After Saturday’s win over Northern Arizona, the team was in a good mood. Here’s what they had to say to the media.
Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham’s general thoughts: “I mean, we won a football game, which is a positive. We got to be able to stop short yardage runs. That was not a positive, and we can't have 12 penalties for 93 yards that cost us probably an additional 170 yards.
"So when you look at it all, if you just removed the penalties, this entire sheet is 200 yards different right now, and we got to get back cleaned up. That starts with me. I mean, I'm the end-all be-all when it comes to stuff like that. We've had officials in every practice; we haven't had that amount of holding calls called in all of camp, that we had tonight, and we got to get back cleaned up.”
Dillingham on NAU: “You got to give them a lot of credit, and that team a lot of credit, too. It's not just, you know, what we did wrong; it's also what they did right. I'm a fan of that staff. I'm rooting for them. They're another local team.
"And, you know, I know coach Wright’s come out to a practice or so down here, and we continue to have a relationship because he did a phenomenal job today, did a phenomenal job last year, and I want to make sure people are giving him his credit 'cause I believe that he out coached me tonight, and that's something that I got to look at, and I got to figure out how that doesn't happen and getting moving forward.”
Arizona State redshirt sophomore quarterback Sam Leavitt on the crowd: “Yeah, we need that. Think about the games last year, just the juice of the crowd changes the momentum of things, it makes it harder for the whole line on to hear the play call, the snap, all those things. So you know, it impacts everything. Congrats to coach Dillingham for getting it jumping like that. Pretty cool to come out here for game one against NAU and see that.”
Leavitt on how the crowd can improve: “Get it a little bit louder.”
Dillingham on rhythm: “Like, it was just never in a rhythm, always getting us out of sync, and you know, for a little bit there, we got back into a rhythm and early in the year, you know, you get spooked by some things like that, and I think that was that's what this game reminded, even though we didn't have a we weren't losing like that game, this game had that similar feel of like we just, weren't in sync because how unique they play defense, we couldn't really run a lot of what we normally run.”
Leavitt on his rushing performance: “I’m not necessarily trying to do too much on those plays, just doing what my coaches taught me. I saw man coverage, bear cover one. They had no hole player, so I just took off, and that the post safety’s for me, and I made a good play.”
Leavitt’s grade he would give himself: “I’d give it like a C plus, maybe a B minus.”
Dillingham on Leavitt: “Sam's hard on himself. Sam's gonna be his hardest critic. That's just who Sam is. You know, he's never gonna be satisfied, but he had a really good football game. He had some really good checks that are early, getting us under the right plays. He extended plays, had some unbelievable throws into the pressures that we were struggling and picking up. So I thought he played well, I think he's only, continue to play better as the season progresses.”
Dillingham on the running backs: “In terms of the running back room, you saw some explosive plays, you know, one of them got called back, but that's what we saw in camp. That's what we were looking for, you know, a couple of those plays don't get called back. I like where that room is at.”
Dillingham on Raleek Brown: He's put in the work, like, he's serious about this offseason. He's gaining weight, like, it matters to him, and you can feel it out there on the field. You can see the explosiveness, like he had a few of those plays. The big one I'm thinking about is the one that was called back. He has that ability, and then we need to get the ball in the running game; he averaged 7.6 yards per carry. He was running behind his pads, tough to tackle, so I was very, very pleased with him. I'm fired up about him.
Arizona State redshirt junior receiver Jordyn Tyson on his crazy catch: “I honestly worked on that catch. I feel like I mastered that as a kid, and I just never had the opportunity to really do it on field.”
Leavitt on Tyson’s crazy touchdown catch: “I was pretty shocked he caught that. That was a hell of a catch. Probably one of the best catches I've seen in a while, live. So props to him for that.”
Tyson on his versatility: “To be honest, I was short when I was a freshman and a sophomore, so I played slot, and I was always playing a slot. It was slot, slot, slot. So now I got taller, I play outside and slot.”
Dillingham on Tyson: “He's been awesome. He drastically, has grown up as a person, and I couldn't be more proud of him. I mean, he studies ball at a high rate. He takes care of his body. I mean, he's a true pro, so I'm very blessed that I get to coach him, because he's a special player and a special person.”
Dillingham on the defense: “The short yardage situations we struggled, so we got to get better at the short yardage situations. Third and long, we did a really good job. We had them in third and medium, third and long the most of the night, and we did a nice job. They got a really good mesh play. It had two-minute drill, where I thought we were going to win them at late, did the ball back. They ended up converting on that fourth and five. They were a mesh, scooted away to the left, and threw the under.”
Senior linebacker Jordan Crook on the defense: “I think it was a solid performance, but not to our standard, though, just to be honest. We got too many penalties, but it was good to see everybody coming out there flying around.”
Dillingham on special teams: “We gave up that one big kick return; they pinned us there. Other than that, it went well; we had a few punts that flipped the field. You know, I had an MA, we called a back-up punt on the five, six-yard line, probably just should've called it a normal punt. That's why the coverage unit wasn't great on there. But other than that, I thought our special teams played great. We had a block punt, and we had a fake punt converted. I thought they were a plus positive in the football game when it's all set and done.”
Dillingham on why he feels he got outcoached: “Anytime that I don't think we play our performance, it's on me, at the end of the day, like everything that happens with this program falls on me. So if I feel like we're not operating at an optimum level, that's my fault. I got to find a ways in order to fix that. So, regardless of if it's a special team issue if it's an effort issue, it's saying they got a really good plan versus us, and we don't quite get it fixed as fast as I would like, regardless of it. Like, if we don't play our best game, like I look at myself, what can I have done better?”
Leavitt on penalties had been a problem: “No, it's just tough, going from camp to now, playing in a live setting where calls are being made. We do in practice, but a little different when someone's really fighting to get off a block and make a play on the runner, so just gonna go back to work and get it down. I'm not too worried about it.”
Dillingham on winning ugly: “[ I’m] just happy we got a W, and it's always good to win ugly. That's one of the best things about coaching, is when you win ugly and it wakes people up a little bit, and that's great.”
The team will have more to say this week in practice before they travel to Mississippi State.