Mornin Mates...
Today's Topic = Opportunity Knocks
Dilly and his staff have done their part by putting together a magical football season and Rossini has done his part by signing Dilly to a long term extension (and both coordinators have gotten extensions with significant pay raises)...
It appears that the Valley has been Activated as season football tickets sales have increased by over 3,000 since the end of the season and Sun Devil merchandise has been moving like hot cakes off the griddle to a hungry Sun Devil fan base...
I'm also assuming that there has been a significant bump in NIL donations to go along with the Sun Devil Cinderella media story of 2024...
Picked last in the Big-12 to become the conference champions, to make the first 12 team playoffs, and to outplay Texas in the Peach Bowl before losing in double overtime...
So, will ASU now be as lucky as UCLA was when they hired Terry Donahue to be their head coach at age 32 to coach the Bruins starting in 1976..??
Over the next 20 years, TD went 151-74-8, where he had the Bruins in 13 bowl games (winning 8 with one tie) that included four Rose Bowls, winning three of them, and were PAC champs five times...
TD was born in LA, played HS football in So Cal, and then played football at UCLA, before starting a coaching career that quickly led him back to UCLA where he stayed for 20 years as their head coach...
Greg Hansen brought this up in the Daily Star today when he talks about "coaching longevity is the key to success" and how the Devils now have a chance to have that with Dilly who grew up in the Valley, attended HS there, and attended and graduated from ASU...
He ties the Devils Dilly story to both Terry Donahue and former Stanford coach David Shaw who was also from CA, attended HS near Stanford, played at Stanford, and then went on to coach at Stanford, where he had a great coaching career that included multiple PAC championships and Rose Bowl appearances, etc...
Hansen calls that sequence the perfect trifecta (ties to state, HS and college) for keeping a coach for the long term as those coaches aren't "vagabonds," who are always looking for greener pastures somewhere else...
Both TD and DS had great careers at UCLA and Stanford but they also had some pretty poor seasons along the way but weren't jettisoned by their schools when the going got tough on occasion...
And, let's also be clear about all of this...Dilly does not appear to be a "vagabond" type coach but he also wants to win at high levels and if he doesn't get the support he needs to accomplish those goals he will start looking elsewhere, IMHO...
That's why it is now up to all of us and the ASU athletic dept administration to make sure that he and his program have what is needed for him to continue to elevate our program, from average at best, to way above average on a regular basis...
We are not going to have miraculous seasons, one after another, but is there any reason for us not to be a championship caliber football team in the Big-12 regularly..??
Dilly needs all of us to do what we can to make this a reality...
Opportunity is knocking at the Sun Devil door and Dilly is doing his part...
There are lots of season tickets available, NIL dollars to be donated, and plenty of Sun Devil merchandise to be purchased, etc...
G'day Mates and Go Devils!!!
Today's Topic = Opportunity Knocks
Dilly and his staff have done their part by putting together a magical football season and Rossini has done his part by signing Dilly to a long term extension (and both coordinators have gotten extensions with significant pay raises)...
It appears that the Valley has been Activated as season football tickets sales have increased by over 3,000 since the end of the season and Sun Devil merchandise has been moving like hot cakes off the griddle to a hungry Sun Devil fan base...
I'm also assuming that there has been a significant bump in NIL donations to go along with the Sun Devil Cinderella media story of 2024...
Picked last in the Big-12 to become the conference champions, to make the first 12 team playoffs, and to outplay Texas in the Peach Bowl before losing in double overtime...
So, will ASU now be as lucky as UCLA was when they hired Terry Donahue to be their head coach at age 32 to coach the Bruins starting in 1976..??
Over the next 20 years, TD went 151-74-8, where he had the Bruins in 13 bowl games (winning 8 with one tie) that included four Rose Bowls, winning three of them, and were PAC champs five times...
TD was born in LA, played HS football in So Cal, and then played football at UCLA, before starting a coaching career that quickly led him back to UCLA where he stayed for 20 years as their head coach...
Greg Hansen brought this up in the Daily Star today when he talks about "coaching longevity is the key to success" and how the Devils now have a chance to have that with Dilly who grew up in the Valley, attended HS there, and attended and graduated from ASU...
He ties the Devils Dilly story to both Terry Donahue and former Stanford coach David Shaw who was also from CA, attended HS near Stanford, played at Stanford, and then went on to coach at Stanford, where he had a great coaching career that included multiple PAC championships and Rose Bowl appearances, etc...
Hansen calls that sequence the perfect trifecta (ties to state, HS and college) for keeping a coach for the long term as those coaches aren't "vagabonds," who are always looking for greener pastures somewhere else...
Both TD and DS had great careers at UCLA and Stanford but they also had some pretty poor seasons along the way but weren't jettisoned by their schools when the going got tough on occasion...
And, let's also be clear about all of this...Dilly does not appear to be a "vagabond" type coach but he also wants to win at high levels and if he doesn't get the support he needs to accomplish those goals he will start looking elsewhere, IMHO...
That's why it is now up to all of us and the ASU athletic dept administration to make sure that he and his program have what is needed for him to continue to elevate our program, from average at best, to way above average on a regular basis...
We are not going to have miraculous seasons, one after another, but is there any reason for us not to be a championship caliber football team in the Big-12 regularly..??
Dilly needs all of us to do what we can to make this a reality...
Opportunity is knocking at the Sun Devil door and Dilly is doing his part...
There are lots of season tickets available, NIL dollars to be donated, and plenty of Sun Devil merchandise to be purchased, etc...
G'day Mates and Go Devils!!!
