Here is what the Sun Devils are saying after last week’s win at Iowa State.
Dillingham on the game plan for Iowa State: “It’s just different. There's a lot of things that Jeff did that we do with Sam. That defensive scheme is a little bit different than most defensive schemes. You just got to attack a little bit different.”
Dillingham on what he loves from this team: “I love the resilience of these guys to bounce back and fight back, and when the glass is empty, we fill it back up. Hopefully, we just don't empty it out again cause we're good at doing both. I love the resilience of this team. I love how they care about each other.”
Dillingham on what drives him crazy from this team: “Not scoring in the red zone, penalties.”
Dillingham on redshirt senior quarterback Jeff Sims winning AP National Player of the Week: “That's so cool for him. He's everything that's right with college football. Such a great person to stay here for his teammates and to be able to get that opportunity and to win that game. That's such a cool thing for him. I'll remember that forever. He earned a lot of respect. Not just in our locker room, but nationally with how he played and how he carried himself postgame. You really got to see a little bit behind the scenes of Jeff.”
Dillingham on the defense: “Yeah. (Justin) Wodtly played great. That could have been his best game as a Sun Devil. We put a game ball in his locker because that was a guy that after I watched it, I felt like deserved a game ball. He played probably his best game as a Sun Devil. I think those guys are just playing together really well. Montana (Warren) going in there for Ghost (Myles Rowser) and starting at boundary safety for his first time, and played really, really, really good. Ghost coming in the second half and bringing a different level of energy. When everybody's on the same page, we're playing good defense. It definitely gets overlooked, at times, but we're playing, really, really good defense, really good run defense, and it was good complementary football.”
Dillingham on junior defensive back Keith Abney potentially getting drafted: “I don't know if he's overlooked. He's on all these lists. We're talking about him every week. He's consistent. He's found a system of what it takes to be successful, and he has to continue to do that system. He's in a rhythm of what it takes. It's super cool to see a kid who, we were his biggest offer coming out of high school, two weeks into having the job. We get him here, he commits, ranked nothing. Now all of a sudden he's a third-year and he's on draft boards and he's going to get to make a decision on does he want to go pro or come back. That's an awesome situation to be in going into, for a third-year kid who everybody counted out coming out of high school.”
Dillingham on junior defensive lineman CJ Fite: “He's so much more confident. When CJ got here, he didn't speak. He just worked out, put up 550, and then would go about his way. Now he leads, he speaks, he jokes around, he goes to events in the community. He's really grown up as a person here, and I think that's really cool to see him do that. I mean, he gets fiery on the field. He's always been that. He's learning what it takes, and he's learning that he can be himself. And it's such a cool thing to watch him just, you know, kind of mature and grow up as a man, and it's really cool to see.”
Dillingham on what he is doing in the bye week: “I thought it was 5:15 and it was 4:15, so I drove into the office way too early. I got to the office, I'm like, oh, it's still 4:50. That sucked. I don't know how that happened, or I was just in like robot mode and got up here. This week, today is a lot of administrative stuff that I have to do. I have to go to all the meetings. Tomorrow is a lot of uh opponent prep and self scout, and our staff's doing uh self scout and opponent prep for West Virginia. Thursday I'll be locally recruiting. Friday, I'll be locally recruiting. Sunday, we'll be back in early in the morning and start our game week for West Virginia.”
Dillingham on giving the team an off week: “I mean, a week off of football, they're still coming in and lifting and running and getting rehab and stuff like that this week. I just think that getting away from the game, similar to last year, even before the Peach Bowl, we gave them a week off, which most people don't do. I just feel like sometimes you just need to get away. The hardest thing you can do sometimes is to let go. And I think the ability to let go for a few days and then come back on Sunday/Monday and get back to work on Monday a day early and rock and roll because we got a really good West Virginia team that just beat Houston and had their best offensive performance. So we got to be able to get an extra day to get ready for them.”