ASU’s Kenny Dillingham on which players have stood out in spring
ASU football coach Kenny Dillingham spoke with the media about which players have impressed him the most in spring practice.
In a ranking of all 68 major conference college football coaches before last season, Arizona State football coach Kenny Dillingham came in ranked No. 64, with just four coaches behind him.
He’s not No. 64 anymore.
CBS Sports and 247 Sports recently unveiled their latest ranking of the 68 Power Four football program coaches and Dillingham is now ranked No. 18 on the list.
He came in as high as No. 7 on one ballot and was ranked as low as No. 50 (seriously, No. 50?).
It wrote of Dillingham’s ranking: “Dillingham began coaching long after we began ranking coaches here, and his place among the ranks has varied wildly! That’s the kind of thing that happens when you take over an Arizona State program in a bad spot, go 3-9 in your first year, then shock the world by going 11-3 the next season while winning the Big 12 your first year in the league. When that happens, you climb higher in the rankings than any other coach that year. Dillingham jumps 46 spots! That’s 18 more than the next-highest coach (Deion Sanders, +28).”
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Interestingly, Dillingham was ranked fifth among Big 12 coaches. Kansas coach Lance Leipold was No. 15, Kansas State‘s Chris Klieman was No. 14, Utah’s Kyle Whittingham was No. 11 and Iowa State‘s Matt Campbell was No. 10.
USA TODAY Sports recently had Dillingham ranked as its best coach in the Big 12 for the 2025 season, putting him much higher than 5th among coaches in the conference.
Dillingham will have a chance to prove his team’s 2024 season was not a fluke and that his meteoric rise in the CBS Sports coaching rankings is justified in the 2025 season, a season that the Sun Devils open against Northern Arizona on Aug. 30.
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Reach Jeremy Cluff at jeremy.cluff@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter @Jeremy_Cluff.
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