Arizona State's Kenny Dillingham praises Utah QB Devon Dampier: 'I definitely should've recruited him harder'

Sun Devils head coach holds Dampier and the Utes in high regard

Arizona State Sun Devils head coach Kenny Dillingham. | Petre Thomas-Imagn Images

Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham had a chance to recruit Utah quarterback Devon Dampier when he was coming out of Saguaro High School in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Dampier wound up committing to New Mexico as a three-star prospect in December 2022, just a few weeks after Dillingham, a Phoenix native, had been hired as the next head coach of the Sun Devils following stints as an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Auburn, Florida State and Oregon.

Almost three years later, as Utah prepares to host Arizona State in a Big 12 showdown at Rice-Eccles Stadium, Dillingham reflects on not putting more time into recruiting one of the most talented quarterbacks from the state of Arizona's 2023 class.

"He's a phenomenal player," Dillingham said of Dampier during his weekly press conference. "I definitely should have recruited him harder, to be honest. He's definitely proved me wrong."

Dampier received over a dozen offers in high school, though none of them were from power conference programs. That didn't stop the 5-foot-11 signal-caller from becoming one of college football's most electrifying players by his sophomore year, though, and parlaying a productive season with the Lobos into an opportunity to move up a level of competition and join the Utes alongside his offensive coordinator.

Sep 20, 2025; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA; Utah Utes quarterback Devon Dampier (4) looks to pass against the Texas Tech Red Raiders during the first quarter at Rice-Eccles Stadium. | Rob Gray-Imagn Images

Dillingham, a Chaparral High School (Arizona) product and Arizona State graduate, has leaned on his strong ties to the region throughout the first few years of his head coaching tenure. One of the last assistant coaches he brought onto his first-year staff was actually Dampier's former high school coach, Jason Mohns, to be the Sun Devils tight ends coach.

While that kind of connection to an opposing team's quarterback might seem useful to someone like Dillingham, the intel he's received from Mohns hasn't given him any more confidence about his team's ability to slow down Dampier going into their Week 7 contest.

"Coach Mohns definitely may have some stuff, but usually the stuff he says is, 'Oh, no, he's a really good competitor. He plays better in big games,'" Dillingham said. "I'm like, 'Awesome, great. That's exciting.' 'Yeah, he's really tough to tackle. He's savvy' — he's more telling us things that we don't want to hear."

Here's more of what Dillingham had to say about the Utes ahead of Saturday's matchup.

On the challenge of defending Utah's offense

"Well, it's not the Utah of old from a scheme perspective. I mean, this is a triple option football team. This is a team that uses the quarterback as a plus-one. The quarterback will pull runs, and so now they have the really good O-line, the physicality they've always had, and now the quarterback can pull it and run off triple option, which creates another layer of difficulty to defend these guys."

Sep 20, 2025; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA; Utah Utes quarterback Devon Dampier (4) hands the ball off to running back Wayshawn Parker (1) during the fourth quarter of the game against the Texas Tech Red Raiders at Rice-Eccles Stadium. | Rob Gray-Imagn Images

"I really think they took another step forward in terms of difficulty to play, especially schematically, with all the triple option stuff and all the quarterback run game, all the motions, all the shifts. And then defensively, they've been one of the best for a long time. So, there's no need to change much there; just keep being a top 15 defense almost every single year that they've been there."

On the challenges Sam Leavitt will be presented with against Utah's defense

"They know who they are on defense, and they do it well. They're gonna line up and play some man coverage, and you gotta be able to throw and catch versus man. Then they mix it up; so they do a really good job mixing it up with their pressures, making it look like man and not playing man."

Sep 26, 2025; Tempe, Arizona, USA; Arizona State Sun Devils quarterback Sam Leavitt (10) looks to pass against TCU Horned Frogs in the second half at Mountain America Stadium, Home of the ASU Sun Devils. | Jacob Reiner-Imagn Images

"And they do such a good job getting in and out of it that you have to be ... post snap, you have to be able to see what they're in, not necessarily all the time in pre-snap, because they do a really good job with their disguises. You're not going to know what they're in. You're not going to know if they're bringing pressure. You're not going to know a lot of things. So you got to do a really good job post-snap with our eyes this week."

On whether Utah's legacy factors into Saturday's matchup

"We try to keep guys locked in on the here and now, at the end of the day, prior years don't win football games, but the culture that [Kyle Whittingham's] established there is elite. It's why I said, if we can build something that he has built here, and that starts with the crowd. You always talk about when you go there, the crowd, how hard it is to play at home. Well, we're starting to get that right. You talk about their physicality and their toughness — well, hopefully, we're not there yet, but we're creeping up on hopefully being able to be in that conversation in five, six years. You can't just do it one or two years and say, 'Oh, we're this team that's done it for 12 [years],' right? But hopefully we're getting closer and closer to that style, and that style has won and it will win."

Sep 20, 2025; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA; A general view of Rice-Eccles Stadium between the third and fourth quarter of the game between the Utah Utes and the Texas Tech Red Raiders. | Rob Gray-Imagn Images

"For the end of time, if you can run the ball, stop the run, not turn the ball over, be physical and win at home, you're gonna have a lot of good seasons. And that's been their formula of toughness for a long time. So unfortunately, we have to go there, into that environment, which is good fun for us in college football, and then try to play a culture. We're not playing a football team, we're playing a football program. I think that's the biggest deal. Sometimes you play teams, sometimes you play programs. We're playing a program, we're playing a program that's won for a long time, a system that's won for a long time, a coach that's won for a long time and a place that's one for a long time, and those are the hardest teams to beat."

On how Utah's offensive line has been so effective

"It's a great challenge. I mean, you're facing a phenomenal offensive line. They don't give up sacks; partly because of the players at offensive tackle, potentially two first round draft picks, and then secondly, because the scheme doesn't really allow them to create many negative plays. It's really hard to create negative plays versus this type of style because of just schematically, what they do — they're not going to drop back 45 times, and you're not just going to lick your chops and say the tackle is going to pass set, and we get to bring games. You have to defend the triple option or the quarterback run. You have to defend the run schemes every single snap on third and everything."