Meet ASU's Kenny Dillingham, one of the youngest head coaches in college football
A year ago, the Arizona State University football team was looking at a bleak road ahead.
The Sun Devils, under the direction of then-coach Herm Edwards, had fallen behind in a crucial area: high school recruiting. Smaller schools like Northern Illinois and Western Kentucky were finishing ahead of ASU in the recruiting rankings.
A number of reasons were behind this, most notably the ongoing NCAA investigation of ASU for alleged recruiting violations that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Sun Devils got off to a sluggish start in the 2022 fall season. After a bad loss to Eastern Michigan in mid-September, ASU fired Edwards and named running backs coach Shaun Aguano as the interim head coach. At the same time, school officials began searching for a new leader for the program.
Michael Crow, ASU president, and Ray Anderson, vice president of athletics, didn’t have to look far. The coach they wanted was right in their own backyard.
A former ASU assistant and Phoenix native was waiting for this exact opportunity. Enter: Kenny Dillingham, the 33-year-old offensive coordinator from the University of Oregon who was hired to be the face of ASU football in November.
Dillingham grew up in Scottsdale and attended Chaparral High School, where he played football until a knee injury changed the course of his life.
While still in high school, Dillingham began a coaching career that would send him East to the SEC as the offensive coordinator for Auburn University at just 29 years old. Now, he's back home, leading the team he used to tailgate in the parking lot for as a child.
There's a surge of energy building through the program, and Dillingham is the catalyst.
Eight months into the job, we’re talking with one of the youngest coaches in college football as he hopes to usher in a new era of success.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Valley 101 podcast: A conversation with ASU coach Kenny Dillingham
