Kenny Dillingham Discusses Arizona State's Loss to Arizona
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TEMPE -- Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham gifted time to talk to media following Friday's 23-7 loss to the Arizona Wildcats.
The loss ensured that the Sun Devils would not reach the 10 win plateau for a second consecutive season, and Dillingham was clearly disappointed with the result - the future remains bright in the face of an unfortunate loss.
To watch the full availability, view below.
Below is a partial transcript from the press conference - with select commentary attached.
On Jeff Sims' Rough Start
"Jeff is an unbelievable human being. He's an unbelievable person. He has all the ability in the world. I feel for him tonight. I really do, but I feel for him because he's a great person and you know, he's a guy that's going to be successful in life, I can almost guarantee that. And even though, you know it didn't work out tonight, like I said, I just have so much respect and love and that he's just such a good human being. And I think sometimes people need to stop think and be like,
Man, this dude chose to be a Sun Devil. This dude fought. This dude had 200 and some yards just Iowa State to keep us alive. Like this dude battled for Arizona State football. And sometimes the ball doesn't go your way. And I hope that doesn't define him here. What defines him here is wanting to be a Sun Devil and fighting and competing and doing whatever he can to try to win games."
Sims officially capped off his regular season career in Tempe with a 3-3 record. Despite sour feelings fans may have for the senior in the moment, he did lay everything out on the line in the final weeks of the season, and absolutely should be commended for the fight he showed.
Dillingham on Reloading in Transfer Portal
"Yeah, I just say we got to do a good job evaluating people and looking for who we should add to the program. You know, in today's day and age with the current way it's set up, you know, it's harder to withstand injuries than it's ever been, because it's just the new model of college football, but I think we're gonna have a really good chance to go get really good players to add to the program. We still have our we've done this before where we had to go get a lot of players and add them.
The difference was, I feel like our depth and our young guys in our program, I feel really, really good about I feel really good about the guys who signed, so I think those guys are going to get better and better and better. So I feel like, you know, even though we do have to kind of reload, we have so much better depth than we had two years ago or three years ago when we got here that we don't have to, like, go crazy anymore."
The notion that Arizona State will be starting from square one is categorically false - the program has a strong foundation from players that will remain with the team heading into the 2026 season. Emerging players such as Martell Hughes, Jaren Hamilton, and Makua Pule will surely be counted on moving into the next era of ASU football.
Read more on why the Arizona State men's basketball team will exceed expectations in the 2025-26 season here, and on major takeaways from the Sun Devils’ convincing win over Colorado in week 13 here.
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Kevin Hicks is an Arizona State alumni and now serves as the Arizona State Beat Writer On SI.