball coach and Phoenix Mercury assistant coach Charli Turner Thorne would say, “People don’t care about what you know until they know you care.” Turner Thorne is the winningest women’s basketball coach in ASU history, and this simple, yet powerful message was the basis of the trust built between the coach and her players.
From the court to the grass, Dillingham leads with a similar coaching philosophy.
“If you know your players, you can coach them better. If you understand their why, if you understand how they think, you understand how to motivate them,” Dillingham said. “You understand when they’re down. You understand when they’re up. So, if you don’t know your player, you’re going to be limited in terms of how you can coach them.”
Dillingham arrived in Tempe when all hell broke loose, but he had a vision. He knew his vision wouldn’t happen overnight, but he had faith in a plan to bring joy and love for college football back to the Valley.
The first step was to build a culture at ASU that could rejuvenate the Sun Devils, create a sense of pride and bring excitement to the team once again, and that started with him. However, that constant energy and focus started way before his time at ASU.
“First time I ever really got a chance to be around him on a football field, he was the (offensive coordinator) at Chaparral. He’d come over and spend a lot of time talking ball during our spring practice,” Norvell said. “(He was) very attentive; you could sense the desire he had to be a great coach and a person of influence within his staff, within his football team and the relationships he had with his players. That was something that stood out to me. His energy was infectious.”
Dillingham’s willingness to be himself and show courage has always been evident, from his time at Chaparral with Ragle, Memphis and FSU with Norvell, Auburn with Gus Malzahn, to ASU.
“I got a chance to sit in the quarterback room and just watch him, and you could tell his positive energy … he was different than most. He’s a real positive guy, positive thinker,” Malzahn said. “He had courage to give his opinion in big moments, which is rare for a young guy. There’s not a lot of guys like him.”
Dillingham’s courage, undeniable energy and authenticity to be himself around his players helped build trust at a time when all trust had been lost. Malzahn, a national champion with almost 35 years of coaching experience, said college football is hard. There’s a lot of ups and downs that come with success.
The relationships built within a team are what carry players through those ups and downs, and that’s what DIllingham has worked to create within the Sun Devils. He’s a relationship builder, and that’s what players need.
“More than anything, it’s the relationships that Coach Dillingham has created with the players. In order to have success, you have to have clear and concise communication. I think he’s built a bridge of trust with the players, and they know that their voice matters,” Ragle said. “I think the consistency with that, and the communication between the players and the coaches, and especially the head coach who runs the programs; that has been pivotal in our success, especially from year one to year two.”
ASU’s jump from three wins to 11 wins in Dillingham’s second season exceeded even the highest of expectations. The basis of that success grew from the trust planted in the relationships Dillingham and his staff built with their players.
“Nobody’s going to give you an effort or listen to what you have to say unless they know you actually care about them, and you want them to do well and want them to do better. People want to know that you care about them,” Marsit said. “They want to know that you’re capable of explaining why things happen and get down to the deeper meaning of stuff. Those athletes, you talk to them, they really and truly understand that those coaches care about them.
“They care about them as people. They care about them as human beings. They’re not just cogs in a machine to play football. When you feel that way, you’re willing to do stuff, you’re willing to sacrifice more, to work harder and do what you’re being asked to do, if you believe that there’s something bigger forward.”
Proper strength and conditioning
Coming off a historic season, Arizona State gears up during spring practice with eyes set on sustaining success and proving 2024 was just the beginning. (Photo by Emma Jeanson/Cronkite News)
Strength and conditioning is the backbone of an athlete’s control over their potential. Every athlete wants to get better, faster and stronger so they can be the best possible version of themself in whatever sport they partake in.
However, doing so correctly is extremely important. The practice of strength and conditioning has transitioned from less heavy, constant training, to a more controlled, precise, goal-oriented method, according to Marsit, who oversees the Bachelor of Science in Sports Science and Performance Programming at ASU.
