Opening Comments From Coach Sark and Coach Dillingham

Listen to this segment where Coach Sark and Coach Dillingham give their opening comments about the upcoming Texas vs Arizona State game.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The second hour of the program here on Sports Radio
AM thirteen hundred the Zone. Here we are I said earlier,
I said three days from Christmas or two days from Christmas.
Obviously we'll be out tomorrow and on Christmas Day, so
we're out Christmas even Christmas Day, and then back on
the twenty six, hopefully Cameron Parker producers feeling better by then.

(00:21):
He's battling the flu. He still managed to crank out
that outstanding highlight montage with the Christmas music and I
we'll hear it again at the top of the four
o'clock hour in case you missed it. But glad to
have Ronald Savage here alongside producers this afternoon. Coming up
in a few minutes, our final seasonal visits with Greg Tapper,
managing editor Dave Campbell's Texas Football Magazine. We'll talk about

(00:44):
the bowl games that have happened so far involving the
state of Texas. What's to come, of course, obviously in
addition to the bowl games, the college football playoffs, since
there have been four more playoff games, including the log
Worns win and uh so we'll do all that. We'll
hear from the two head coaches in fact, we're about
to here from both Steve Sarkisian of Texas and Kenny Dillingham,

(01:08):
the head coach at Arizona State. We're gonna hear their
comments before we break and get ready for our conversation
with Greg Tepper, but we'll hear other comments from them
throughout the course of the rest afternoon. So let's start
it off. This is This happened just a little while
ago media zoom with the two head coaches, Kenny Dillingham

(01:29):
of Arizona State and Lowrence head coach, see Steve Sarkisian.
They were asked first to give some opening comments, opening statements,
and this is from sark First.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Of all, this is a heck of no honor to
be participating in the Peach Bowl against against Arizona State.
Obviously it being the quarterfinals of the college football playoff,
but to be part of this game is a fantastic
honor and one that you know, we're really proud of
that we've that we've gotten to this point. We obviously

(02:00):
we have a ton of respect for Arizona State and
the job coach Dillingham is done. They're very good football team.
You don't win the Big twelve as we know how
hard that is around here to win a Big twelve
championship and doing it in their first year in the conference,
his second year at Arizona State is uh is a
heck of an accomplishment. You know it I touched on earlier.

(02:21):
You know, they're at plus fourteen in the turnover margin
with on the eight turnovers and they've created I believe,
like twenty two turnovers. Defensively, they pride themselves on running
the ball.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Scataboo is a heck of a player. He's got a
ton of fans in our building. I can tell you
that we didn't know we were getting ready to players
in a state and we've been watching them here for
about the last year and a half. And like this
guy's a monster. Uh and now we've got to try
to figure out a way to stop him. Uh so
uh And and you know, like I said, I think
coach dilly Ham, I've followed his career for for for
some time now, and uh, you know I was I

(02:53):
was kind of in his shoes a while back where
I was kind of the the hot guy. And and
you and you're winning, and you and you and you
keep finding your way up the ladder in the job
that he's done to Arizona State from year one to
year two in this day and age of college football
is extremely impressive, and so we're looking forward to the
opportunities a heck of a challenge, appreciate the invitation and

(03:15):
looking forward to seeing everybody in Atlanta.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
All Right, that's long worn head coach Steve Sarkisian's opening
comments from this. Now let's hear from Arizona State Sun
Devils head coach Kennedy Dillingham.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Well, first things first, we're excited as a football program
to be going back to Peach Bowl. Obviously one of
eight teams left in college football. You know that speaks
for itself for everybody who's left playing games when it
comes around New Year's time. In terms of coach Sarkisian
his program, it's remarkable where he's taking that program. I

(03:47):
mean from preseason being picked to win the national title
to following up with playing national championship level football throughout
their transition to the SEC. They just had an incredible season.
He's a guy that I think everybody's on offense has studied,
has watched, has learned from either having the ability to

(04:07):
go meet with them personally or from Afar like myself.
You know, I don't know many people, so I just
kind of have to google things and find things out
different ways. But no, I know our staff, our offense
coordinator and coach Tarkisan have a great relationship and there's
a lot of similarities that they do offensively that they do,
and I just have a lot of respect for their
football program. You know, when when you watch football teams

