TEMPE – After seven games in 2024, Arizona State’s football team had a 5-2 record, needing to win out in order to keep any College Football Playoff hopes alive. The Sun Devils didn’t lose until the Peach Bowl, a heartbreaking, double-overtime CFP quarterfinal loss to Texas.
In 2025, the Sun Devils were 4-2 after six games, needing to finish the last half of the season undefeated to make the CFP. ASU finished 4-2, settling for the Sun Bowl.
The 2026 Sun Devils are 3-2 after five games, with little wiggle room to reach the heights they climbed in 2024. Once again, ASU needs a strong finish to achieve its goals, and the Sun Devils are about to face the most important and difficult stretch of the year.
The Sun Devils (1-1 Big 12) will face unbeaten, No. 10 Texas Tech (5-0, 2-0) on Saturday in Lubbock. The following two weeks, they host Kansas State in what could be a trap game, and then travel to face unbeaten, No. 8 BYU (5-0, 2-0) in Provo, Utah.
“There’s going to be highs and lows,” ASU coach Kenny Dillingham said Saturday following ASU’s last nonconference game of the season, a 30-12 win over Hawaii. “Sorry, that’s part of it. I wish it could never happen, but it’s going to happen. The goal is to get better every single day.”
It has not been the easiest opening to 2026 for the Sun Devils. After a blowout win against FCS opponent Morgan State, ASU suffered a fourth-quarter collapse in a 48-20 loss at Texas A&M to drop to 1-1.
A win in London against Kansas put the Sun Devils back on track, but a 55-19 blowout defeat to Baylor dropped ASU to one of its lowest points since joining the Big 12.
Last weekend’s win against Hawaii wasn’t perfect, but served to inject some confidence back into ASU ahead of Saturday’s Big 12 matchup with Tech at Galaxy Stadium.
“We responded well this week,” linebacker Martell Hughes said after the victory over Hawaii. “We got together, just focused on some little things at practice during the week. It’s just ultimately going out there and playing with passion. That was the biggest thing that was missing last week.”
ASU now faces seven consecutive weeks of conference play, a bigger challenge than the Sun Devils faced when they won the conference title two seasons ago.
In 2024, three Big 12 teams finished the season ranked, the highest of which was No. 7 ASU. Last season, Texas Tech finished the regular season ranked No. 4, earning a bye to the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff. In 2026, five Big 12 teams are currently ranked, with BYU the highest.
Ahead of Saturday’s matchup with the reigning conference champions, Dillingham was asked about his mindset going into Big 12 play in a conference that has improved since 2024, when the Sun Devils won the title.
“You can’t worry about the noise,” Dillingham said. “You can’t worry about, ‘We should have done this. We should have done that. What are they going to do here?’ You just have to get better. If you keep getting better, who knows where you’ll be?”
As ASU prepares to play in Lubbock, the team knows winning there will be no easy task. The undefeated Red Raiders’ only regular season loss since the 2025 season began was their loss to ASU last season. Texas Tech currently sits ninth in strength of record in 2026.
“This place is going to be rocking here on Saturday,” Dillingham said. “They’re 5-0. They’re one of the best teams in the country, (a) top-10 team. Everything is positive there, so it’s a great challenge for our guys.”
Despite Texas Tech’s resume, ASU had the upper hand the last time the teams met, beating the Red Raiders 26-22 at Mountain America Stadium in October 2025.
The teams share a unique connection going into Saturday’s game. Since ASU joined the Big 12, Texas Tech is the only out-of-state opponent the Sun Devils have faced in all three seasons, a stat true of the Red Raiders as well.
Dillingham downplayed any impact that last year’s win over the Red Raiders might have on Saturday’s game.
“Last year’s team upset them,” Dillingham emphasized.
Even if he ignores last season’s result, however, Dillingham knows his players will pay attention to outside factors and noise surrounding both programs.
“They’re going to be motivated by outside factors,” Dillingham said. “That’s nothing that we can control, and that’s real. That’s natural. We should be motivated by outside factors, but we have to be motivated to play our best football game.”
The road does not get easier once ASU returns from Texas. While the matchup against Kansas State may not be ASU’s most important or difficult game against a team nicknamed the Wildcats – the Territorial Cup game against Arizona in Tucson closes out the regular season – the Kansas State matchup comes between two games against top-10 teams, and BYU the following week presents arguably the hardest challenge the Sun Devils will face this season.
Currently tied atop the Big 12, the Cougars’ only losses since the start of 2025 came against eventual conference champions Texas Tech, finishing last season two spots out of the playoffs which stirred significant controversy.
Ahead of the most important stretch of ASU’s schedule, Dillingham is confident in his team.
“We have a football team that is capable,” Dillingham said. “That is the most exciting part. That’s why I come in here excited. I have to find the formula.”
As for that formula, Dillingham concocted a food analogy to identify it.
“Maybe some Tabasco sauce has to get thrown in there,” he said. “Sometimes Tabasco’s not the answer. If you’re eating eggs, it’s going to be Cholula. You have to figure out what it is that’s different. I have to figure out and be different to get these guys to have the right formula to go play to a maximum level because they want to.”
With a season-defining stretch ahead for ASU, Dillingham has his mind fully focused on getting the best results possible. The Sun Devils coach said he has deleted all social media apps from his phone, and he ignores rankings and conversation about his team and his opponents.
Before Saturday’s matchup, Dillingham was asked about being 15.5-point underdogs against Texas Tech. He said wasn’t aware of the line ahead of the game, and despite what oddsmakers and voters predict, he has his mind set on bringing a victory back to the Valley.
“I expect to win every freaking game,” Dillingham said. “There has not been one game since I’ve been the head coach here that I have not taken the field expecting to win the football game, with a plan that I had the utmost belief in was the best to win the football game.”
This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.