Kenny Dillingham revealed during his 2026 season preview news conference on Wednesday, July 29, that his “Activate the Valley” campaign a few years back was a spur-of-the-moment, ad lib that simply popped into his head.
It might have sounded a bit goofy at the time, he acknowledged, but it stuck. And it still resonates.
Something tells me the Arizona State football coach has cooked up another devilishly good scheme about this year’s squad. It involves the Sun Devils’ team identity, and you can tell it’s a concept he’s spent plenty of time developing, rehearsing and revising.
Dillingham might be entering his fourth season in charge of the program he’s helped resurrect, but this year, he's allowing his players to decide their identity.
Usually, a team's
identity starts with the man in charge. But that’s not necessarily the case with Dillingham’s Devils.
“You would hope your guys would choose an identity that you live every day and preach every day, right?” he said at Mountain America Stadium. “My players are the identity that I believe in – if they believe in my identity of what I want as a team.
“So, when I say I want them to create their identity, hopefully there’s a lot of things that I preach. But there might be something that’s different. And if there’s something that’s different and they say, ‘We want our identity to be blank,' and that’s really important to them, I’ve got to be able to adapt, too.”
Arizona State football has Dillingham all over it
It’s a refreshing take for a college coach who is intent on building a yearly contender in the competitive Big 12 Conference. It doesn’t feel like much of a risky proposition for Dillingham, but it does feel different, and it sounds intriguing.
I wanted to know more and Dillingham politely obliged.
“I would hope they would never say ‘finesse,’ but let’s say they’re like, ‘Hey, we want to be a finesse team this year. We want to trick people,’” Dillingham said. “If that’s what they believe, what am I supposed to say? ‘You can’t do that. No.'?
“Then they’re not going to believe in what I’m doing, what we’re doing as a team. So, I think it’s extreme ownership. If you want people to take extreme ownership, you’ve got to give them control.”
Bravo.
How often do you hear that from a football coach? Dillingham, though, knows exactly what he’s doing, and that’s because he knows his team well, even if much of his roster is full of new faces from other places.
“I would say most of the times, what their identity is and what they say they want to be and what they’ve articulated to me is within exactly what we want to do,” he said. “It’s just the order of importance to them might be a little different.
“And I’ve got to be able to say, ‘Well, do you really think that’s the most important’ and talk it through with them. But if they still believe that, ‘All right, our identity No. 1 is A. That’s what we want to be.’ Then I’ve got to get behind them. I’ve got to say, ‘How do we build the best team with this identity?' Because identity is who you are, not what you say you are.”
OK, so what will be the identity of the 2026 ASU football team?
“We’ll find out,” Dillingham said.
ASU football mantra will include 'work'
Trust me, he’s already got a good idea. He could tell what track they are on from watching them during spring practices.
“I saw a team,” he said, “that worked. Like, worked. If you’re looking at me from the outside, I’m not a player. I’m just watching what they do. And I think that’s my role as the head coach is to watch a lot and take that information and then make decisions based on it.
“I think for them, I think these guys work. I think they care. I don’t think they’re going to quit. I think they’re going to fight. I think they’re going to be super competitive. I think it’s going to be a team that you can feel when they’re on the field.”
Dillingham said fans will be able to “see the passion” and “see the care level.” It’s all because of the hard work the players continue to display. That’s why the coach knows his little plan will work.
“It’s hard to quit when you’ve put in a lot of work,” he said. “It’s easy to quit something you’ve been at for two weeks. It’s easy to quit at something you’ve been at, and you’ve given minimum effort.
“It’s very difficult to get down 21 (points) and know you’ve worked as hard or harder than anyone in the country and say, ‘Oh, this game’s over.’ That’s hard to do because you’ve put so much in. You’re in disbelief that you’re down 21, but you still have the belief you’re going to win because of what you’ve put in.”
So, who are they going to be, exactly?
“I would say,” Dillingham said, “that’s what I think our identity is going to be — a team that won’t quit, a team that’s going to give all they can and a team that’s super high in care level.”
Get ready to Activate the Valley. Again.
Reach McManaman at bob.mcmanaman@arizonarepublic .Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @azbobbymac and listen to him live every Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. on Roc and Manuch with Jimmy B on ESPN 620 (KTAR-AM) and every Thursday on the Doug Franz Unplugged podcast via Apple or Spotify.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How Kenny Dillingham has ASU players targeting team identity | Opinion
