Everything Kenny Dillingham Said After Arizona State's 26-13 Win vs. Central Florida
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In a whirlwind of a 48-hour stretch, the Sun Devils put their plane pains behind them and took home a conference victory over Central Florida, 23-16, in Orlando.
Two teams vying for bowl eligibility, one of them coming off little sleep and crazy travel, made for quite the matchup in the Sunshine State. What did ASU head football coach Kenny Dillingham think about the Sun Devils' performance?
Here is everything the fourth-year head coach had to say postgame:
Opening Thoughts
"You got to give a thank you to UCF for letting us push it back, trying to give a thank you the Big 12 for understanding the situation and pushing it back two hours, and then our AD Graham Rossini, everybody involved, Brian McGinnis, Lexi Godfrey, everybody involved in the process to make it as smooth as possible, because that was utter chaos."
"You're moving 200 people across the country on different times, and you're staying in different places, and I think they handled it as flawlessly as we could possibly handle the situation. But, I got told something when I was a high school coach by Mike Angeloni. Excuses are like buttholes; everybody has them when they all stink, right? And that's what tonight would have been. I get just an excuse."
"End of the day, you're going to take the field for 60 minutes and play a football game. You're going to get it done, or you're not. And nobody's going to care what the circumstances was because nobody cares about circumstances. They care about results. And our guys got that done tonight. Our guys were fired up for the challenge, and I really couldn't be. That was probably one of my favorite games since being at ASU."
How ASU Handled The Flight Trouble
"We let 105 college kids stay in their own hotel or their own room the night before a game, and everybody was in their seats at 5:54 in the morning, early. Talk about a good sign. When that happened, I was like, "Okay, it's Friday night in Tempe. This is the most unique thing that could have happened." And we got every person six minutes early, 5:54 a.m. Zero complaints from our football team. Everybody just got on the bus, they loaded, and they were fired up to play. Jake Fette said that he slept like eight or nine hours. He was asleep at like 8 o'clock. What does it say? Just the players handled it like professionals in the situation. They wanted to care. The care level is high. I think that's the game: you recruit guys that have a high care level. They want to win. They want to compete. And I think that showed up tonight."
ASU's Defense Shows Up Again
"Our defense, since the Tech game, we had a three-week span there where it was like, 'What is going on?' I knew what was going on. We fixed it, but it was like, "How is this even possible that we got here?" Right? And a testament to the defense, it really started in Baylor. It took us two weeks to fix. It took us Hawaii. It took us Tech, and then I think after that, it started to click."
"We started to get, I'd say, more sound, more consistent, more on the same page, and you can see what can happen when we can be on the same page. And kudos to Coach (DC Brian) Ward, defensive staff. Kudos to the players. A lot of times, when I mean, we were really bad there for two weeks. A lot of times when that happens, everybody can start to panic. Our players double down on the work. They double down on the process. Our staff double down on the process, and you can see the results right now, and they're through the roof."
WR Derek Eusebio's Trick Play Pass, Leading to Touchdown
"Has Derek not just done everything? Like, man, he's just whatever you need, whenever you need (a) big down. There's Derek. It's amazing how many times a big down shows up and Derek's involved over and over again. I mean, he is going to put that one on his phone for a long time. It's going to go straight to the video archives and the video bank for him."
K Carson Smith's 4/4 Kicking Night
"He got the game ball today. I told him, four-for-four, game-sealing, basically, kicks to go up three scores there."
Thoughts on Earning Bowl Eligibility?
"I'm gonna be honest, that's zero thought in my mind right now. That is a minimum thought in my brain. I never talk about bowls or championships or anything. So we'll cross that bridge when we cross it. Obviously, that will be a positive for us. But it's not something I'm thinking about. But we do get extra practices, which is great, right? More practices, the better you can get. But I'm just focused on right now. I'm gonna spend the next six hours on this plane, watching football and doing absolutely nothing, and then wake up at 7:00 a.m. Arizona time and rock and roll and get back to the get back to the grind."
How Close is ASU To Reaching Peak Form?
"There's still certain plays where, 'Man, we had that.' Like, we had everybody here blocked, or maybe we didn't see it on offense. Or hey, we are deep on the punt block. Like, man, like we had a great chance to change the game. So yes, we're playing better, but there's still opportunities for us, and those are all in the details. Like I said, I don't remember us doing a punt block drill with volleyballs since fall camp, where we dive our hands low. So how can we expect a guy not to do that detail? So I look at any time our guys make mistakes like that. I look at, have we done that? Have we helped them do that? They can't just know it. It's our job to prepare them. So I take extreme ownership."
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Dan Allison is a graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, graduating Cum Laude in Sports Journalism. He currently works for the Rio Rancho Observer and the Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico and has covering high school sports in both New Mexico and Arizona and he is a contributor to High School On SI. He began contributing to Arizona State Sun Devils On SI in 2026.