“I think the time of just the rah rah, ‘powerlifter, go-lift-heavy coach is really kind of coming to an end, and now it is much more of a science based field that requires you to really have some intricate knowledge of what’s going on,” Marsit said. “We train human beings, not robots, and there’s this kind of misbelief that you just keep doing more and you just get better, and that’s how it works. The reality is, your body is just constantly cycling through being broken down and then building itself back up.”
Marsit is a seasoned expert in sports science and strength in conditioning. The ASU teaching professor earned his bachelor’s degree in exercise science from Pennsylvania State University, and his master’s degree in exercise physiology from Appalachian State University. Marsit is a certified strength and conditioning specialist, and was the associate head strength and conditioning coach at ASU before teaching.
“The key to training is understanding there are times you push really hard and you break people down, but then after you do that, you have to back off and allow them to recover, rebuild and get better, and have that recovery.” Marsit said. “If you just constantly kind of beat them into the ground, that’s all you’re doing, is just beating them into the ground, and eventually they’re going to suffer from overtraining symptoms.
“You’re going to see a breakdown in muscle tissue. You’re going to see some negative reactions, people are going to get burned out. At a deep molecular level, we are actually changing the muscle. When we over train it, it just can’t fire off anymore. It doesn’t have the ability to do so.”
This is the basis of periodization training. It’s training at different levels of intensity over a period of time to reach maximum potential. Many times this type of training is used in competition events so an athlete can perform at its highest level on a certain day or window of days.
But, this training strategy can be used in regular training as well for consistent growth without overdoing it. Muscle growth is the breaking down of muscle tissue so it can grow back stronger. But if time isn’t allowed for the muscle tissue to grow back, it just continues to wear down.
This becomes particularly important for college athletes because they don’t have the resources professional athletes have in the recovery process. They may not have a private chef or hyperbaric chamber at home.
“Periodization is just about how you plan an exercise routine to make sure that you’re allowing for sufficient recoveries; enough light to heavy days of training, so that everything kind of comes up in balance. These are students. They’re going to school every day,” Marsit said. “So trying to balance out their training with that is really important, and it’s a much more delicate balance than say the professional athlete who does have access to all kinds of stuff for recovery.
“A college athlete, you have what you have. So you have to put much more importance on making sure their training variation matches what their body’s capable of doing, so that they don’t hurt themselves.”
Technology developments have given coaches and athletes a huge step up in this category. There’s numerous tools now that can measure athletes’ acceleration, their power production when lifting, speed of the bar movements, repetitions and the bar’s path during workouts.
These advancements allow for teams to be more precise with their training regiments, and have a closer eye of athletes safety during workouts.
“We really have a much tighter control on what they’re capable of doing, when we could push, when we need to back off,” Marsit said. “Then finding their way to their genetic potential much sooner than we ever could before.”
Dr. David Udelf, a clinical and sports psychologist, has an acronym, REP, for success in athletes’ strength and conditioning training. Udelf earned his Doctor of Psychology degree from the University of Denver, and has over 40 years of coaching experience.
Udelf said to make every rep count, you need to have the correct rhythm, execution and precision, and this goes for training and in-game situations across sports.
“You need to be precise. In order to be precise, you need to execute it correctly. In order to execute it effectively, you need to have the right rhythm,” Udelf said. “When you rush, you jump offsides. Baseball players; they rush their swing.”
Full effort from players
ASU defensive back Javan Robinson, center, leads a talented and deep defensive unit poised to be a driving force for the Sun Devils again in 2025. (Photo by Spencer Barnes/Cronkite News)
A coach’s ability to get full effort from their players starts with the first two ingredients: trust and proper training. Players aren’t going to give everything they have unless they trust their coach, have that relationship and have the proper training support.
“They have to know that you have their best interest at heart. They need to know when you ask for 100 percent effort, like you actually need it, and you mean it at this time,” Marsit said. “And then you’re also going to protect them and back off at other times.”
All these aspects work together to coincide with each other, and it’s up to a coach to make their athletes feel comfortable, heard and motivated.
“Every workout is not going to be (about seeing) if we can make people throw up. It’s a balance, and if you can build that trust and rapport with your athletes … give them some ownership over their body and their program, but also build the faith they have in you to do the right things, you really are going to build a really successful program and relationship,” Marsit said.
