Kenny Dillingham Discusses Bowl Preparations, Continued Rumors

Below is a partial transcript from Dillingham's talk with media on Tuesday.

On Players Still Participating in Practices

"Yeah, I mean, the guys that are out here, we're just gonna fly around practice hard and coach them. And I think that's the dynamics. It's the nature of you know, this is such a new era of coach football. It's changed in the last 36 to 24 months. It's changed last 24 to 12 months. It's changed. And the last 12 months probably had its biggest jump in change. I really believe that just in terms of how people operate and how the how it's going so so much change, just gotta be willing to adapt and into these settings, how the guys responded to all that, I think they're flying around having fun practicing."

The constant changes in the modern landscape of college football have hit numerous programs in recent years - now it is impacting Arizona State, but players continue to show up to practice and battle through challenges ahead of a consequential 2026 season.

On Stability in Current Landscape of College Football

"Yeah, I think one thing for stability is your assistant staffs, you know, the support for them, the support for your players right in this nature of the arms race, you got to get the arms right to be competitive, or even field a team to retain a team. You have to, you know, keep up with the Joneses when it comes like that. And then longevity, you know, in this crazy era of college sports, you know, longevity is security. Security is protection for if there's something bad that goes happen, then you got to be able to, you know, bounce back another year later."

Arizona State's assistant coach group has largely stayed intact over recent seasons, and the program did a great job of player retention going into the 2025 season - a tall task is in order to replace many players that are either out of eligibility or who are set to transfer out.

On Quelling Rumors

"I think my job is to try to do whatever I can for the people that are with me, right? The people that are in the foxhole, the coaches that are in the foxhole with me, is I got to do whatever I can to fight for those people, for my family, for everything from that perspective and kind of, you know, and I love it here. I've said that since day one, that's absolutely never changing, absolutely never changing."

Read more on why the Arizona State men's basketball team will exceed expectations in the 2025-26 season here, and on why the bright future of the football program isn’t dimmed by the loss to Arizona here.