Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, left, and Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham meet with the media Tuesday before their CFP quarterfinal matchup in the Peach Bowl. (Cronkite News photo)
ATLANTA – Steve Sarkisian and Kenny Dillingham sat about 6 feet apart from one another Tuesday morning, a little more than 24 hours before their teams’ scheduled meeting in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.
The two brilliant offensive minds from Texas and Arizona State were humble, respectful and real in a setting that profiled more like a heavyweight boxing weigh-in event than a press conference.
“If you’re a year behind (Sarkisian), you’re about three years ahead of everybody else,” Dillingham said. “Definitely a guy you want to watch offensively.”
Sarkisian, 50, and Dillingham, 34, are at different points in their lives and careers. Despite the gap in age and life experiences, the parallels are obvious. Both had stints as offensive assistants under prominent head coaches who have remained mentors, with Sarkisian working under Pete Carroll at USC and Nick Saban at Alabama, while Dillingham worked under Mike Norvell at Memphis and Florida State and Gus Malzahn at Auburn.
“I haven’t been blessed to maybe be around some of the older guys who have done it,” Dillingham said.
His connection to Norvell is tight. The two coaches are younger and experienced the highs and lows together. They are like brothers in that sense.
Sarkisian’s relationships with Saban and Carroll resemble fathers and sons. He remembered a conversation with Carroll that encapsulated that feeling.
“I’ve got a great mentor in Pete Carroll,” Sarkisian said. “And I remember taking the job, and I remember us struggling through that first year and losing games in the second half. I was venting to him … about how I feel like if I would just go and do some of the things they did before, that we might have a little more success.
“He said that’s probably true, but he said at the end of the day, if you want to go down that road, you better expect similar results to what they were before, or if you really believe in what you do, you’re going to have some rough waters for a while, but in the end, you’ll find better results than what was there before.”
Carroll’s wisdom resembled much of Dillingham’s messaging to fans and his team. Staying the course and committing to the work have defined ASU’s success in 2024.
As for the relationship between Dillingham and Sarkisian, the Longhorns coach has watched the young prodigy from a distance.
“I’ve known of Kenny for quite some time,” he said. “I always kind of follow the offensive young hot minds out there. We haven’t spent a ton of time together, but I think there’s some natural connections there so maybe after this one we’ll hang out a little bit more.”
Texas enters the Peach Bowl fresh off an impressive CFP first round victory over Clemson, securing the Longhorns their 12th win of the season. It is Sarkisian’s second CFP appearance in three years in Austin.
Although the programs don’t share the same level of pedigree and brand value, Sarkisian had a similar task to the one Dillingham inherited at Arizona State just a year ago: waking a giant.
While Texas wasn’t sleeping, it was certainly sleepwalking and clearly underachieving. Austin is a pressure cooker for head coaches. After Mack Brown’s departure in 2013, the Longhorns struggled to find an identity and success under coaches Charlie Strong and Tom Herman. Coming from Alabama as a member of Saban’s fruitful coaching tree, expectations for Sarkisian were high immediately. Since taking over, his Longhorns have improved with each season after an ugly 5-7 campaign in 2021.
While the public pressure paled when compared to what Sarkisian faced, Dillingham endured the challenge of convincing a university that was seemingly uninterested in changing with the times to do just that. He also inherited a frustrated, albeit smaller and at the time, less passionate, fanbase clamoring for a winner after the ugly Herm Edwards era.
An 11-2 season and a Big 12 Conference championship win later, Dillingham clearly delivered. With the rapid ascent, many would expect a sense of overconfidence from the team. Dillingham has worked hard to make sure that’s not the case.
“If your confidence in yourself starts having you prepare less than you have prepared, be prepared to be humbled because now you’re letting it affect you,” he said.
On Monday during player media availability, ASU star running back Cam Skattebo made a bold claim.
“There’s nobody out there that can stop me,” he said.
As with every confident quote in the era of social media, it went viral. Many coaches would tell their players to remain cool and avoid comments such as that. Dillingham is the opposite.
“People want us to respond to the questions in the perfect answer that is supposed to be responded to, not the actual truth nowadays,” Dillingham said. “I think sometimes the 18- to 23-year-olds just say what they believe, and that sometimes gets twisted.”
On the issue of confidence, Sarkisian shared a similar sentiment.
“There’s obviously times when everybody gets humbled,” he said. “We all do, as coaches, and players, it is what it is. And the self-reflection I think is really important.”
College football always has parallels and connections. The Peach Bowl will be no different. While Tuesday’s press conference wasn’t the equivalent of Sarkisian looking in the mirror at a younger version of himself, it’s hard to ignore the similarities the two coaches share.
One side will be humbled after Wednesday’s game. Both coaches know that.
They also know that’s the nature of sports.