TEMPE – The past week was a quiet one for Arizona State. No morning practices, no whistles, no game day at Mountain America Stadium.
Just a week to rest and recover.
Or, if you’re Kenny Dillingham, wake up early to pore over film and self-scout.
“I think sometimes when people say ‘a week off,’ they think I went to Disneyland for five days or something,” Dillingham said.
There is no such thing as a true week off in college football. Just because a team doesn’t suit up on Saturday, or throughout the week as the Sun Devils chose not to, that doesn’t mean the preparation ever stops.
Now, the Sun Devils welcome in a West Virginia team that wants to win the same way Dillingham does: on the ground with physicality.
Maybe that’s something Dillingham picked up on from Mountaineers coach Rich Rodriguez.
Fans in the Valley will recognize that name as the former Arizona coach who led the Wildcats to a Pac-12 Championship appearance in 2014. Dillingham views him as a mentor.
From spending time with Rodriguez in Tucson while the ASU coach was a graduate assistant in Tempe, he learned about the art of the RPO (run-pass option) and how to effectively run the ball with a number advantage on the line of scrimmage.
This week serves as a final exam of sorts for Dillingham, attempting to stop the offense he once learned to orchestrate.
“Coach Rodriguez is a guy that I have studied for a long time,” Dillingham said. “Dating back to when I was a high school coach and he was the head coach (at Arizona), he did a phenomenal job down there. (He) won a lot of football games. So for us, for me, this is a really good challenge and his team plays really, really hard.”
While the Sun Devils have been banged up this season, Dillingham believes he has found a winning combination with a seven-man rotation along the offensive line and utilizing quarterback Jeff Sims as an additional threat on the ground.
Sims broke the ASU quarterback rushing record with 228 yards and two touchdowns on the ground against Iowa State. West Virginia follows that philosophy on the ground as well, using freshman quarterback Scotty Fox Jr. as a force in the run game.
That means the physical play in the trenches will once again be under the microscope for ASU. Dillingham said he thought the team brought great energy in the first practice back from the bye week Monday. Now, he needs that energy to carry over and not catch the Sun Devils off guard with an early kickoff on Saturday.
“If you can successfully run it, and you can successfully stop it, you’re going to win more games than not,” Dillingham said about the dueling rushing attacks. “Now, you can’t do that at the detriment of being balanced and the detriment of running your head against the wall.
“I think Jeff provided a spark that when the numbers were right, we could run it successfully, which then opened up the first half passing game (against Iowa State), which was nice.”
Dillingham also said he flew out to Denver on Thursday to watch the Denver Broncos and Las Vegas Raiders, who were playing on NBC’s “Thursday Night Football,” reconnecting with several of his former players, most notably Broncos quarterback Bo Nix.
Nix and Dillingham have a lengthy history together, but the NFL star was once a reclamation project for the ASU coach.
The pair spent one season together at Auburn when Nix was a freshman starter and Dillingham served as offensive coordinator for the Tigers. In 2021, they reconnected at the University of Oregon, where Dillingham had become the offensive coordinator. Nix landed in town out of the transfer portal following a tough few years at Auburn after Dillingham moved on.
Seemingly a castaway from the sport, Nix developed under Dillingham for one more year with the Ducks and eventually became a first-round pick in the NFL Draft.
Although Sims has never carried the same expectations as Nix, he has battled through low points and found himself back in the limelight again with the Sun Devils.
Sims earned AP National Player of the Week honors for his breakthrough performance. Much of his career has been plagued by turnovers and a lack of passing efficiency at previous stops with Georgia Tech and Nebraska. In Tempe, Sims has embraced the veteran role and another chance to see the field.
The Mountaineers run the ball well, averaging 182.2 yards per game on the ground. But the Sun Devils only allow 123.2 rushing yards per game, which is second-best in the Big 12.
This is where good meets good.
Something has to give, and given extra time to reset and build some mental and physical strength, the Sun Devils hope they have the extra push to keep their slim Big 12 Conference Championship Game hopes alive.
Less than two weeks removed from an emotional win over the Cyclones, Dillingham has been down this road before. A thrilling win over Texas Tech was succeeded by a miserable loss to Houston, which snapped a home winning streak. A last-second, comeback victory over TCU headed into a bye week earlier this season was followed by a blowout loss in Utah.
“We’ve been horrible at responding to success this year,” Dillingham said. “We’ve been really good at responding to failure, but we have not responded to playing a good football game or beating a good team well.
“We need to do that. We need to show this season that we can play a good football game and come back and play another one. I’m excited to see if our guys can go out there and play with the same passion and energy back-to-back weeks and stack good football games.”
The recovery week was revealing for ASU within the medical tent as well. Defensive end Prince Dorbah, who had been a game-time call against both Houston and Iowa State, is expected to return this week, as well as linebacker Tate Romney.
The less positive news is that safety Xavion Alford, who last played against Mississippi State, was ruled out for the remainder of the season, Dillingham said. The veteran defensive back is a sixth-year junior, meaning he could return to Tempe next season if he wants to, but Dillingham thinks he could be an asset at the next level.
“That’s a kid who’s been a staple of this program since we got here as a staff,” Dillingham said. “He’s one of the heartbeats in the program, so it just pains me that he’s not going to be able to make it back. … He’s a great kid, great competitor. I think whoever chooses that they want him part of their team at the next level is going to get a guy that they’re very happy with.”
Alford is just one of several injuries that the Sun Devils have had to deal with this season. Dillingham suggested the idea of having more physical practices during the spring and fall to offset the difference in physicality between games and practice during the season.
Whatever the answer is, it doesn’t change the task at hand.
The Mountaineers need to win their final two games to qualify for a bowl game in their first season with Rodriguez back at the helm. It will be a spirited fight, and one that will require an early wakeup call for the Sun Devils with an 11 a.m. kickoff.
The circumstances don’t matter for Arizona State anymore. It’s all about stacking wins to end the season.
As defensive end Justin Wodtly told the team before taking the field against the Cyclones, “Nobody cares, just got to find a way.”