Spring gives Kenny Dillingham a chance to reinvigorate the Sun Devils' culture

Although Arizona State men’s basketball missed out on the NCAA tournament, March Madness (spilling into April) football style will be underway in Tempe on Thursday as head coach Kenny Dillingham and the Sun Devils’ 40-plus additions will start the first of their 15 spring practices.​

Dillingham’s 2026 roster features a large overhaul following their 8-5 2025 campaign, with the vast majority of departing players due to seniors exhausting their eligibility. Therefore, the Sun Devil coaching staff will oversee a team featuring numerous new faces and will consequently adjust how practices are run.​

“I’m excited to see our staff work with a new group,” Dillingham said Tuesday. “I think that’s just the nature of college football now. Every few years, they’re going to kind of go through different cycles, and we’re kind of at that cycle.”​

Part of adapting to this new cycle will feature a change in how practices are structured. Over the previous two years, Dillingham’s teams have practiced for approximately two hours each session in five-minute increments known as “periods”. However after admitting that the quality of practice sessions dipped in 2025 following the program’s historic 2024 season that ended in a Big 12 Championship, Dillingham alluded to mixing in coaching techniques he learned while working as the offensive coordinator at Oregon under Dan Planning, Specifically, witnessing the Ducks practice under a less fixed schedule that would feature periods as short as three minutes or as long as 17.​

“Our goal is to be 20% more efficient this spring by cutting down some periods,”  Dillingham explained. “Changing a little bit how we structure some things, try to force ourselves to be more efficient, do some things in some skeleton team periods a little bit differently to get the same amount of work done and 20% less time.”​

As for what ASU aims to accomplish over the next month and a half of on-field action, Dillingham stated that investing in the cultural foundation of the roster is more important than the results players produce on the field.​

“What’s more important, technique or mindset?” Dillingham asked. “Every coach is going to tell you mindset.​

“And so what do I want to see? I want to see the mindset of a football team that responds to adversity, that responds to success when good things happen, that if things aren’t going your way personally and somebody’s beating you out, you’re still about the team. This is all about the team, the team, the team, and how we can grow. This group of guys is a team that cares about each other, that wants what’s best for each other, and understands that team success leads to individual success.”

Over the last three seasons, the offensive-minded head coach has embedded a culture that plays a fast, fun, and team-oriented style of play. When addressing ASU fans as to what they’ll see in year four under his reign with a newly constructed roster, he claimed just that.​

“Our guys are going to play really hard,” Dillingham remarked. “The brand of football you’re going to get. There’s not a random element to that, I would say. So I think that piece is established. We’re going to play a fun style of football.

“Culturally, we’re where I want to be. We have good people who make decent decisions. You’re not going to be perfect with 18- to 22-year-olds. The bad decisions you grow from, but the majority of good decisions. And we have a lot of guys who I think people like being around, and they enjoy coming in the building and working every day.”

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Toward the end of the 2025 season, when Dillingham spoke to the media and announced a call to action for wealthy Sun Devil fans in the valley, looking for an eight-figure donation to invest in the program. His plea didn’t fall on deaf ears, as an unidentified donor committed a reported $16 million toward the new indoor football facility, which is scheduled to break ground this year. Dillingham views that level of support as a sign of how far the program has come in the last few years since he took over.​

“I just think we’re building momentum. I think there was another big thing yesterday, which we’ll get to when the time is right as well,” Dillingham noted about another potentially large investment coming into the football program. “I think people are excited. People see the direction of the program. People see where we’re headed.”​

Where Dillingham continued to examine the situation was by articulating the nature of the beast of power conference football in 2026, ASU is far from the only school receiving large-scale donations; in fact, they’re just one of many that have received exciting monetary contributions in the Big 12.​

“We’ve just got to continue to progress because the uncomfortable part with college football is everybody is,” He said. “It takes more every year. It takes more investment every year. It’s not just going to stop.”

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​What did ASU do with some of the money at its disposal this offseason? Bring in a heap of transfer players to bolster a roster that was previously forged under a winning culture.​

Amongst the transfer ASU brought in three former 4-star recruits, including marquee wide receivers from Colorado, Omarion Miller, and Boston College, Reed Harris, along with linebacker Owen Long, the player who led all FBS schools in total tackles in 2025 at Colorado State.​

Where the Sun Devils have created much anticipation is in their deep quarterback room that features three new additions. Two transfers, Sophomore Cutter Boley from Kentucky, and Chandler native, Mikey Keene. Along with a four-star freshman, Jake Fette from El Paso.​

“I thought we brought in some good guys,” Dillingham commented. “We had Cam [Dyer] on the roster, and then we brought in three guys I feel really good about as well. So I’m excited for the competition.​

“[We] Brought in competent guys, guys who have done it in college football, not guys that we’re hoping can do it in college football. And then Jake is obviously a really productive high school player, one of the best athletes on our team already. So really fired up about, you know, that room as a whole. I think it’s going to be a really fun room to watch throughout spring and a really fun room to kind of see compete and see grow together and see get better in the system.”​

Although Dillingham is far from being ready to name a Week 1 starter, Boley seems to be the most likely candidate. At 6-foot-5, 213 pounds, he showed off a talented deep ball with the Wildcats, throwing 15 touchdowns and 2,160 yards in 2025 en route to winning SEC All-Freshman First team honors. Despite throwing 12 interceptions and hoisting a TD/INT ratio of 17/16 for his career, the talent spoke for itself on tape.​

