Close games have become an Arizona State trademark in the Kenny Dillingham coaching era. The Sun Devils have come out on the winning end in a majority of those.
If they could click on all cylinders at the same time, there would be a lot less drama.
The one area ASU has not performed well in recent years is special teams. The Sun Devils have put a renewed emphasis on this heading into the 2026 season. Jack Nudo is now the special teams coordinator, taking over for Charlie Ragle, who stepped down for health reasons late last season.
But former NFL punter Michael Scifres has been brought in to work with the specialists as well. He joined the team in April and was able to start familiarizing himself with the personnel during spring drills. More hands
on deck is a good thing.
"At the end of the day, I am not a master of all things," Dillingham said after the team wrapped up the second day of fall camp on Aug. 6. "All these other people are experts at certain things, and to be able to hire more experts in their fields and let them coach it as opposed to me YouTubing it or something, it's a way better system."
The most notable deficiency last season was in the punting game. The Sun Devils were 133rd out of 134 FBS programs in net punting at 33.20. Oregon State was the worst program.
Junior Kanyon Floyd, a local product out of Horizon, was the team's primary punter, averaging 41.4 yards on 36 tries, but was slowed by a quad injury most of the season. The new addition this season is senior Nick McLarty, a redshirt sophomore from Ohio State who is an imposing figure at 6 feet, 7 inches. That's particularly tall for a punter. Those two will battle it out for the lead role.
Dillingham likes what he has seen so far.
"I think our punters are doing well. These punt periods, these things are going 45 yards consistently, 4.4 hang consistently. So it's been a positive for us. We just have to continue to build, but I've been really happy with it," he said.
The key departure in the unit was placekicker Jesus Gomez, who had back-to-back game-winning field goals against Baylor and TCU, the first coming on the last play of the game. ASU had a returning kicker in Carston Kieffer who handled some kickoffs, but the field goal duties will likely go to sixth-year senior Carson Smith, who had a past association with Nudo at Austin Peay.
The battle for field position is often overlooked. Dillingham has been known to gamble when it comes to fourth down, but many of those decisions are affected by how special teams are performing.
"10 yards in game is .4, .3 (points) depending on how you do it. So if you lose the field position battle by 60 yards, 70 yards, you're potentially losing 2, 3 points if you look at it like that. So for us to be able to regain that battle that we've lost since I've been the head coach here, I haven't done a good job with that, we have to find a way to win that,"Dillingham said.
Being able to flip the field is one thing, but ASU also needs to do better in the return game. It was 115th in kickoff return yardage per return (17.31). That was 13th in the Big 12, with Iowa State (17.27), Oklahoma State (15.50) and Utah (13.47) the teams behind them.
The Sun Devils have been working with several players in the return game, most notably wide receivers Jalen Moss, Jaren Hamilton and Raiden Vines-Bright.
Special teams isn't the only place ASU has brought in coaching reinforcements. Demetrice Martin has been added as a defensive analyst and will coach the cornerbacks, while David Gibbs is now heading the safety group.
Defensive coordinator Brian Ward previously headed the safety group, so now Ward can focus on the unit as a whole instead of having the responsibility of a position group, too.
Another notable change is Bryan Carrington moving from cornerbacks coach to assistant head coach and defensive passing game coordinator. He has long been regarded as a good recruiter and now has added responsibilities.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona State football emphasizes special teams in fall camp
