Kenny Dillingham’s 45th game as coach of Arizona State’s football team hardly made fans stand up and cheer. 

After a disheartening 53-25 loss against No. 10 Texas Tech on Oct. 17, the negative chatter surrounding ASU’s program picked up steam. Dillingham said he isn’t paying it much attention. 

“Nobody wants to hear this, but there’s not as much to fix as people think,” he said during Monday’s news conference after ASU dropped to 3-3 overall and 1-2 in the Big 12. “We’re very, very close. Like, we’re there. Fourth-and-1 to start the game, we’re there.”

The Sun Devils are 25-20 in the 45 games of the Dillingham era, with the high point occurring in his second season when Cam Skattebo ran the 2024 team to an 11-3 record, a Big 12 title in its conference debut and a College Football Playoff berth that ended in a double-overtime loss to Texas on New Year’s Day.

Since that season when the team exceeded expectations, Dillingham’s Sun Devils have come back down to earth, going 11-8 across the next two years. With No. 2 BYU, Oklahoma State (first among other teams receiving votes) and No. 25 Arizona still on ASU’s schedule, the 2026 Sun Devils have a steep hill to climb.

With the past two seasons adding context, here’s how Dillingham compares to Herm Edwards and Todd Graham, the two previous coaches at ASU.

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The Herm Edwards Era (2018-2022)

When Herm Edwards was brought in, the university believed the former NFL coach would revive the program and bring a professional approach using a “general manager structure.” At the time, vice president of university athletics Ray Anderson said Edwards would be “a dynamic and tireless recruiter.”

“Our goal for this football program is to reach unprecedented heights, and therefore we need to find a way to operate more innovatively and efficiently than we have in the past,” Anderson said. “In the spirit of innovation, our vision for this program is to have a head coach who serves as a CEO and is the central leader.”

Edwards led ASU to a 15-11 record in his first two seasons, and the Sun Devils played in bowl games both years, losing the 2018 Las Vegas Bowl and winning the 2019 Sun Bowl. 

Edwards’ downfall began in 2020, when ASU went 2-2 in a shortened season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, the program broke NCAA-mandated dead periods for recruiting, which later came to light.

Edwards’ teams went  9-6 over the next two years, losing in the 2021 Las Vegas Bowl. The writing was already on the wall when Edwards lost his 45th game with the Sun Devils, a 34-17 defeat to No. 11 Oklahoma State in 2022.

At the time, AZFamily’s Brad Denny called it the “same old story” of Edwards’ Sun Devils not getting out of their own way.

“The high hopes of the 2021 season went unrealized in large part due to the same issues on display in Stillwater: Penalties, execution errors, and sloppiness,” Denny wrote. “If this is simply the character of this team, there will be more almost-had-thems and frustrating Saturday nights in the months ahead.”

The Edwards’ regime only made it through one more game, losing to Eastern Michigan on Sept. 17. With mounting pressure from an NCAA investigation and the 30-21 loss against a lesser opponent, ASU decided to part ways with Edwards three games into the 2022 season.

Edwards bested Dillingham’s record through 45 games with one more win, going 26-19 over five seasons, but barring any extreme unforeseen circumstances after ASU’s Oct. 24 matchup against Kansas State, Dillingham has the chance to surpass Edwards’ overall record.

Dillingham will not only look to surpass Edwards, but also his predecessor who gave the current coach his first taste of collegiate football.

The Todd Graham Era (2012-2017)

Todd Graham is ASU’s winningest coach since the start of the 2000s, and he has the most career games (78) in that same period, leading the Sun Devils throughout his six seasons with the team. 

Graham’s first three seasons were the best in his run as he went 28-12, without a losing season. This was punctuated in his third year, when he coached the team to its second straight 10-win seasons – the first time that had happened since Frank Kush did it four times in a row from 1970 to 1973.

That same year, Graham’s staff brought on a then 24-year-old Dillingham as an ASU quality control intern. He was a part of the team that went to its third consecutive bowl game, beating Duke 36-31 on Dec. 27, 2014 in the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas. Graham reached his 45th game on Oct. 3, 2015, a 38-23 victory over seventh-ranked UCLA. Graham was 3-2 that season, and by that time Dillingham had moved up to the offensive assistant role.

Graham’s first 45-game stretch is the best among ASU coaches since the turn of the millennium as he went 31-14. He finished the 2015 season with a 6-7 record after losing 43-42 to West Virginia in the Cactus Bowl on Jan. 2, 2016.

The success of Graham’s earlier seasons stagnated as he finished out his coaching career at ASU with a 18-20 record and an overall career record of 46-32.

In 2018, Graham spoke to arizonasports.com about everything that went into being the third-best coach in program history. Graham said it went deeper than just being a coach; he also had to be a recruiter and a donor as he spent $500,000 of his own money to help build a new facility for the team.

He also said that things started to change after the 2015 season with multiple coaching moves. Mike Norvell left the offensive coordinator position and went to coach at Memphis, taking Dillingham with him. Graham’s son Bo also left the coaching staff after he resigned once it was revealed he had a relationship with an ASU athlete that started while she was a student.

“Mike, obviously through his success, got a head coaching job, so we lost him. And I think me pulling away, I think my son’s departure from the program was very tough, too,” Graham told Arizona Sports. “It was because I got a little distracted and involved in things that I knew needed to be done.

“If I had to do it over again, I would have spent less time raising money and stayed focused on coaching football.”

Dillingham’s Future

Dillingham might have the worst overall record of ASU’s last three coaches, but he has also had the best overall season record and is one notch below the highest AP ranking the three coaches achieved. Graham’s highest AP ranking at Arizona State was No. 6, reached in November 2014 following ASU’s victory over Notre Dame. Dillingham reached No. 7 after the 2024 season.  

Dillingham is also the only coach whose team has played in the Big 12, as the Pac-12 virtually collapsed in 2024.

While the past two seasons haven’t matched ASU’s 2024 campaign, Dillingham has remained a positive force for the team and the community.

Unlike the last two coaches, whose time with the program was affected by off-the-field issues, Dillingham’s biggest controversy to date came when he labeled the Sun Devils’ kicking game “atrocious” following a loss at Cincinnati in 2024 and called for open tryouts, for which he eventually apologized.

“There is a fine line between being a jerk or being honest, and Dillingham is the latter,” Sports Illustrated’s Tanner Cappellini wrote. “Whenever he critiques a player or practice, it is to get the team to a better place. He knows the potential of his players and the team, and he constantly wants to push the team to get to the best place they can be.”

There is still time for Dillingham to turn the season around with one or two upsets against major opponents this year. He is only in the middle of his fourth year, and if he can coach 45 more games and keep the same win percentage, he would be third all-time in games coached and wins.

“Dillingham will be remembered for wins and losses by the masses, but the impact he leaves on his rosters on a yearly basis will be what truly defines his tenure,” Sports Illustrated’s Kevin Hicks wrote. “The Arizona State football culture has come a long way in recent seasons. 

“The hope is that the foundation Dillingham has built will continue to be felt for many years to come, transcending recruiting classes, potential roadblocks that are sure to come in the future and everything in between.”