Arizona State coach says Kansas still a good team despite record
On paper an Arizona State team sitting at 3-1 should be a big favorite over a 1-4 Kansas squad. But the oddsmakers currently have the Sun Devils as just a three-point favorite playing in their home stadium.
Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham has watched the Jayhawks and knows the margin of error is slim between winning and losing. He has seen a few mistakes per game that cost Kansas in several close contests.
“They are the same team that was predicted, potentially, to win the league,” Dillingham said. “They’ve had two ends of the first halves where they turned the ball over and the opponent has gotten seven off of it to end the first half. Which has been the difference in two of their games against Illinois and UNLV. Last week, the first play of the fourth quarter, they had a guy wide open, which should've been a touchdown to tie the game in the fourth quarter.”
Kansas has held the lead in the fourth quarter in three of their four losses. Last week against TCU they trailed by one in the fourth before losing their fourth straight game.
The Arizona State head coach said it has come down to taking care of the ball and costly turnovers.
“They’ve had a lead in every game but the last one going into the fourth quarter, which they were down four,” he said. “This is a really good football team, and they’ve turned the ball over a lot. That’s the only statistic that’s much different from last year is the turnover margin. It’s amazing what turnover margin does.”
Dillingham was hired two years ago at the age of 32 when he was the youngest coach among the P5 conferences. He attended high school in Arizona just a little over 10 miles from Sun Devil Stadium. He was asked if Arizona State can take advantage of a Kansas team that has lost leads in their last four games.
“Sometimes you're just trying to figure out how to win, and sometimes it just doesn't go your way, and it just happens,” he said. “We have to find a way to play good football for all four quarters. This isn’t a team you run away from. They won nine games last year and they returned almost everybody. It’s not like this team forgot how to play football. This is a really good football team.”
A couple plays here and there, and the Sun Devils would have a different team heading to Tempe on Saturday.
“Two plays a game are not going their way,” Dillingham said. “Two plays flip the other direction, and they are the 12th ranked team in the country and undefeated and favorites to win the Big 12. Two plays don't go their way and it's what happened, change everything.”
Kansas head coach Lance Leipold has guided his program to back-to-back bowl games and trying to get back on the winning track. Dillingham knows about his past success and does not expect the Jayhawks to change a lot this week.
“I think the one thing about Coach Leopold is he's had a lot of success in his career,” he said. “He knows how close they are. I don't expect any drastic change because anybody who watches them play knows if you're one or two plays away from being 5-0 or 4-1, whatever you want to pick that they would be, you're not going to make whole changes. You just have to try to not make those mistakes on those downs and that's what they are. They're that close to still being the team that everybody predicted them to be."