TEMPE- Arizona State football head coach Kenny Dillingham spoke to the media ahead of Saturday's home game against the West Virginia Mountaineers.
This past weekend, the Sun Devils were on a bye week following an impressive win on the road at Iowa State the week before.
Just last season, the Sun Devils were healthy, won the Big 12 Championship game against the Iowa State Cyclones, and participated in the College Football Playoff for the first time. Mainly, Arizona State relied on the trio of QB Sam Leavitt, WR Jordyn Tyson, and RB Cam Skattebo.
Throughout the 2025 season, it felt different for the Sun Devils in many ways, even with the players from both offense and defense returning. From playing through a tough schedule to dealing with injuries to key players, it has been a challenging season for Arizona State.
"If we were healthy, I'd probably be not thrilled but decently happy with where we're at," Dillingham said Monday. "This conference is ruthless. It's really tough. We've had a really tough conference schedule. When you look at who we've played and the rhythm of how we've played them was at home [and] away, we played a really tough schedule. So with all the injuries, I'm very impressed by our guys' ability to keep fighting and not just cashing it in, like they want to make the most out of this season."
The path to the Big 12 Championship game is more challenging this season for the Sun Devils, who faced difficulties right from the start. They have also lost Leavitt for the remainder of the season due to injury, and Tyson has missed several games as well.
Arizona State (6-3, 4-2 Big 12) is currently in sixth place in the Big 12 standings with three games remaining in the season and has already qualified for a bowl game.
To make it back to the conference championship game, they need to win all their remaining games and also receive some help from other teams, as they hold the tiebreaker over Texas Tech.
"We're just focused on, from beginning of the year, being the best version of us," Dillingham said. "Like I told the guys, we've been horrible at responding to success. This year, been really good at responding to failure, but we have not responded to playing a good football game or beating a good team. So we need to do that.
"We need to show this season that we can play a good football game and come back and play another one and stack them, and that's what I'm excited for. I'm excited to see if our guys can go out there. Play with the same passion and energy back-to-back weeks and stack good football games."
The Arizona State Sun Devils will begin their 3-game stretch after their last bye week, starting with a home game against the West Virginia Mountaineers on Saturday.