Coaches Predict Arizona State to Miss Big 12 Title Game

Kenny Dillingham, Sam Leavitt, and the rest of the Arizona State football program received substantial attention and praise during their appearance at Big 12 Media Days on Tuesday.

The Sun Devils saw five players selected to the All-Big 12 preseason team earlier in the week - although they were not selected as the favorites to win the conference again due to a decision to not carry out the team poll in 2025.

ON3 opted to individually ask all 16 Big 12 coaches to vote a first and second place finisher in the conference anonymously - and Arizona State was shockingly picked to finish on the outside looking in when it comes to the conference championship game.

From Brett McMurphy:

"Since the Big 12 discontinued the preseason media poll, On3 asked each coach to predict who would play in the league’s title game. The coaches were granted anonymity and could not vote for their own team."

"Kansas State led the way with eight votes, followed by Iowa State with seven, Arizona State had six and Texas Tech received five. TCU (three votes), Baylor (two votes) and Utah (one vote) were the other schools getting votes. Seven of the league’s 16 teams received votes."

This outcome could be seen as a mild surprise, as Iowa State has been a consistently competitive squad during head coach Matt Campbell's tenure, but losing wide receivers Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel to the NFL opened up a potential void that will be difficult to navigate for QB Rocco Becht.

Kansas State is consistently a fixture at the top of the conference, but questions remain when it comes to the ceiling of QB Avery Johnson.

The Sun Devils face a small handful of questions as well, but the roster continuity (17 returning starting players), a full crop of returning coaches, and an overall very deep and well constructed roster that was overseen by Dillingham are reasons to believe that the Big 12 championship trophy will come back to Tempe on December 6.

Prediction: Arizona State faces Baylor in the championship game.

Read more on what coach Dillingham had to say during his time with media on Tuesday here, and on how senior linebacker Zyrus Fiaseu can be a key contributor to the Sun Devil defense here.

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