Senior running back Kyson Brown is a veteran and one of the few on the Arizona State Sun Devils squad who made the trip to Camp Tontozona more than twice. So he has a plan in place. Be one of the first ones off the bus and into the cabin to get first pick of the bunks.
"That's the veteran move," he said as the Sun Devils wrapped up practice on Aug. 10. "A lot of newer people won't know to do that. You get in that dorm first, you get the best spot."
It is that time of year when the team makes a trip to the wooded area 20 miles east of Payson. It's a time-honored tradition that dates back to 1959, when legendary coach Frank Kush led the program. The team won't have all the luxuries of home. There is no television, and the internet is spotty at best.
That's the goal. Get players away from their comforts, so they can spend time bonding around a campfire or hiking when the day's football drills are done.
And yes, it helps that it is 20 degrees cooler at Camp T than in Tempe.
The Sun Devils will board buses after their practice on Aug. 11 and work out at Camp T for the first time the next day. The trip ends with the usual Saturday scrimmage, which is open to the public and typically draws more than 3,000 spectators.
The team bonding experience is probably more important this season than ever. In 2025, ASU boasted 17 returning starters, with a majority of backups returning as well. This season, you can count the number of returning starters on one hand. There are 40 or so athletes new to the program.
The advice senior safety Adrian "Boogie" Wilson had for the newbies: "Bring a fan."
Wide receiver Omarion Miller, a transfer from Colorado, is among the Camp T rookies. He said his teammates aren't exactly providing a glowing review.
"They've been telling me nothing but bad, bro," he said. "They're giving me a bad mindset to go in with. They've even been saying it's bad, but it's football. It's time for us to build a connection with our teammates and get to know each other more. So it's ball at the end of the day."
He is taking it in stride.
"I feel like we can get a lot, being that we're in the woods, so we don't have time to be on our phones," he said. "We have to get to know each other, and I feel like us getting to know each other, that just brings us as one together. Being able to understand where people come from, their why, and why they play football, I feel that that's just gonna drive each other.
"If we know why everybody coming out here is giving their hardest, you feel me? That's gonna make us a hell of a team."
Coach Kenny Dillingham said his team has done a good job of growing closer since most newcomers were enrolled early enough to participate in spring practices.
"In the spring, we practiced like a team that didn't know each other," he said. "You're not comfortable getting after it. You're like trying to be nice a little bit, trying to become friends. Today we practiced like we hang out together. We practiced like we're gonna talk about this tonight, like these are bragging rights, like this is my buddy. There was an edge, there was physicality, there was confrontation. That's how you practice when you have close teams."
He is looking for his team to build on that this week.
So are the players.
"I look at Camp T as the milestone point," Brown said. "That's where you get to bond with your teammates, and we always come back a lot closer. This team is close, a lot closer time-wise than a lot of teams have been. When we come back from Camp T, we're going to be one deep brotherhood."
Brown added that his favorite memories are the nightly campfires and the usual hike up the mountain, which includes a stop at a lake. Among the not-so-great memories?
"We had a tarantula crawl in an underclassmen dorm. It was crazy. It was just a lot of men freaking out about a spider," he said.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: ASU players trade comfort for bonding at Camp Tontozona