Dillingham and his staff have built relationships with their players and gained trust to get the best effort from the Sun Devils when asked. That respect has been developed through leadership by example.
“They’ve got to see it from you. It’s the willingness to be the example. A willingness to really put yourself out there as a coach … what it is that you desire, but also what you’re willing to pour into them,” Norvell said. “Everybody can talk about what they want it to look like, but are you willing to put that on display for an 18 to 22 year old?
“Are you willing to take ownership? Are you willing to be vulnerable? Are you willing to pour it all in for them to see it put on display and hopefully inspire them to do that in their own right in their own career.”
This leadership by example is demonstrated in practice every day. Senior defensive end Elijah O’Neal said Dillingham’s energy is contagious, and there’s not a lot of coaches in college football like him.
“He’s very energetic, man. That energy just converts to its players and helps them have the same juice,” O’Neal said. “If you’re juiceless, you’re useless. So when you get on this practice field, you have to bring that juice because the coaches are and they’re going to know if you’re draining the juice or if you’re adding to it.”
Although there may not be certain statistics a coach can look at for those levels of measurement, the eye test and players’ presence goes a long way.
How many workouts are people missing? How much time are they away from the team? Is the full team staying all summer and buying into the program to get ready for the season? Are they showing up for voluntary workouts? There are many other ways than simple statistics coaches can monitor to determine their players’ effort levels.
“From a strength and conditioning standpoint, that’s the metrics you look at. How many people are trying to get out of the workouts versus how many people are actually showing up and doing the job,” Marsit said. “That tells you a lot about whether a team buys into what they’re doing.”
However, with the advancements in technology of weight training devices, coaches can monitor effort metrics in a more precise method as well. Technology now allows them to track the efforts of athletes in individual lifts and workouts.
This goes a long way in player and team accountability. When Marsit was a strength and conditioning coach, the coaches would put metrics up on the board on competition days for everyone to see to make sure everyone gave max effort. Overall, this information gives players and coaches more to study and analyze to optimize performance.
“You can really hold people accountable who are not giving you a full effort, and compare it to what they did the day before, the week before,” Marsit said.
Good players
ASU quarterback Sam Leavitt, who threw for nearly 3,000 yards last season, enters the upcoming college football season with early 2025 Heisman hype. (Photo by Spencer Barnes/Cronkite News)
The fourth ingredient to a successful football team is recruiting good players: talented players and high-character players that fit the culture of the team. Success makes recruiting more talented players easier, but Ragle said the Sun Devils aren’t quite there yet.
This seems very simple, and it is. But simple concepts aren’t always easy to make a reality.
“I think we’re still working to get the very best players that we can get. We haven’t arrived by any stretch. We had one good year,” Ragle said. “You can’t just let talent override character. You can have a bunch of talent, and if they don’t have any guidance or leadership from within – and I’m not talking about the coaches, I’m talking about the players – and they don’t have a moral compass that tells them, ‘Hey, we have to do right, and this is not right.’
“You’ll just be a talent pool gone astray. So the biggest thing, (Dillingham) has been very diligent about that – finding the right guys that we feel have the right mix of talent with the right values that we want here at Arizona State.”
The Sun Devils 2024 run was sensational, and it was propelled by the right guys being on the field. But, once you get those good players into the locker room and onto the field, Norvell believes to maintain that success a coach needs to have belief in their players and together they can work toward a common goal of winning, achieving success.
“I’d like to see myself as a, ‘You can,’ coach. Try to surround myself with people that I believe in all the things that they can achieve, and I try to hold them to the standard of what I know they’re capable of,” Norvell said. “Everyday we get the choice for what we’re willing to pour into the opportunities that we have. I’m just trying to help paint that picture and hold guys accountable to the standard of all that I know they can be.”
Norvell, a coach with nearly 20 years of experience, won four different Coach of the Year awards in 2023, including the Paul “Bear” Bryant Award. The FSU coach believes by surrounding yourself with people you believe in and carry high expectations for, it results in good players.
