What’s going on in the Big 12 and beyond? I expand and explain every Sunday in Postscripts at Heartland College Sports, your home for independent Big 12 coverage.
This week, Kenny Dillingham is coaching on vibes (and a healthy dose of smashmouth), Texas gives us a glimpse of the future and BYU’s mascot had quite the day in Provo.
DILLY’S BIG NIGHT
Kenny Dillingham is 34 years old. He looks like he could still hang out at one of the many fraternities houses that populate the campus at Arizona State and not be accused of being a cop from Jump Street.
But, no, he’s the head football coach. He is, in fact, the youngest head coach in FBS. And he and his program had a NIGHT on Friday.
There’s the game, of course. It was against Utah, their first matchup as Big 12 members. Last year, in the Pac-12, Utah handed it to them, 55-3. On Friday? Well, Arizona State returned the favor, winning 27-19.
The play of the night? Cue Cam Scattebo, please?
It was a huge win for the Sun Devils, which seemed to bottom out under former coach Herm Edwards. Things only seemed to get worse when they let their athletic director, Ray Anderson, go.
A good football season can turn everything around, though. So, when the Sun Devils won in Tempe, the crowd stormed the field. And we got the second, and by far the best, viral post-game Dillingham interview of the season (sorry Texas State postgame).
Related: Will Kenny Dillingham Get Poached from Arizona State?
He did make it out of the crowd, eventually, and got back into the locker room where, if he didn’t get in his surfing out on the field, he got it in the locker room.
Scattebo can carry more than footballs, apparently.
Post-game, Dillingham got a question about the Sun Devils’ over/under for the season (which was 4.5 wins). Most coaches don’t even want to deal with that type of question, even though it was posed as one of those “hey you proved the doubters wrong” kind of questions.
He turned it around. He said if you took that bet and you won, he has a suggestion on what to do with your winnings — NIL.
So, how is Arizona State going from being picked last in the league to 5-1 and nearly bowl-eligible? I go back to something Dillingham said in July at Big 12 Media Days in Las Vegas. He said the Big 12 was a “smashmouth” conference. It’s not the reputation the league has outside its confines. But those of us that watch the league know that if you can run the ball in the Big 12, you can win.
I don’t think any of us knew how well the Sun Devils could run the ball. But when Scattebo is unlocked, this team is so hard to deal with. And this will only help Dillingham when it comes recruiting and portal time.
TEXAS GIVING EVERYONE THE HEADS UP
Now that the House v. NCAA settlement has received its initial approval, I would suspect we’ll start getting a more concrete idea of how athletic programs intend to handle how they’ll share revenue.
Well, Texas probably has the deepest pockets in college sports. On Friday, Joe Cook at Inside Texas reported that Longhorns athletic director Chris Del Conte sent an e-mail to donors about what’s next. Much of it was boilerplate. But this line caught my eye (see the full e-mail below):
“The anticipated annual new NIL and scholarship benefits available to student-athletes are expected to rise on a year-to-year basis, with potential costs for additional scholarships estimated at 11.5 million annually in the support of our 21 varsity programs.”
The figure is interesting. The expectation is that teams will share a projected amount of $22-23 million (and Del Conte references that). So, what is that additional $11.5 million? I suspected it was the difference between what schools are doing now within the current scholarship limits and what the schools will have to dole out with the new roster limits. Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger confirmed that was the case.
That tells you the gap that even the biggest athletic departments have to make up to do this and really brings into focus which schools are going to be able to opt in.
COSMO’S BIG DAY
Big Noon Kickoff was in Provo for the BYU-Arizona game. Naturally, they wanted to integrate BYU’s mascot, Cosmo, into the pre-game show.
What this Fox’s idea or Cosmo’s idea?
There’s no way Cosmo is a student, right? I mean they wouldn’t let a student do this, right?
Sheer athleticism. And if you’ve been to any BYU game, you know Cosmo is a bit of a daredevil.
When I covered the Cincinnati-BYU last year in Provo, Cosmo double-dutched with flaming jump ropes on the football field.
Your mascot could never.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
