Arizona State Head Coach Kenny Dillingham has previously noted the allure of practicing under the lights of Mountain America Stadium during fall camp. His sentiments ranged from the importance of dealing with awkward lighting to track punts and deep passes, and other times, he’s simply mentioned the energy and excitement that comes from playing on […]
Arizona State Head Coach Kenny Dillingham has previously noted the allure of practicing under the lights of Mountain America Stadium during fall camp. His sentiments ranged from the importance of dealing with awkward lighting to track punts and deep passes, and other times, he’s simply mentioned the energy and excitement that comes from playing on your home turf.
The Sun Devils are two and a half weeks out from the opening day of the 2025 season, when Northern Arizona takes the nearly three-hour trip down from Flagstaff. For Dillingham, time is of the essence for his players to prove they’re ready for the season to begin, rather than dwelling on the success of 2024, and to embrace the passion for a new year.
“I want to see the intensity that it’s almost go tell me like, it’s almost that time,” Dillingham said. “And like I told the guys at the practice today, we’re two weeks, three days, and it’s go time. And if you’re not getting in that state of mind and you’re not preparing more than you have, if every day is not just a two minutes extra of whatever you’re doing to get yourself ready, it’s gonna be here, and you better prepare for it.”
Dillingham’s energy toward preparedness is centered, of course, in his team’s performance on the field; however, he is aware of all the other aspects of college football that run through the veins of how well ASU does in between the lines.
The NIL store announced sophomore quarterback Sam Leavitt was the fifth-highest NIL earner in July. Leavitt’s rise to becoming one of the largest names in college athletics speaks as a testament to himself and ASU as a program, according to Dillingham.
“I think we’re becoming a brand,” Dillingham remarked. “You look at the Camp Tontazona and the footage that was put out by our team. … I think Sam’s marketability is one, kudos to him and his work ethic and the brand he’s building for himself. And then two, the brand that Arizona State is building for football, which is giving the platform to the guys. So I think it’s a combination of where we’re at as a program and where Sam is at as an individual. So that’s actually really good news.”
Seeing the biggest star of the program dominate the NIL space means a lot more than just simply helping out a college kid financially. Not only has Leavitt been generous with his collective earnings, donating funds back to the Sun Angel Collective, which directly leads to his ASU teammates getting more revenue, but it also aids in the team’s recruitment efforts and long-term sustainability as a powerhouse of college football.
“There are many other reasons why people join your program,” Dillingham added. “Whether it’s culture, whether it’s academics, well, regardless of what people think. Whether it’s lifestyle, whether it’s the development from a specific coach.
“There are a lot of different reasons, so when we can show that the city and you can get this national recognition in a city called a college that’s in a city right in one of the best cities to live in the country, I think it shows that we have a little small town feel.”
With the addition of NIL, the college landscape has been altered forever. Athletics in college have lost much of their amateur cache, and with that, rules have quickly shifted for the largest conferences in the nation. On Wednesday, the Big 12 conference announced it’ll be mandating injury reports for its football, as well as men’s and women’s basketball teams.
Dillingham has previously been quick to admit when players dealt with minor injury woes; however, on a large scale, this will change the way many programs and coaches have previously done their business.
However, Dillingahm alluded to the notion that although the injury reports will mandate more than what was done before, coaches will find ways to tinker with the rules to gain any competitive advantage.
“I was always open with injuries anyways, for the most part,” Dillingham noted. “So, yeah, that’s no issue there. To me, it doesn’t matter. People are still gonna be as because they want to be within the transparency report. So everybody has different philosophies of it. Now it doesn’t bother me at all.”
Category: General Sports
