The data likes Arizona State, and the data doesn’t lie.
Intact leadership team? Coach Kenny Dillingham has a new contract, as do offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo and defensive playcaller Brian Ward.
Returning quarterback and playmaker? Sam Leavitt is considered a second-tier Heisman Trophy candidate while receiver Jordyn Tyson received preseason All-American recognition.
Cohesion in the trench and a veteran defense? The offensive linemen have 111 career starts, and the defense returns players responsible for 74 percent of last season’s tackles.
All the measurables necessary to withstand injuries, win 11 games again, repeat as Big 12 champions, qualify for the College Football Playoff and produce the best back-to-back seasons at ASU in half a century?
Yes.
In just his third season, Dillingham appears poised to take the Sun Devils where they haven’t been since the Frank Kush era — to the realm of national relevance that taps into the program’s perceived potential and allows diehard fans to forget the two-word tag that has hounded them for eons. (It rhymes with bleeping client.)
Dillingham has the most experienced roster in the Big 12, according to Phil Steele, a college football analyst whose data tracks returning production down to the last letterman on the roster.
What’s more, the Sun Devils are among the top-ranked teams nationally in career starts by offensive linemen and percentages of both returning yards and returning tackles.
Unlike so many of last year’s playoff participants, they were not whacked by attrition to the NFL Draft.
Unlike so many teams that leap from the shadows into the spotlight, they were not hammered by the transfer portal.
They didn’t lose their coordinators to wealthier programs.
“One of the things Kenny has going for him now is credibility,” said Fox Sports analyst Chris Petersen, who turned Boise State into a powerhouse and led Washington to three major bowl appearances in six years.
“Until you prove it, a lot of it is faith-based, and he proved it. It’s awesome that he got it going.
“But now, it’s a different beast.”
The data doesn’t lie. Nor does it tell the complete story.
For example, it cannot measure the weight of expectations.
It cannot quantify the effect of pressure.
It cannot predict the impact of fortune, the bounce of the ball or the roll of an ankle.
Aside from replacing star tailback Cam Skattebo, whose production and playing style defined last season’s ascent, the unknowns accompanying ASU into 2025 are impossible to predict or even define.
But we know where the Sun Devils are.
We know their location.
The forces that will govern Arizona State’s fate — that will determine whether it finishes 10-2 or 8-4 — will play out on the margins, away from the TV cameras, imperceptible to the fans and media. Heck, they might even be undetectable to the players and coaches themselves.
Everything changes with expectations, even when the two-deep remains largely intact from a team that was picked last and finished first.
“The climb has a different energy to it,” Petersen said.
“If you notice, Kenny hasn’t said they’ve arrived. He’s done remarkable things, but maintaining that (success), building on that, is nothing short of exhausting.
“Expectations are real. It’s how you handle it all that’s tricky.”
Petersen experienced exactly that during his tenure with Washington. The Huskies won the Pac-12 in the fall of 2016 — it was just his third season — with 12 victories and a run to the four-team College Football Playoff.
They began the following year ranked eighth in the AP preseason poll and remained relevant, but “it was a hard fall,” Petersen recalled, “with all eyes on you.”
The Huskies lost a showdown at Stanford and were boxed out of the Pac-12 championship game. They exited the playoff race in early November.
They were good. They just weren’t quite good enough.
After all, the other teams are trying, too.
And therein lies the second-level complication for Arizona State: The Big 12 is unlike any other conference.
The ACC, Big Ten and SEC start each season with an established hierarchy, with a slew of teams that have no chance to end their journey in the conference championship game. Minnesota and Rutgers, Mississippi State and Kentucky, Boston College and Georgia Tech — their fates are sealed on the second tier.
But the disparity in talent across the 16 programs in the new Big 12 is narrow enough in any given year that the team picked last (ASU) can finish first and the team picked third (Oklahoma State) can finish last.
In the Big 12, games aren’t played at home or on the road. They are played exclusively on the margins.
For the defending champs, who face unprecedented expectations and will get every foe’s best shot, who must shield their eyes from the lure of the NFL, who must create a reality in which they haven’t won anything, that goes double.
ASU could be 99 percent of the team it was last year and finish five spots lower in the standings.
And it all depends on the factors that cannot be quantified.
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