(04:31):
and you see teams that are very creative but also simple,
you have a lot of respect for that. And their
guys play extremely hard. They have extremely good players that
play extremely hard, which is not fun to play. You
would like extremely good players to not play hard, but
they have the combination of their players are very good
and they play hard, and they're very fundamentally sound across

(04:52):
the board. And this is going to be, Like I
told our guys this morning, this is gonna be a
great challenge for us to compete versus a team that
has spent four years preparing to compete for a national
championship and we're in year two and we're excited for
the opportunity to do it at the Chick fil A
Peach Bowl in Atlanta with eight teams left, eight.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Teams left, as you heard coach Dillingham say. Now with
regard to the Longhorns, Long Orange head coach Steve Sarkisian
was asked about the lack of penalties that his team
had against Clemson after having so many in the SEC Championship.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, Terry, we had a real come to Jesus meeting
after the SEC Championship game when we essentially lost that
game because of penalties, and we just said, we're not
going to do that anymore, and we're going to play
as clean football as we can play, as fundamentally sound
football as we can play, still be aggressive. We never
want to lose our stinger. We never want to lose
our aggressiveness. But we can play smarter. And you know, honestly,

(05:53):
I critique one of the penalties that we got today.
You know, you can't hit the quarterback late, and that
was one of our two penalties Saturday. So we're continually
trying to preach playing smarter football as well as playing
hard and playing tough and playing physical. But quite frankly,
that just came out of a come to Jesus meeting
coming out of the SEC Championship game.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, Okay, all right, And then Dillingham was asked about
you know, he follows long line. Arizona State has its
own football tradition, and Frank Cush had been the first
real put Arizona State coach on the map. In fact,
he kind of put him on the map, you know,
by winning a Peach Bowl back way back in nineteen seventy.

(06:35):
But here's here's the thoughts of Kenny Dillingham about Frank
Kush and his influence on the Arizona State program.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Yeah, obviously, Frank Cush, I mean, he's all over our walls.
You know, he is the history of this program. He's
a big piece of the history of this program, and
he's a big piece of the president of the program.
And his toughness that he instilled in football team, in
the football teams that he coached here are something that
those guys still live with. Those guys are better people

(07:04):
because how Frank coach coached and how challenging it was
to play for him, and how much his guys loved him.
And I would hope in ten, fifteen, twenty years from now,
our guys have a very similar feeling about myself and
our staff that we impacted their lives far beyond the
game of football.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, what was mentioned by somebody else from Arizona State
during all of that was they talked about that first
Peach Bowl that Arizona State played him back in nineteen
seventy and Frank Cush was the coach, and that it
was actually played pretty much in a blizzard. They were

(07:42):
in Atlanta. And I know about this Bowl game for
two reasons. One, my dad was at that game. He
went to the game because it was Arizona State against
North Carolina. I was growing up in North Carolina and
so it was my first recollection really in North Carolina football.
And they won the ACC that year, or shared the title,
and so they got to go to the Beach Bowl.

(08:04):
And my dad went down with a friend he is
to watch that game, and he said they were miserable
just sitting there in the snow, just blanketing Atlanta. And
Arizona State was really really good. North Carolina had a
very good running back named Don mcaulay who ended up
playing in the NFL for several years with the Colts primarily,
but they couldn't get anything going against Arizona State utill

(08:24):
it was pretty late. They lost forty eight twenty six
of that. The other reason why I remember that game,
I watched him from a hospital bed. I was one
of the few times I've been in the hospital in
my life. I was having my tonsils taken out. I
was ten years old, and I remember watching that in
the hospital bed with my mom while my dad was
at that game there in Atlanta. All Right, we'll hear

(08:44):
more from Sark and also from Kenny Dillingham later on
this hour. Up next, we'll visit with Greg Tapper, managing
editor of Dave Campbell's Texas Football Magazine, to talk about
this final weekend of football at the high school level
and also what's going on in the college front in
the state of Texas. When we continue on sports Radio
AM thirteen under the Zone and the iHeartRadio app.