What does 'energized' Arizona State University bring to the Big 12?

TEMPE, Ariz. — As Graham Rossini looked out at the surroundings of Mountain America Stadium on Wednesday morning, he churned with excitement for the new visitors he and the rest of the athletics staff at Arizona State University will host in the coming years.

With the move to the Big 12 Conference next summer, Arizona State officials are thrilled for what’s ahead for their university, but also for their new opponents who will get to make regular trips to the Phoenix suburb of Tempe.

“It’s a beautiful place to be,” Rossini told The Oklahoman, speaking specifically about the structure most famously known as Sun Devil Stadium before Mountain America Credit Union signed on for a 15-year naming rights deal.

Oklahoma State has played in the stadium as recently as the 2015 Cactus Bowl, and has been to back-to-back bowl games in the Phoenix area the last two seasons. So the terrain isn’t all that unfamiliar to Cowboy supporters.

But Saturday’s game between the Pokes and Sun Devils — set for 9:30 p.m. at Mountain America Stadium, televised by FS1 — is a taste of the future. The next time OSU settles in for a game on the field built between the two peaks of Hayden Butte — highlighted by the famous “A” Mountain with the large, golden “A” near the peak — it’ll be a Big 12 duel.

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“That’s the fun part,” said Rossini, ASU’s chief business officer and a former Sun Devil baseball staffer. “We can’t wait to embrace the fan bases of these other universities. We can’t wait to learn from them. We know college sports means a lot to these campuses.

“Having these great conversations with leadership and administrations at these universities, we’re sensing their excitement to come to Tempe, our excitement to return to some of these great campuses and great college environments, and ultimately see what we can learn from each other.”

While the beauty of Mountain America Stadium will be a focal point of Arizona State’s presence in the Big 12, the university has much more to offer.

The four incoming members from the Pac-12 — ASU, Arizona, Utah and Colorado — are AAU-accredited academic institutions, which will join Kansas as the only such recognized universities in the league.

ASU’s 26 athletic teams (comprised of 650 total athletes) will be the most of any Big 12 school, even though the Sun Devil ice hockey program, which recently got a new arena, will have to compete outside the Big 12. Arizona and TCU have 22 teams each, while the others fall between 16-21.

ASU has made major upgrades to Mountain America Stadium in recent years and just built Mullett Arena, which primarily houses the hockey and volleyball teams while the basketball teams continue to play at Desert Financial Arena. The baseball and softball facilities have, or are preparing to have, significant upgrades as well.

“We want to bring the impact of ASU into the Big 12 and celebrate the outcomes that we’re having here, and collaborate with these new universities,” Rossini said.

“From a competitive standpoint, we’ve been tremendously impressed with the Big 12 Conference and commissioner (Brett) Yormark and his team. They’ve embraced us with open arms. It’s amazing the level of detail and thoroughness in these transition conversations we’re already having.”

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The city of Tempe, home to more than 184,000 residents just to the east of Phoenix, will become a popular travel destination for Big 12 fans looking to enjoy the new landscape of the expanding conference. Tempe offers a combination of college town vibes with the amenities of a big city, all within a comfortable walking distance.

“We’re very excited about the transition to the Big 12,” said Colin Diaz, the president and CEO of the Tempe Chamber of Commerce. “We have the draws of the dive bar-type restaurants and bars, but also have some high-end eateries. Shopping… you can find any of your large department stores, but a lot of mom-and-pop boutiques as well.

“And from a sight-seeing and adventure standpoint, ‘A’ Mountain is a pretty steep hike, and Papago Park has some pretty amazing views and hiking trails.”

For a conference that has mostly resided within the plains of the Middle America for years, a visit to a destination like Tempe could inspire additional trips for fans of the traditional Big 12 teams.

“I work quite often with Tempe Tourism, which is the tourism arm for our city, as well as Downtown Tempe Authority, which is where a lot of our attraction will be,” Diaz said. “From a tourism standpoint, this opens up new markets that we probably have had folks coming from, but not a concerted effort and not annually.

“I think over time, we’ll see folks from those markets who’ve got it circled on their calendar every other year when their teams are out here.”

The ASU football program recently announced a self-imposed bowl ban for this season because of NCAA recruiting violations committed under former coach Herm Edwards. But the team still is building a renewed excitement under first-year coach Kenny Dillingham, a Phoenix native and Sun Devil alumnus whose first college coaching job was on the ASU staff in 2014.

He later made assistant-coaching stops at Memphis, Auburn, Florida State and Oregon before returning home last winter.

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“It’s a dream. It’s unbelievable,” Dillingham told reporters last spring of his excitement for the new gig. “You pull into this facility and you’re just like, ‘Wow.’ Every day. What can I do to do this for 30 years? The drive you get from wanting to be somewhere, living out what you’ve always wanted and knowing you can be somewhere forever? It’s hard to explain.”

And Sun Devil backers have similar feelings about their hometown coach.

“There’s a tremendous buzz around the football program right now,” Rossini said. “(Dillingham) called it, ‘Activate the Valley.’ That’s been a big movement for us a departmentally, to activate the Valley and help fans understand the best way to support the program. Kenny and ‘Activate the Valley’ has been a big part of our message.”

After several months of concern and uncertainty with the direction of the Pac-12, ASU feels its feet have landed on solid ground, and that assurance has brought comfort in what’s ahead.

Arizona State officials, of course, see this not only as what the Big 12 can offer them, but what they can offer their new league.

“We’ve been energized in a way this last month that I have not seen in my 2 ½ years here,” said Rossini, who spent the previous 13 years as an executive with the Arizona Diamondbacks before moving into his current role at ASU. “The move to the Big 12, that announcement and getting that clarity has created a fever pitch of excitement around the entire university.

“We can’t wait to join this conference that has a national footprint and bring our best attributes into a very competitive dynamic.”

Scott Wright covers Oklahoma State athletics for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Scott? He can be reached at swright@oklahoman.com or on Twitter at @ScottWrightOK. Sign up for the Oklahoma State Cowboys newsletter to access more OSU coverage. Support Scott’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com or by using the link at the top of this page.

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OSU vs. Arizona State

KICKOFF: 9:30 p.m. Saturday at Mountain America Stadium in Tempe, Ariz. (FS1)

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Big 12 expansion brings 'energized' Arizona State to league in 2024