Only four days before the team’s season opener against Southern Utah, ASU players were delivered gut-wrenching news before practice this morning.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!“I knew today would be sh*tty when they receive horrible news on the Tuesday practice in the morning before we meet for special teams,” ASU coach Kenny Dillingham said immediately following practice. “So to think that 18-22 year olds are gonna go out and have a good Tuesday practices is absolutely delusional. But I think the guys battled. The guys did the best they could do.”
(Dillingham says Tuesday practice because their game is on Thursday, so today was normally what they would do on Tuesdays)
WATCH: ASU Coach Kenny Dillingham Reacts to Self-Imposed Bowl Ban
Dillingham met with Vice President of University Athletics Ray Anderson (who was also at practice but did not speak to the media) and deputy athletics director Jean Boyd early this morning where they broke the news of the self-imposed bowl ban to him.
According to safety Chris Edmonds, he first got a text at 6:15 a.m. about an urgent leadership meeting. The team’s leadership council then met with Dillingham where he told them the unfortunate news.
They next had a full team meeting with Anderson, where he informed all of them of the ban. Dillingham gave his perspective on the ban during the meeting, but the team could not ask Anderson any questions because the investigation is still ongoing, according to junior tight end Jalin Conyers.
Defensive lineman Dashaun Mallory said that Anderson did apologize to the seniors during the meeting.
“It is what it is, like I told the guys, ‘we can’t control it,'” Dillingham said. “Not one person in the country feels bad for us. Matter of fact, more people are happy about it. Because like I said, people love to see other people down. People feed off of it. It’s the world we live in. And if we allow people to feed off of this circumstance for us, then that’s on us.”
Players’ reactions
The ban for the bowl game has a different effect on every player, but it especially hurts the seniors and players likely to go to the NFL after this season. This year’s Sun Devil team features 13 seniors and 11 graduate students.
Edmonds, now a senior, transferred to the Sun Devils from an FCS school, Samford, before last season. He was hoping that he could make a bowl game for the first time in his career, but will no longer have the opportunity.
“Going into this year, I’ve never been able to play in the postseason in my college career,” Edmonds said, “so I was really looking forward to like the team that we’re building right now, the culture we’re building. I was really thinking that we can make a run this year, but, like I said, we still have 12 winnable games, and we gotta go win all of them.”
He added: “I wish it could have happened last year.”
Anderson, Edwards and University President Michael Crow very well could have imposed this ban last season, which ended up being Edwards final year. They also did not immediately fire Edwards, who they knowingly had a direct role in the violations, before last season.
When Edwards did leave the program after last year’s loss to Eastern Michigan, they elected to pay him half of his remaining salary (approximately $4.4 million).
Meanwhile, seven of his staffers were let go or resigned before the season.
Now, this year’s team has to suffer the consequences.
The players in the Sun Devils’ leadership council weren’t sure of what was going to come from the unplanned leadership meeting.
“A surprise leadership meeting is obviously never a good thing,” senior nickel back Jordan Clark said. “You’re not necessarily thinking that it’s going to be bad, but you’re expecting bad news to an extent.
“Ultimately, you can take a second to be upset about it, but season still has to get played.”
Clark is now in his fifth year with the team and has been through all of the ups and downs of the past administration.
Being one of the established leaders on this team, Clark shared his perspective on how he will continue to lead despite the looming ban.
“I gotta keep guys going,” he said. “But for those of us that were on the team last year, this season has enough meaning. There’s a lot of people that we got to play, a lot of people we got to get back. So I’m not necessarily worried about the bowl game or championship. We play all those same teams this year, and I’m just ready to play football.”
Despite not being a senior, Conyers has a similar leadership role to Clark and this year will likely be his last at the college ranks before he heads to the NFL.
“I just (have to) lead,” Conyers said. “I think a big part of it is just getting around people and just letting people know, like, ‘This season isn’t for nothing.’ At the end of the day, we still want to go to 12-0, so we can be that team that everyone talks about, ‘Like dang, if they would have got that chance.’ It’s gonna suck when we get to that point, but there’s no reason to be sad.”
Conyers described his initial reaction.
“Everyone was sad getting the news,” he said.”But we really shouldn’t be sad till November when we for sure have six wins and have done what we wanted to do in order to even make one. There’s no point being sad right now if we go win three, four games. So, I mean, obviously, it’s sad, it sucks. It’s something that we’re gonna have to fight it, but we can’t control it. So we can go out and play as hard as we can every week, that’s what we plan to do.”
Mallory, a graduate transfer from Michigan State (who recently switched his number from 98 to 0 as well), knew something was wrong when he saw Anderson.
“I saw the AD (athletic director), and I’ve been in this business for a little bit,” Mallory said, “so when I see the AD in the room, it’s either good or bad. Just looking at his demeanor, I didn’t know it was gonna be that bad. But I mean, I feel like it hit everybody like a smack in the face.”
Players and coaches take to social media
Plenty of players and coaches took to social media to address the bowl ban.
It is what it is. We can’t control what happened but we still coming with a head full of steam every game. #ForksUp
— Joey Ramos (@Joey_Ramos76) August 27, 2023
"Nobody cares about our problems, They're glad we have them. We need to stick together." Mike Tomlin #SunDevil4LIFE #ActivateTheValley
— Coach Dillingham (@KennyDillingham) August 27, 2023
Although the circumstances suck, we will play our hearts out every game. We will compete, we will fight, and we will win football games. We will show EVERYONE what this team is truly about. 12 games to show who we are, & it starts Thursday. WE NEED YOU SUN DEVIL NATION🔱 #ForksUp
— Jalin Conyers (@therealjconyers) August 27, 2023
In Due Time…🔱 pic.twitter.com/xm9Cg8x5Oo
— 𝘽𝙅 𝙂𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙣 Ⅱ (@bjgreenII) August 27, 2023
Now what?
The Sun Devils will try to refocus and gather themselves for the season opener. Whether they use this bowl ban as motivation or let it affect their performance on the field remains to be seen, but it is an overall horrible situation for the players.
Dillingham recognizes this.
“I’m about the kids.” Dillingham said. “Everything we should do should be about helping the players be successful in life, helping the players do everything they want to do to be successful. So anything that has a negative effect on our players bothers me.”
Dillingham has a clause in his contract where if a bowl game ban is in place, “ASU will request (Arizona Board of Regents) approval of an extension of Coach’s contract for each year such sanctions are in effect, with each additional year including the annual salary increase of $100,000.”
Interesting nugget in Kenny Dillingham's contract: pic.twitter.com/ddmQP1qmxk
— Cronkite News: Phoenix Sports (@sportscronkite) August 27, 2023
When asked about the clause, Dillingham chose not to comment.
As for now, Dillingham will do his best to rally his troops and get them ready for the season opener.
“What I just told the team is, ‘Nobody cares about your circumstance,'” Dillingham said. “In reality, most people in life would rather see people fail so they don’t have to work hard, actually work hard enough to beat them. Everybody looks at this like, ‘Oh great, Arizona State’s not going to be motivated anymore.’
“That’s the challenge: It’s us versus us every day.”
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Brendan Mau is a college sports insider and general assignment reporter for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @Brendan_Mau
