I asked Jedd Fisch what he thought about new ASU football coach Kenny Dillingham and the last thing I expected him to say was: "I’ve heard a lot of good things about him."
Or "he's going to make the Pac-12 much more competitive."
True to the biting Territorial Cup rivalry, Fisch simply said: "I don't know the guy they hired."
"The guy they hired."
Next question.
None of the last six football coaches hired by Arizona State worked out in the long haul. So it’s not like you cede the Sun Devils' administration the benefit of the doubt when it comes to hiring football coaches.
Over those 34 seasons, Larry Marmie went 22-21-1; Bruce Snyder soon went 17-18 after getting to the 1997 Rose Bowl; Dirk Koetter went 21-28 in the Pac-10; re-re-retread Dennis Erickson couldn’t do any better than 31-31; temperamental Todd Graham was 18-20 his last three seasons; and Herm Edwards imploded, getting fired after three games this season.
All were asked to leave.
ASU hasn’t had a football coach leave on his terms, an unqualified success, since John Cooper, winner of the 1987 Rose Bowl, sailed off after a mere three seasons to coach Ohio State in 1988.
The last thing — the very last thing — Fisch needs is for Arizona State to build a Top-25 program under Dillingham, a 32-year-old offensive coordinator who grew up in Scottsdale, graduated from ASU and got his start in college coaching on Graham’s 2014 Sun Devil staff.
The Pac-12 isn’t getting any easier. The Big Four — USC, Washington, Oregon and Utah — aren’t likely to fall back to the pack.
If you project the 2023 league standings, only Colorado, Stanford and ASU are likely to be ranked below Arizona. It’s a tough act when once-soft Oregon State and Washington State play in back-to-back bowl games and seem to be getting better.
Fisch detailed Arizona’s last four Pac-12 seasons and it wasn’t a pleasant reminder. "We finished last, last and last, and this year we finished eighth," he said Monday.
"How do we get to sixth? How do we get to fourth?"
One of the answers is not having to worry about ASU being anything other than a perennial underachiever, a renowned sleeping giant that has been in a slumber for most of the past 35 years.
The Sun Devils are taking a significant risk by hiring Dillingham, but ASU has history on his side. The youngest head coach hired to coach Pac-12 football the last 50 years was UCLA's 32-year-old Terry Donahue.
And although Donahue was never able to build UCLA into a consistent Top-25 program, he coached for 20 seasons, the longest tenure in modern league history. The Bruins played in four Rose Bowl games, went 151-74 and established a successful template for what ASU is doing with Dillingham.
That is, Donahue grew up in Los Angeles, played and coached for the Bruins before becoming his alma mater’s head coach in 1976. The young hometown-boy-makes-good gamble has worked.
It also hasn’t worked.
Colorado hired Buffaloes alumnus, Denver native and former CU assistant coach Jon Embree to coach CU in 2011. He went 4-21 and was fired.
And Utah hired 34-year-old Salt Lake City native Tom Lovatt — a Utes grad and assistant coach — to run its football program in 1974. He was considered a defensive genius, a rising star. He went 5-28 and was fired.
For Fisch, the time is now.
"I’m the least patient person in the world," he said Monday. "We all want to win it now."
Jedd Fisch says he hopes Arizona can outpace the rebuilds at Kentucky and Oregon State, among other schools.
Fisch, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of college football, quickly gave three examples of coaches who have risen to prominence in once-failing programs.
"Look at (Oregon State’s) Jonathan Smith," he said. "He got his first winning season in his fourth year.
"Mark Stoops at Kentucky got his first winning season in his fourth year. And UCLA (under Chip Kelly) had its first winning season in four years."
Not that Fisch’s timeline is to break through and have a winning season in 2024.
"We’re doing everything we can to not have to wait four years for that," he said.
It’s doubtful that Arizona will sit back and let the Sun Devils’ Dillingham get all the attention this week and in the near future. Not while Arizona is embracing the Territorial Cup trophy.
Sometime this week or next, expect Arizona athletic director Dave Heeke to announce that Fisch has been given a contract extension through the 2027 season, with numbers to exceed those of Dillingham’s first ASU contract.
"We are just getting started," Fisch said Monday. "We are on the first floor of the build."
