ASU football is less than 24 hours away from officially beginning conference play for the first time as a member of the Big 12 when they take on Texas Tech on Saturday afternoon.
Before the 2024 season began, the Sun Devils left the Pac-12 to join one of the toughest conferences in the country and will have steep competition from top to bottom. Arizona State is currently 3-0 on the year and Texas Tech is at 2-1, with the Red Raiders coming off a season in which they were 5-4 in the Big 12 and won the 2023 Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl over California, 34-14.
When looking at what makes Texas Tech dangerous to go up against, Sun Devils head coach Kenny Dillingham pointed out the work that Red Raiders offensive coordinator Zach Kittley has done to get his program to where it is today.
Watching what he did at Houston Baptist before taking the job at Western Kentucky in 2021, Dillingham admitted earlier this week that he has watched tape of Kittley in the past since his offenses and quarterbacks produced at a high level. During his first stint in Lubbock, Kittley originally served in various roles under former Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury at Texas Tech. After departing from Western Kentucky, he returned to Texas Tech in 2022.
From analyzing Kittley from afar, Dillingham stated that the Red Raiders’ offense is practically unpredictable since Kittley changes up almost everything game after game.
“They score a lot. That stands out and I know it is a stupid answer, but like they score a lot,” Dillingham said. “They’re very creative… I have a lot of respect for what he does offensively and he knows how to score, he is really creative. You never see the same thing in back-to-back games which I think is a testament to him in terms of changing up the pictures. He constantly changes up the pictures so whatever you show your guys, you are probably not going to see on game day. Different formation, different motion, different shift. You may see the same plays but you aren’t going to see the same copy-and-paste picture from game to game, and that’s what makes them successful.”
On the opposite side of the ball, Red Raiders defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter has brought in a wealth of experience that spans all the way back to when he began his coaching career at Air Force in 1989. DeRuyter was the head coach of Fresno State from 2012-16 where he won the Mountain West Conference in his first two years.
Before he was hired by Oregon in 2021, DeRuyter was at California for four years (2016-20) when the Bears and Sun Devils were a part of the Pac-12. Dillingham would become Oregon’s offensive coordinator in 2022 just as DeRuyter departed for his current defensive coordinator job at Texas Tech.
While they never were able to coach together, Dillingham sees some resemblance between how DeRuyter runs the Red Raiders’ defense compared to California’s defense even though there are some differentiating factors between the two.
“This is a team that just created four takeaways on consecutive drives in a football game against a North Texas team who was 2-0 at the time,” Dillingham said. “Obviously coach DeRuyter has been around for a long time, been a head coach and been very successful. His ability to go in and out of the odd and four-down front, and mix up backend looks.
“It is so simple, it reminds me of Cal [California], which crazy enough he worked for coach [Justin] Wilcox at Cal before he went to Oregon before I got there. You can definitely see some similarities to Cal from that thought process, which means they are going to watch our Cal game. I see a little bit of that but there are some differences there. What I think the base structure is, I think there is a lot of philosophy that he has that Wilcox has at Cal.”
Starting a new era for the program in the Big 12, ASU faces Texas Tech at Jones AT&T Stadium on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. PT. To watch, the game will be on Fox Sports 1 (FS1).
WATCH: Kenny Dillingham talks after practice before ASU’s first Big 12 game vs. Texas Tech
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Reporter Alec Cipollini covers ASU Athletics, the Phoenix Mercury and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on his X account, @AlecCipollini
