Arizona State's travel and rebuild risk make 6.5 fragile
Ty Hildenbrandt
"It's one thing to kind of trade on the vibes of Kenny Dillingham... It's another thing... to consider some of those very real questions."
Context
Ty likes the macro program under Kenny Dillingham. Arizona State has better infrastructure than the old scrappy-upstart version, upgraded the receiver room, and still has enough defensive pieces to avoid an automatic collapse. That is why the under is not a dismissal of the coach.
The under comes from the stress stack: uncertain quarterback play, offensive-line questions, a pass defense that was bad by raw yardage and still unsettled by transfer turnover, and a travel-heavy schedule that includes Texas A&M, Kansas in London, Texas Tech, BYU, UCF, and Arizona. The show is wary of evaluating the new team through the old Cam Skattebo/Sam Leavitt lightning-in-a-bottle lens.
Dan is not fully ready to join the under without a deeper defensive dive, but the conversation leaves Arizona State as one of the clearest examples of a teeter team whose coach and program direction may be better than the immediate schedule math.