How will ASU football manage extended timeline between Big 12 title game, Peach Bowl?

TEMPE — When a team is as hot as ASU football with six straight wins, an extended period of time off might not be the best thing.

After a 45-19 victory in the Big 12 title game against Iowa State on Saturday, the Sun Devils get 23 days to prepare for the Peach Bowl on Jan. 1 thanks to a first-round bye as one of the four highest-rated conference champions.

Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham said he’s factoring in the advice from more experienced coaches, feedback from his assistant coaches and leadership council to determine the plan.

“Very hard, to be honest,” Dillingham said of the break on Monday. “I’ve never really experienced anything like this, so I called a few coaches … just about managing this, and to be honest both of them didn’t tell me they liked what they did. They both said, ‘This is what I would never do again.’

“It’s such a weird space, we’re playing good football right now. Now you have three-and-a-half weeks where you don’t get to play football versus an opponent, I mean that’s as long as fall camp.”

How will ASU adjust its schedule to fill break between games?

The goal is to simultaneously keep the players well rested but also in good football shape.

Players have this week off before next week is a “simulated bye week” akin to the regular season bye weeks, where younger players get more reps than the veterans.

They will shoot for at least one high-intensity practice each week where players should reach workload levels similar to an “extensive game.” By the time the Peach Bowl comes, Dillingham said the team should have three of those practices under its belt.

For the first 13 days of the 23-day stretch, ASU won’t know which team it’s preparing for, as No. 5 Texas and No. 12 Clemson face off in the first round on Dec. 21.

“This is a self-scout period. We’re talking to our own guys,” Dillingham said, noting much of this week will be dedicated to the transfer portal, which opened on Monday.

Dillingham said he knows of a few tendencies that he wants to take a closer look at but otherwise is unsure of where the self-scout will take him and the rest of the coaching staff.

“Sometimes I don’t see everything that we run or that we practice, or I don’t notice, like, minor details of alignments that I used to when I was a coordinator ’cause I got more things that I’m dealing with,” Dillingham said. “We gotta make sure that we look at that and make sure we change up our tendencies or use tendencies against future opponents. That way teams can’t use tendencies against us.

“It’s not revolutionary, but this does give us the period of time to do that and not worry about an opponent, but really double-down on us and then worry about an opponent this next step.”