Livescore
On the phone with legendary former Arizona State quarterback Jake Plummer, the Sun Devils’ honorary Peach Bowl captain is gushing about how much he enjoys watching his alma mater play this season.
Plummer, a College Football Hall of Famer, is responsible for the last great Arizona State season. In 1997, the Sun Devils came up just short of an undefeated season and a possible share of a national championship in a 20-17 Rose Bowl loss to Ohio State.
The former Denver Broncos quarterback believes this 2024 team can win it all, starting with a Peach Bowl quarterfinal against Texas on New Year’s at 1 p.m. EST.
He loves what he sees in the energetic 34-year-old head coach who used to wear Plummer’s jersey as a kid and the Sun Devils’ potent offensive duo of quarterback Sam Leavitt and running back Cam Skattebo. As the greatest Arizona State quarterback in program history, Plummer raves about what Leavitt has meant to his former program.
“He’s scrappy, he’s a great leader, he’s competitive,” Plummer told CBS Sports. “That position needed leadership more than anything on this squad for the last little while. Jayden Daniels was at ASU, and now he’s a Heisman winner, but it didn’t work for him here. He didn’t step up and play like this here. Why, I don’t know, but this kid Sam is definitely balling and playing with his heart and soul.”
Heart and soul have defined a team picked to finish dead last in its first season in the Big 12. The Sun Devils have exceeded even the loftiest expectations that program’s leaders could have dreamed up. In a year that those within the program hoped would result in at least six wins and a bowl appearance, Arizona State won the Big 12, earned a playoff berth and is three wins away from being national champions.
For a program that has rarely maximized its potential, the hope is that a special season can accelerate short-and long-term success.
“Every 10 to 15 years a new brand shows up and a new brand becomes a national brand,” Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham said. “I really think Arizona State, the pitchfork, the Sun Devil has a brand that can reach nationally.”
Graham Rossini noticed it back in August at Camp Tontozona in August.
Promoted to the Arizona State athletic director position in May, Rossini saw a line of cars waiting on the interstate to get in. Coming off a 3-9 season and only a couple of years removed from the disastrous end of the Herm Edwards tenure in Tempe, full of NCAA recruiting violations, it was a refreshing respite from everything the Sun Devils had endured.
The fanbase wanted to believe and just needed a reason to get on board. In Arizona State’s home opener against Wyoming, 14,000 students showed up to see the Sun Devils win 48-7, the number of attending students believed to be a record high. As Dillingham’s players kept finding ways to win close games, the students — and regular fans — kept showing up. According to Rossini, this led to a 30 percent overall fan attendance and a 40 percent student attendance increase, critical steps as Arizona State tries to build a sustainable product.
For a school like Arizona State that once had a commuter school reputation but has heavily invested in transforming its educational reputation, giving students indelible moments like rushing the field after thrilling wins inside Mountain America Stadium is part of the long-term bet to keep them emotionally – and, with increasing importance in the NIL era, financially – invested in the university for decades to come.
Need proof of concept? Just look at this current moment in Arizona State athletics. Dillingham, the football coach, and Rossini, the athletic director, are both alumni who legitimately view their positions as dream jobs. Creating the next generation of sports-obsessed alumni who want to help Arizona State could be huge for the future. It’s overly simplistic to say Dillingham and Rossini being alums has been the sole difference for Arizona State, but there’s real value in having leaders who understand the benefits and drawbacks of their jobs and can design solutions faster than outsiders who don’t know what makes Arizona State unique.
“We don’t want ASU to be the stepping stone for people to get established and use that momentum to flip it for the next job,” Rossini told CBS Sports. “We want this to be a place where people can come have success because they are resourced, they are supported, and there is alignment in the university, and it becomes much more of a longevity play than maybe has been the case in the past.”
Dillingham and Rossini have both focused on “Activate the Valley,” an effort to get the nearly five-million Phoenix metro population more invested in Sun Devils athletics.
Arizona State has long felt like a sleeping giant. Plenty of money and big businesses are in the area to tap into. There is lots to do, from outdoors hiking at Camelback Mountain to taking in a Phoenix Suns game, which can be a blessing and a curse. It has long had a reputation for being, well, a lot of fun for 18- to 22-year-olds, too.
Yet, outside of brief highs like the Frank Kush era of the 1970s and that 1997 Rose Bowl, the Sun Devils have never fully awoken. That could be changing under the energetic 34-year-old Dillingham, who has resonated with fans and players alike with a refreshingly candid approach to the current realities of college football.
To make this season the start of something and not simply a blip, an aberration, Dillingham knows what is necessary: Money.
College coaches, who are well-paid in their own right, tend to complain and whine about how the combination of NIL and the transfer portal has upended college athletics.
Even last week, Miami basketball coach Jim Larranaga, one of the biggest early beneficiaries of Miami’s deluge of NIL money, bellyached about no longer being able to coach in this new world in explaining his abrupt midseason resignation.
To be clear, it is challenging, perplexing, frustrating, demoralizing and on and on for college coaches trying to survive in a world short on rules and heavy on cash infusion. This has driven legendary coaches like Alabama football coach Nick Saban and Virginia basketball coach Tony Bennett out of their beloved sports. For those long accustomed to doing something a certain way and controlling every aspect of their daily realities, the increasing professionalization of college sports can be too much to bear.