“What excites me about [Boley] is his completion percentage was fairly high for what they were asking him to do,” Dillingham noted. “Throw the ball vertically down the field, and to have a 65-ish completion percentage is pretty high in college football.​

“Where a little more five-step and stuff like that, that right there can put you in the 70% range. If you’re a 70% completion percentage guy in college football, you’re probably going to be really productive on offense. So what excited me was I saw the tape, I saw him operate within their system really well, get the ball to where they were supposed to go, extend with his legs when he needed to.”​

When taking a deep dive into Boley’s physical metrics, Dillingham alluded to Boley’s S2 score, a cognitive exam often taken by athletes that tests a player’s reaction time and ability to think critically on the fly.​

While Dillingham’s investigation into Boley’s abilities came back with flying colors, the test and other attributes, such as his time as a high-school basketball player, which ironically enough was also seen in previous ASU quarterback and now LSU Tiger Sam Leavitt, provided Dillingham with more than enough to be excited about.​

“I use the analytics to back up my belief,” Dillingham stated regarding the S2 test. “Then if the analytics don’t back up my belief, that’s where I like to go back and really study or watch something again. But when it comes to that type of score, I watch it. I get an opinion of the player. Then, if I can get other pieces of information, I’m like Oh, wow, that confirmed what I already think. All right, it’s probably accurate.’​

“Or that doesn’t confirm what I think, let me go back and watch. And I’m always going to be the judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to that, not a score. But this was one that confirmed it and fired me up.”

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​Beyond major changes to the roster, now that Dillingham has taken three seasons to establish his coaching culture, he has made a flurry of changes across the board. The most notable of which is promoting former cornerbacks coach Bryan Carrington into an Assistant Head Coach working directly under Dillingham

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“BC is now the assistant head coach and pass game coordinator. He’s going to be really involved in a lot of stuff,” Dillingham said. “Holistically for the program as well as involved in the pass game with the defense.”​

Carrington was the figurehead of ASU’s recent recruiting philosophy, which focused on #Texas2Tempe. This migration from the Lone Star State, especially in the defensive back room, was the catalyst for numerous high-profile additions to the team, including Keith Abney II, who is projected to be a 2nd-round draft pick in the 2026 NFL draft, among others.​

“Where he started as a football coach to where he is now, he’s grown, I mean, leaps and bounds as a football coach,” Dillingham praised Carrington. “At the end of the day, coaching is not very difficult. Can you learn information, and then can you communicate that information, and then can you just be honest with people so they trust you? It’s really that simple. So he had those qualities, and I wanted to give him a little bit more role in terms of being able to talk to different position groups in recruiting.”

Dillingham also listed other staff changes, all on defense and special teams, as follows:

Demetrice Martin, nicknamed “Meat,” was a cornerbacks coach at UCLA this past season and will serve in the same capacity at ASU. Martin coaches with Dillingham at Oregon.

David Gibbs is the new safeties coach and was an analyst with the Sun Devils last year. Dillingham said that this move will allow defensive coordinator Brian Ward to be more involved with all position groups on this side of the ball after exclusively coaching the safeties and nickelbacks the past three years.

Grant O’Brien will be the new assistant linebackers coach, as Max Silver, who assumed that role last year, was hired by NAU as their new linebackers coach. O’Brien was the safeties coach at Purdue last year.

Former NFL punter Michael Scifres was hired as an assistant to special teams coach Jack Nudo, specifically to work with punters and kickers, while Nudo will focus on special teams schemes in returns and coverage.

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​A Texas native who has been integral to ASU’s culture over the last few years is rising senior C.J. Fite, the 305-pound defensive tackle, who has been a member of the Pat Tillman Leadership Council for the past two seasons since its inception. The leadership council serves as a voice between the players and the coaching staff, as coaches often ask representatives from each position group about players’ mindsets, and vice versa.​

In 2025, the leadership council was already selected by the beginning of spring practices. With this many new players, Dillingham has elected Fite as the team’s primary captain, and the players will vote on the remainder of the council after the conclusion of spring.​

“[Fite] could have gone pro; he’s still here. You listen to him,” Dillingham restated his words to the players. “Then let’s see who gets on the leadership council when this thing ends after spring ball, because I think it’s going to be something new. I think it’s going to be some old.​

“But what I will say is the culture has been passed on to this new group. You think, ‘Okay, there’s 50 or 45 new players. How does that pass on?’ But when those 55 or 60 guys who were here know how to operate, and when you sign guys that are good people, they pick up. And I think those guys that are here, that are returning, they know what it looks like to be successful. They know what it’s supposed to look like.”​

Players who want to earn a shot at the leadership council, or just move up the depth chart, will need to win the margins as a teammate, according to Dillingham. When talent comes down to splitting hairs, then dictating who will pay comes down to trust.​

“When the game is on the line, if you get beat, we say, you know what, I can live with that. I think that’s the biggest thing in these position battles that I’m looking for,” Dilligham detailed. “If that guy messes up to lose a game, are you mad at yourself, or can you sleep at night? I want the guys in the field that if he messes up, I’m so concerned about how he’s feeling because I know he feels so bad that I’m over there trying to make him feel better, not why the heck was he in the game.”

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​Dillingham listed several players who will be out or limited during spring practice.

The players who will miss the entire spring practice are:

DL Ramar Williams

DT MyKeil Gardner

DT DTs Zac Swanson

DB Boggie Wilson

WR Harry Hassmann

WR Derek Eusebio Dillingham stated that DT CJ Fite will miss the first half of spring, while RB Marquis Gillis is expected to be out for the first few days of spring.