Arizona State's Kenny Dillingham Leads Big 12 Coach Rankings

The highly anticipated 2025 college football season is approaching at lighning speed - and the Arizona State Sun Devils are looking to build off of what was a best-case scenario 2024 season.

A large piece as to why many are bullish on the Sun Devil program is head coach Kenny Dillingham.

The 35 year-old guru has already equally impressed and endeared the college football world - last season's output has placed him amongst the elite coaches in the nation.

Without further ado, a preseason conference coach rankings, in descending order:

16. Brent Brennan, Arizona

15. Scott Satterfield, Cincinnati

14. Willie Fritz, Houston

13. Scott Frost, UCF

12. Dave Aranda, Baylor

11. Rich Rodriguez, West Virginia

10. Sonny Dykes, TCU

9. Joey McGuire, Texas Tech

8. Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State

7. Deion Sanders, Colorado

6. Lance Leipold, Kansas

5. Matt Campbell, Iowa State

4. Chris Klieman, Kansas State

3. Kalani Sitake, Brigham Young

2. Kyle Whittingham, Utah

1. Kenny Dillingham, Arizona State

The bottom tier of coaches are in those spots due to either being in a rebuilding phase, on the hot seat, or a combination of the aforementioned and other outside factors.

The overall rankings truly begin with Aranda at 12 - the Baylor head man has two incredibly impressive seasons mixed in with underwhelming outputs.

The upper-echelon of coaches within the conference begin at number six with Leipold.

Any coach that actually brought Kansas back into prominence is deserving of praise, and Leipold did just that. A disappointing season last year pushes the former Buffalo coach down a few spots, but he remains one of the better coaches in the conference.

Campbell, Klieman, and Sitake are all in the same boat as coaches that have experienced varying degrees of highs-and-lows over their respective tenures. All three remain among the best coaches in the nation - let alone the Big 12.

Utah struggled in 2024, but Whittingham's track record in replacing Urban Meyer as the leader of the program is nothing short of incredible.

Dillingham has a small sample size, but everything the tactician represents and is demonstrating through all levels of the program signify that what is being built is truly sustainable.

Read more about Dillingham's journey to coaching his alma matter here, along with reasons to be optimistic about the future of the program here.

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