When you combine belief in an individual with shared goals and values, the effort level to achieve success heightens. The consistent effort each day builds up to be ready for when the big moment comes.
“It’s about finding like-minded individuals that believe in a common cause, that are willing to do the things necessary to put themselves in a position to achieve success, and everybody wants to be successful,” Norvell said. “Everybody desires to win in the moment. But are you willing to do the things that it takes to be prepared for your moment? Whether it’s one play, one game, whatever that might be throughout the course of the season.
“You have to earn that. You have to earn it throughout your preparation, and really the sacrifices that you’re willing to make throughout the course of your career to be able to answer the call when your moment arises.”
Psychological flexibility
ASU coach Kenny Dillingham’s success is rooted in the trust and relationships that have become the foundation of ASU’s program culture. (Photo by Brendon Pricco/Cronkite News)
Psychological flexibility is the ability to pursue valued goals despite the presence of distress. The final ingredient to a successful football team is the ability to demonstrate psychological flexibility. A successful team needs players who can demonstrate the ability to bounce back from mistakes and pivot from internal conflict.
“Keep the main thing, the main thing. Stay focused and remember what you’re here for, and like why you even want to play football in the first place,” junior running back Kanye Udoh said, who transferred to ASU from Army this offseason.
Udelf would say, “Get out of your head and get into the game.” Players need the mental ability to play free on the field despite any outside noise or personal stresses.
“Athletes have to be able to be not only flexible to dealing with stuff that goes on – they have to be able to move on. There’s a lot of mind chatter going on, a lot of things going on in the mind, and you have to deal with it instead of dwelling on that stuff,” Dr. Udelf said. “You have to be able to put your attention on what you’re doing. For example, if a quarterback throws an interception, he has to be able to bounce back.”
An athletes’ ability to move on from mistakes is crucial to their psychological flexibility and mental stability. Another aspect is their ability to stay calm under pressure and not lash out.
In the military, they use a phrase: Calm is contagious. When working in high stress environments, the leader needs to be calm and composed so it translates to the rest of the unit. The same can be applied to athletics.
This doesn’t mean the energy needs to be stripped away from leaders on a football team. But, in critical situations throughout a game, or a season, a leader’s ability to stay calm and collected to deliver radiates through the team.
This can also translate to the ups and downs of a season and focus level. Udelf was a reporter at an NFL game in September 2014, when Justin Tucker nailed a 32-yard field goal as time expired for the Baltimore Ravens to beat the Cleveland Browns, allowing the Ravens to eventually make the playoffs that season.
When Udelf entered the locker room, there wasn’t much celebration happening. So, he asked Ravens defensive end Chris Canty why. Canty told him there was celebration right when they entered, but these are professional athletes, and they’re getting ready for the next game now.
There’s always room for celebration of accomplishments and exciting events, but psychological flexibility is about continuing toward end goals despite the presence of those good or bad distractions.
The success ASU attained last season was unprecedented, and it wouldn’t have been accomplished without the presence of trust and relationships, proper strength and conditioning, full effort from players, good players and psychological flexibility.
To sustain that success going forward, each player needs to be hungrier to achieve even more, which is a challenge for everyone in this day in age of college football.
Norvell’s Seminoles went 13-1 and finished ranked No. 5 in the college football playoffs in 2023. FSU was ranked No. 10 in the 2024 preseason Top 25. The Seminoles lost nine of their first 10 games and finished 2-10 in 2025. The world of college sports is so unpredictable and losing that edge and want for growth can derail success.
That’s the challenge Dillingham and ASU will face in 2025, finding the desperation for improvement and not becoming complacent.
“Even for us this last year … there’s plenty of distractions in this world and things that can work to keep you from what is best. It’s a desperation for improvement, a desperation for growth, and capitalizing on the potential that you have,” Norvell said. “You can’t get caught up in your momentary result. You can’t let your circumstances define you. You have to be able to push and be able to give everything you have to showcase all that you are, with a constant mindset of improvement.”
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