Kenny Dillingham proud of ASU beating 'a very good football team' Wyoming, praising student section

that you thought your your program was a lot better than last year but didn't know how would compare against other teams what did you learn in that regard tonight yeah our kids love football I think that was the easiest thing to like uh take away is the passion they have for the game they play really hard uh they practice really hard though so it really is a reflection of how we've been practicing we played hard but what I was proud of was We Grew From A playing smart you know there's a few times that we had personal fouls towards us from the oppon and our guys didn't respond and last year we would have lost our minds and uh for us to be able to just lock back in and go make the next play and continue to make the next play is a lot of growth for the football team uh but that's probably that's probably the number one thing and then the fact that uh we dominated the line of scrimmage you know that team is a team that runs the football and stops the run and they've been like that for six years and the fact that we went out there and ran the ball from 2 140 yards and I think we outrushed him by 2011 or something like that a little bit over 200 yards in the football game uh there is no chance on Earth we could have even come close to doing that last year so let's test with out those guys are practicing can you talk about the takeways and kind of setting you on that back spring and yet you get too early that sets the T oh it's unbelievable I mean uh we have been every single day the guys probably are boarding it uh we start our team meeting and the only two things I show are effort plays and takeways that's it bad ball security takeways effort I don't show anything else they don't show somebody make a superstar catch I don't show Superstar juke move or a great it's those two things over and over and over again it's just to get in their mind that if you play really hard and you win the turnover battle all of these schemes that you're about to go do are awesome but they're Obsolete and we have to be able to do these two things and then go play smart football and exec and not commit penalties and don't kill ourselves and I was game changing when you turn the ball over at that rate I mean we had two defensive touchdowns tonight I mean and it was as close to a shutout as I think you could possibly get uh to a shutout so in my mind it's a shut out and it's two defensive touchdowns and awesome job by our defense tonight and they deserve it because they've been working hard and they're playing with passion SC considering sorry you're hiding back there very sneaky considering it was uh s first career start toon at the college level how did you evaluate your performance yeah I thought it was good I thought he was poised I thought uh before the game I just told him be yourself and when and out run you know most of the time when you're a running quarterback you're like oh I want to prove that I can throw it right so you get out there and you scramble you're like watch me watch me show everybody that I can deal this thing like no like if you're athletic and you get out there run and then fall down and what I was proud of was he took that and he applied to the game and we talk about all the time on first and second down we don't need you to be a superstar we need you to manage the game it's third Downs is when you can extend plays use your legs because if you get sacked extending a play we're playing anyway so who cares right and that's when his running showed up was those third Downs uh other than like some call runs that we had for him so couldn't be more proud of how he executed the plan uh is there's some Growing Pains oh yeah there's some things he can get better at there's some things we going to grow off of but the cares and he's passionate uh he's talented and if you have a care level you're passionate you're talented and you're smart that's why I have so much belief in uh what he is but what he's going to become over the next four years and C Kim told us how comfortable he felt with the sidelines today compared to last year where a lot of the off seemed to fall on in the times how just right yeah he was way calmer he last year but that's just the growth he's made you know I've HED on that this offseason is how much growth he's had as not just a football player but as a person uh and uh you could see that you could definitely see it tonight Jord I need the mic up D since day one it's been about activating the valley for you you start off year two I believe it was the second biggest student section turnout um in program history so what's it like to see you know the building blocks continue to grow as you try to activate the valley that was unbelievable the student section tonight was is absolutely incredible um we got to figure out how to keep them in the second half you know there's so many distractions around this place that we got to figure out a way to to keep them in the seats uh but unbelievable turnout and uh on that note I mean we played Mississippi State next week an SEC team who just had a a big win or they they won by a lot in this uh this week today and I don't I mean Doug I'm going to put Doug under the bus fully on this one but uh we've never won an SEC game in Ariz State history so we need a soldout crowd with the biggest student section that there's ever been we need it alloud for four quarters all night long next Saturday Dam back to Sam's mobility in the third down conversions um he showed a lot flashed a lot of the pocket presence as well is sliding a part of the conversation at all of them no um only because he's not he's not great at sliding so you just got to dive better I mean I know that sounds bad but like sometimes like I have Coach kids who struggle sliding and we do want to get him better at sliding but if he's not a great slider it's kind of an awkward thing to do if you're not good at it and we've practiced a little bit but it's just not comfortable for him so he's just got to learn how to slide forward like dive slide if that makes sense to protect himself some uh but I think it'd be do him a disservice to to try to get him to slide and jam his St in the ground but I definitely don't want him to get hit as