Not for Dillingham and his modern coaching staff. The Arizona State millennial head coach has gone viral multiple times this season for his just tell-it-how-it-is approach to money’s influence on his team and sport. After a thrilling win over BYU, Dillingham did his best John Malkovich “Rounders” impression, imploring fans to “Pay the man his money” while wearing a Sun Angel collective sweatshirt. He’s talked openly about the rising costs of keeping a successful team together as player retention costs increase when outsiders deem your talent worth poaching.
That Arizona State hasn’t seen a max exodus is a credit to its playoff run and to the culture Dillingham has built in Tempe. The hard-working underdog group is full of second-chance players who needed a new opportunity to maximize their potential. Leavitt and Skattebo started their careers elsewhere but flourished in a new environment this season. That opportunity has begotten loyalty back to the program, at least in the short-term, as Arizona State tries to navigate the treacherous transfer portal window while preparing for the Longhorns. The Sun Devils already have their replacement for Skattebo, signing Army running back transfer Kanye Udoh, who rushed for over 1,000 yards in 2024.
“We don’t ever want a kid to commit to Arizona State because we were the highest bidder like that,” Arizona State tight ends coach Jason Mohns told CBS Sports. “That shouldn’t be at the top of his list of why he chose Arizona State. I think it’s finding the right kids that are making their decision based on the right reasons, and that’s why our kids who are here and having success and having people come after them behind closed doors with big offers, our kids want to stay here.”
Mohns, another Arizona State alumnus, grew up around the program when his dad, Greg, coached under Kush. Before joining Dillingham’s staff in 2023, Mohns was an incredibly successful Arizona high school football coach. He won six consecutive state championships and totaled a 123-19 record while at Saguaro High School. He coached top talent who went elsewhere, like Minnesota Vikings cornerback Byron Murphy (Washington) and Jacksonville Jaguars receiver Christian Kirk (Texas A&M).
But Mohns knows Arizona State’s potential better than almost anyone. He knows the money in the Phoenix market and believes that if Arizona State can tap into it with its relentless and creative head coach at the helm, Sun Devils football could be one of the big winners of this new world.
“We just have to give the fans something to get excited about,” he said. “I think that’s what was so important with the season. There’s so many great options that people aren’t going to or they’re not going to get behind a mediocre product. You’ve got to give them something to rekindle their love for Arizona State football.”
Rossini agrees.
“We’ve got a tremendous opportunity in our backyard,” the Arizona State AD said. “There’s never been a better time to be a research one university in a major metro market because you need access to people, you need access to businesses, you need access to community support. We have all those things.”
According to those familiar with the market, Arizona State has made great strides in its NIL efforts under Dillingham. This season’s success has positively impacted everything from NIL donations to season-ticket signups to enrollment deposits. Following the Big 12 championship, Arizona State experienced a 30 percent increase in first-year enrollment deposits for that same week year-over-year, according to Rossini, and has sold more than 2,500 new season tickets during the holidays.
Still, even those who have been delighted by the on-field product can be wary about financially investing in sustaining it.
Plummer, who played 10 seasons in the NFL, hasn’t jumped on the NIL contribution train. The co-founder of Umbo, billed as functional mushrooms for athletes, says he’s considered NIL marketing deals but hasn’t been able to get over an uncomfortability with the general idea of it.
“I’m not going to give any of my money to this thing because I earned my money as a player,” he said. “I’m not giving it back to keep these guys. There are people making a hell of a lot more money every day, the companies and all of the alumni and anybody that has a business there. It’s like giving to the Red Cross. What am I giving it to?”
Success in college football, especially in this period, can be fleeting.
A year ago, Arizona was one of college football’s best stories. After a 6-18 record in his first two seasons, Jedd Fisch led a remarkable turnaround behind an offensive super duo of Noah Fifita and Tetairoa McMillan for a 10-3 record and an Alamo Bowl win over Oklahoma. With Fifita and McMillan coming back, the future looked especially bright for a Wildcats team that finished the year ranked No. 11 in the country.
But then Fisch left for Washington, and the program went off the rails in Brent Brennan’s disappointing 4-8 first season. Arizona has faced a swarm of 31 transfer portal departures since, including No. 1 transfer cornerback Tacario Davis and No. 6 transfer cornerback Emmanuel Karnley.
Arizona’s moment in the sun proved ephemeral. Arizona State is hoping its spotlight lasts far longer than its in-state rival.
That will start with keeping Dillingham happy at his alma mater for as long as possible, knowing that outside suitors will inevitably come if he comes even close to maintaining this level of success at Arizona State. Unlike Fisch and Arizona, however, Dillingham’s deep ties to Arizona State give supporters hope that he’ll be in Temple for the long haul.
“He wants to be there, he wants to stay there, he doesn’t want to leave,” Plummer said. “He wants to build a program that’s sustainable, and I love hearing that.”
A win over Texas on a major national platform can only bolster the sustainability efforts. There is still national skepticism around Arizona State that coaches and players have used to fuel their fire in the build up to the Peach Bowl.
Win or lose, though, this has been a dream season for a program that has slumbered for much of the last 50 years. With effervescent leaders like Dillingham and Rossini at the helm, they are determined to make the most of it.
“We keep saying these outcomes create opportunities and we want to make sure we’re maximizing the opportunity and putting ourselves in the best position to keep doing this as often as we can,” Rossini said.
Read the full article here
Discussion about this post