Kenny Dillingham has hilarious response to former Arizona State coach now with rival

As the youngest coach in Division I college football, Kenny Dillingham is about as active on social media as you'd expect. And on Tuesday, he delivered a comical response on X (formerly known as Twitter) in a quote tweet of the wide receivers coach for Arizona State's in-state rival.

The original tweet is from Bobby Wade, current receivers coach for the Arizona Wildcats. As the Wildcats coaching staff is posting about their various recruiting trips, Wade posted a graphic showing him in Dallas, Texas with the caption "Texas 2 Tucson."

It's a derivative of a slogan that Dillingham and the rest of the Arizona State staff has used in their own recruiting of the state of Texas, especially in the Dallas area, popularizing the hashtag "Texas 2 Tempe."

It's become a common rallying cry for Texas recruits who pick Arizona State, and the Sun Devils had 20 players on their roster in 2024 who hail from the state. Additionally, they have six Texans in their incoming high school recruiting class and three by way of the transfer portal.

Arizona State's unprecedented success in recruiting the state has come largely due to the presence of cornerbacks coach Bryan Carrington, a Houston native who came to Tempe from TCU and had previously worked with both University of Texas and University of Houston. Arizona State also had Ra'Shaad Samples, a Dallas native, on staff last year before he departed for Oregon this year.

Wade, it should be noted, coached at Arizona State before moving down south. The former Wildcat player joined the Sun Devils in 2019 under Herm Edwards, first as a graduate assistant and then as an offensive analyst. In the fallout of the NCAA recruiting scandal, Wade was promoted to receivers coach for two years, and he was reassigned to an analyst role in Dillingham's first year in Tempe.

Dillingham made sure to note his lighthearted tone in the tweet, mocking Wade's copycat act but all in good fun. This won't go down in history as a memorable part of the storied rivalry, but it does highlight the sense of humor that Dillingham has.