much mik up coach how do you feel both sides of the ball offense defense the communication and just like the on field adjustments everything that's new how do you feel that yeah I thought it was great I think uh both of our coordinators and our staff did a really good job uh just popping back forward from channel to channel and just listening to the communication and what we're talking about and we're talking about this is what they did this time so this when we ran this last drive it worked so they're going to come back with this counter punch so we're going to call this counter punch preparing for the counter punch and being able being able to listen to that on both sides of the ball that we were uh thinking about the counter punch not thinking about what just happened uh knowing that they're on they're on watching the video too and what's their answer schematically based off tape and we were you know counter punching uh early and I think that's the Testament to the staff and uh our guys prep uh because it was really really uh to be honest impressive uh from those guys bouncing back and forth yeah coach what about Wyoming do you feel like allowed you guys to get pretty much whatever it was you wanted offensively and defensively today I don't think there's anything about Wyoming I mean that's a good football team it's a football team that returns 17 starters that won nine games that beat Texas Tech last year was tied versus Texas in the fourth quarter um I think it was about ASU football and I think our guys came and played our grand of football you know we talked earlier this week um about how home recoveries are essentially an effort St you got one later in the game when team already had a very comfortable lead where so many guys SW the ball on that what was that a testament to in terms of your reaction yeah probably a testament to me screaming bloody murder when the ball's in the ground and they don't uh get it immediately I You could argue if it was forward or backwards it was close it was one of those that's Ring On The Field's going to stand uh they're not going to overturn it but guess what we feeled it and we returned it because it's a habit it's it's habit and uh you know I lose my mind when plays like that like I said that's the stuff I show every day to start team meetings because you never know what it's going to show up so for it to show up game one uh what was awesome on that play is the play before Watley had uh that touchdown they ran out s of mid Zone the boundary uh wle was the five technique Collision The Tackle swiped underneath to make the play in the B gap which is exactly like we coach and teach comes back to next play I'm screaming at him great job the next play picks up the ball and runs to the end zone uh so unbelievable job by him being able to refocus himself and stay FOC some of the details of two good plays in the row Patrick Kai news um coach you talked about W with Brian Ward just his impact you bring him in from wazu um you played against him many years just way he's brought to this defense the energy the intensity and just the aggressive nature that we saw on display tonight yeah I mean we play aggressive uh we don't play scared we play to be as aggressive as possible and uh I think that's what our guys believe in is that we're going to attack and attack and attack and attack on defense and tonight we swarm the football and you can see the effort I mean you're watching they're running back get tackled by four to five guys almost every single snap those our guys are swarming and that's a testament to coach Ward uh coach coup all those Co all all of our staff and just what they're demanding uh the expectation to be and a testment to our leaders Testament to X and Shamari and Clayton and kesan and Kook who wasn't out there today uh hopefully they'll be back in the next few weeks uh but I mean just a testament to all those guys and the work they put in like I said what you saw tonight is what's looked at what's practices look like it's all it is it's what practices look like and if we continue to practice like that it's going to be easier in a game and we're going to continue to have success and I'm just excited for when we have to get to respond to some adversity because we didn't have any bad adversity tonight other than the horrible four minute drill that we executed at the end of the first half which was embarrassing Chris yeah um did miss a couple field gos tonight um thoughts about just that special team aspect some other things yeah obviously at the end of the game uh put in a uh a kefir who hadn't played he wasn't really loose and it probably wasn't fair to him just throw him in there in fourth quarter when he wasn't really warm and he's sit around for three hours but I want to give him a chance uh at the end of the half that's just a combination of a bad job by me uh we had the ball in the 11 yd line with 50 seconds left we get up B Le out after a timeout specifically take a timeout so we can discuss something then we get a delay a game on a play then we come out we take a sack but we can never take a sack there right because we're in field goal range all we want to do is win the middle a then we come back we throw ball out of bounds we save 18 seconds 18 seconds on the clock when we wanted to run the ball it was a draw taged it just a is bad of a we can't do that if we want to win close games and I lost my mind because it's like that's a type of stuff that you can't have you can't have that b of an operation there at the end of the first half if we want to win close football games in the Big 12 and that's something we got to get better at and I got to get better at Sammy coach uh you mentioned this fall how the linebacker room has been one of the most special most improved rooms of Camp obviously two two of the gate today what is so special about that well I mean both those guys were team captains it's funny how that works like I for I I won't I won't forget zyrus went the portal like giving us the description and they're like San Diego State and they read me all these stats and the last one they're like team captain I'm like why did you see that first like what are we talking about this was a team captain one of the best uh Mountain West schools one of the best non five schools in