ASU’s Kenny Dillingham living in the reality of a Big 12 with parity

The Arizona State Sun Devils and Baylor Bears begin their respective intra-conference journeys on commendable streaks.

Like ASU, its first conference opponent won six straight Big 12 games before reaching the bowl season a year ago. One of their streaks will end when they meet Saturday in Waco, Texas.

Two things can be true here: The streaks were a sign that each program’s trajectory changed for the better in the middle of last season — and that both teams beat long odds.

ASU (2-1) and Baylor (2-1) have stumbled in the nonconference schedule already in 2025, but they likely wouldn’t have needed a loss to remind them that their past Big 12 success is both from a separate season and an outlier.

“Every game is a toss-up,” ASU head coach Kenny Dillingham told Arizona Sports’ Bickley & Marotta on Friday. “That’s what’s crazy about this league, is last year we won every toss-up. Every single toss-up we won. That’s not normal. That’s why the season was the season.

“You can’t get lost in the fact that that’s rare to do that because these guys, they live and breathe football in Texas. Like, you live and breathe it, that’s what you do.”

The ASU-Baylor matchup is the second game in a stretch of six where the Sun Devils face Utah and five teams from the state of Texas: Texas State, Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech and Houston.

If getting Texas recruits’ eyes on Arizona State is a benefit, it comes with the risk of, you know, playing good teams who recruit out of their backyards.

“They go to every game on Friday night, they go to all the JV games on Thursday night,” Dillingham said. “They go to the college game on Saturday night, they go to somebody’s house and watch it on Sunday night, and then they go to the freshman game on Wednesday night, and they’re like, ‘What do we do Monday and Tuesday?'”

The Bears, like the Sun Devils, also fell to an SEC team in the nonconference schedule.

They followed a 38-24 season-opening loss against Auburn with a 48-45 win over then-No. 17 SMU and a 42-7 cruise against Samford.

ASU’s vibes have also turned a corner since finding itself down 17-0 in Starkville, Mississippi, before a brief rally ended with a loss. Dillingham has been pleased with the response, and with a bit of a found identity, in the past six quarters since then.

Quarterback Sam Leavitt and Dillingham have both gone as far as admitting they feel more like themselves in a world where ASU is viewed as an underdog.

“I think our team definitely is more comfortable in this world where, you know, we suck again,” Dillingham said. “I think that’s positive. I think anytime it’s hard when you have a season like we had last season, you can say what you want to say, but that was the fourth-biggest underdog season in the history of sports, statistically. The emotions of it are not to be duplicated — ever, ever again.

“You have to really kind of reestablish standards and goals and expectations, and you have to find your own wavelength for this team because there’s no way to duplicate that emotion. … I think we’ve found that.”

Kenny Dillingham joins Bickley & Marotta every Friday at 7:15 a.m. MST on Arizona Sports 98.7 and our app. Watch on YouTube or our ‘Watch’ page.

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