Arizona State University's football team will take on Iowa State on Saturday in the Big 12 Championship game. It's the school's first season in that conference, and to put it mildly, expectations were not high for how they’d do.
Now, if ASU wins, they’ll move on to the College Football Playoff — with a chance to play for a national championship.
Chris Karpman, publisher of Sun Devil Source for 247 Sports, joined The Show to talk about how big of a surprise is it that ASU is playing for the Big 12 Championship and a spot in the college football playoff.
Full conversation
CHRIS KARPMAN: It's a huge surprise, especially when measured against preseason expectations. ASU was 16th in the preseason Big 12 media poll. This is the biggest year-over-year improvement in ASU football history in the win column. And also this team has achieved the most one-score wins, right or fewer points, with six in history, dating to 1897. That could never have been expected.
The, the conventional wisdom is, of course, that teams need to learn how to win. ASU was 3-9 last season, and had a red shirt freshman quarterback starting for the first time and somehow bucked the odds to end up in this pretty impressive situation.
MARK BRODIE: So, how did they do it then? What, what went right for them this year?
KARPMAN: Well, Kenny Dillingham, their coach who just won Big 12 coach of the year, preached the importance of turnover margin throughout the off-season from spring ball into preseason camp, and ASU ended up tied for first in the Big 12 in that category. The top four teams in the conference are, are the top four teams in turnover margin.
So when you have a redshirt freshman quarterback, especially in Sam Levitt, who only threw five interceptions, which were the fewest among any regular starting quarterback in the conference, that was a huge start for them.
And then of course, Cam Skattebo, their senior start runningback, one of the better players at the position in the country, had a fantastic season, rushing behind the one of the most improved offensive lines in the country.
And Jordan Tyson, a superstar wide receiver, made it a little bit easier for Sam Levitt and that ASU offense to make these types of gains. And then defensively just a very strong, deep, solid team that rallies to the football, doesn't really give up a lot of big plays, no cheap ones over the top. These guys have focused on being process oriented and as opposed to results oriented, and they bought into Dillingham’s mantra of having more fun, working harder than any time in their lives.
BRODIE: So you mentioned, someone like Cam Skattebo, a senior runningback. I'm curious how this year sets up this program for the immediate future.
KARPMAN: Well, two-thirds of their starters have remaining eligibility, including some of their best players. They're gonna have to replace Cam Skattebo. I think there's a really good chance that they're, that they appeal to a lot of the higher profile runningbacks that end up in the transfer portal. And then I think also they should have in Sam Levitt and Jordan Tyson one of the best quarterback-wide receiver duos in the country next year because both of those guys are underclassmen. That, that's a remarkable thing that you can build around.
They're gonna have some key players, to, to replace, not just Skattebo, but also Leif Fautanu, their all conference center, and Shamari Simmons, who's one of their best defensive players, and a few other guys, but I think that they are extremely well positioned and should be one of the top teams in the preseason poll next year for the Big 12.
BRODIE: So you mentioned head coach Kenny Dillingham and one of the things that he has really prioritized and talked a lot about is the importance of NIL — name, image and likeness. And it's something that he seems to take pretty seriously. How significant has that been so far in terms of recruiting players and keeping players and how might that play a role going forward when you talk about trying to replace some of the players who, who will be exhausting their eligibility after this season?
KARPMAN: That's one of the most impressive aspects of what they've accomplished because ASU's roster probably cost around $3 million, according to sources, in NIL, this year, which is far less than most of the teams that are ranked in the top 15 of the CFP. Most of those teams are $10 million up to $20 million or more in some cases, Ohio State's athletic director said that, that that team's roster was around $20 million. For Oregon is also in, in that range. The next year will be quite a lot different though because teams will be able to pay players directly following this House v. NCAA settlement.
The exact amount is, is not super clear right now, but it's gonna be probably somewhere north of $10 million for football teams to fill out the roster. And there will be some differences between lower level teams versus the blue blood programs. But NIL will not have an outsized impact, I would say, relative to what it currently exists. And that's a positive for teams like ASU that have financially not been able to compete at the top of the food chain. Although I, I still think that the, the best of the best programs are gonna still acquire the most talent.
BRODIE: Sure. All right. So as we head into tomorrow's matchup,, fill in the, the end of the following sentence: ASU’s game against Iowa State in the Big 12 championship is this program's most important game since when?
KARPMAN: 2013, Arizona State hosted Stanford in the Pac-12 conference championship. So I would say that that's, the, the biggest game since then, but you could potentially given the CFP ramifications, say that this is the biggest game since the 1996 Rose Bowl season, when ASU had a chance if a couple other things fell right Including I believe Florida versus Florida State that year coupled with had ASU beaten Ohio State. It could have been national champions. So we're talking about something that's happened at ASU once or twice over the last 30 years.
BRODIE: Yeah, that's, I, I was thinking, doing the math really quickly 30 years.
KARPMAN: That's, that's quite a, quite a thing. It's amazing. I've been covering ASU for 20 years, haven't missed a home game over that span and this is by far the most impressive accomplishment, particularly when measured against expectations.
Kenny Dillingham is the youngest head coach at the power four level and he is one of the two most likely candidates for national coach of the year honors, along with Indiana's Curt Cignetti, who had a miraculous, turnaround from Indiana winning one game in the Big 10 last year to now being 11-1 in his first season. That's the only reason that Dillingham probably won't win national coach of the year.