the country uh yeah I don't even want I don't even want to watch tape I don't need to watch tape because he's wired right let me talk to him and then Kean Elliot goes in the portal and it was oh he's a team captain for a team that won the most games that they almost ever had in school history are we really going to watch the tape like what are we doing obviously these guys have something about them that's different and uh if we're going to get carried away in analyzing the film and is his hip nobility as good as the other guy and does he open and run what does that matter they are team captains on football teams that are traditionally really really good or a team that overachieved at one of the highest levels of a team could overachieve last year you want them on your football team and I think tonight was just the ultimate reflection of that they go out the first two drives they both get interceptions it's like well ding ding ding take team captains time for a few more Jesse uh do you feel like you guys were a little maybe overlooked in the off season oh I don't care about that yeah I mean no I don't we won three games the last two years we sign a bunch of kids nobody wanted so nope I don't I think we're right where we should be Sean right here um Ken coming into the season the expectation was that your running back be pretty deep um today SC Carlos all scor touchdowns what did you kind of see from that group today yeah I was balanced I think we got to keep guys fresh and you can see that even Jason Brown got in there late and I was glad to be able to get him some reps Alton got in there uh sip with a big screen uh but I think with all those running backs and everything that they did tonight I think you really have to make a like you've got to really tip your cap to how they played the game tonight because I I can't count on one hand you know he maybe two fingers the amount of times that there was a potential tfl and when you play some really good defense that doesn't allow teams to run the football with their returning starters and you don't have guys in the back field all night in the in the running game uh kudos to them kudos to Leaf Ben Coleman who hasn't played a game in 500 600 days Max I mean all those dudes just play the lights out in my op more hey coach uh I know tonight probably went according to plan was there anything that kind of surprised you out there at all how bad we were in the end the first half that surprised me I pride myself in winning to M late and that was really really bad um we we didn't Sky a sky we should have uh that's my fault I flipped headsets we bad bad job there in the middle of the third quarter that surprised me uh yeah I mean I thought our players played really well uh I thought there's things I got to clean up only two more sorry like coach you talked about the importance of trust to this group and being able to trust each other in big moments not as much adversity tonight but where do you think the chemistry is trust amongst each other to do their individual tasks yeah I think tonight was a really big day for that uh you know when you face a good team that's a good football team guys like that's a good football team you we'll we'll look back at this in 12 or 11 weeks and be like whoa right it's a good football team and when you're a guy when you have to face a team like that week one which not everybody does right sometimes you just get to face somebody else and it hopefully it goes smoothly uh but the guy confidence level they put in the work the guys believe in themselves then they go play like that it's just kind of a stamp of the work that they've put in and I think that's only going to grow the team together and grow that oh whoa it kind of worked all that work made us better whoa right but if you don't see results it's really hard to continue to work and motivate uh and not everything's going to be roses and candy canes this year right there's going to be there's going to be times that it smells and we got to be able to respond and uh that's what that's really what's going to when we get that moment we have to respond is where we get to find out the makeup of our team uh I thought we responded to the success well tonight uh but we will have we will fail this is not going to be a clear path we're going to face adversity and we got to be ready for it one more with Chris K you mention the end of the the first half where you had the delay and the sack but I think s was saw possible BL he was trying to leer of protection there so what do you think about just his football IQ that was on for somebody who was in his first start I mean to be really impressive his Poise back there him calling out pressures calling me I think it was second Drive of the game he flipped a r versus nickel fire uh or no communicated it on our Sprint out he communicated to the running back that they're bringing nickel fire on a third and three um maybe it's second quarter no it's first quarter uh we were sprinting out to the left comped to Jordan Tyson and right there alone was like in my mind I'm like okay like we we this guy's got it a little bit like he's got the savviness and he got caught once to get caught once in a football game as a true freshman like kudos to him right really good job by him he sat but he puts in the work so you know it's funny that the people that put in the work usually make the right decisions it's just funny how that works that work works there's no way around it than you expected yes I I thought there'd be more uh freeze moments where he's just like freshman oh yeah yeah yeah my bad I know that but God moments only a couple tonight only a couple where he got to the side that I was like ah what am I doing like why didn't I throw the ball here why didn't I do this not many of those moments Mally there's a few throws he wants to have back he want to have the corner route on the third down in the third quarterback uh that he um threw out of bounds uh but other than that I mean the kid played an unbelievable game U and I'm excited about the future with him that's what really is exciting is their kid has four more years left uh potentially to play here and I think this program is going to grow and it's going to continue to grow and it's going to grow with him and that's super exciting