Kenny Dillingham has decided he'd rather get booed for asking than booed for losing

Kenny Dillingham has spent the last three years turning "just ask" into a program-building strategy at Arizona State, and he's not backing off it now. If anything, he's leaning in harder.

In a conversation with Andy Ariza of On3, the Sun Devils' head coach laid out exactly why he has no problem standing on a podium and asking rich people in the Valley to write checks for his program.

"You can either be booed by what you say to the media, or be booed when you lose games," Dillingham said. 

"Let me be booed by people not liking what I say. I'm perfectly fine with that."

That's a coach who has done the math on where the sport is headed. In the revenue-sharing era, the programs that keep pace are the ones with people willing to fund them, and Dillingham has decided the fastest way to find those people is to say the quiet part out loud.

He's done it before, and it worked. Late last year, Dillingham went public with a call for a $20 million donation to push the program forward, telling reporters flat out, "You're telling me there's not one person who could stroke a $20 million check right now?" Within a few months, ASU landed a major donor to move its planned indoor facility forward, and alumnus Brian Swette, a former PepsiCo executive and eBay COO, and his wife Kelly put up $10 million to endow the head coaching position. When Dillingham talks about being willing to take the heat for asking, he's talking from a track record of it paying off.

For any head coach navigating the new financial reality, the approach is worth taking a long, hard look at. Dillingham isn't waiting for a booster to appear. He's making the ask the job, and he's accepting that saying bold things in public comes with people not always liking it.

Dillingham took over his alma mater in November of 2022 after coordinator stops at Memphis, Auburn, Florida State and Oregon, and by year two he had ASU in the College Football Playoff. The Sun Devils won the Big 12 in 2024, earned a first-round bye as the No. 4 seed, and pushed Texas to double overtime before falling 39-31 in the Peach Bowl in a magical season that won't soon be forgotten.

The 2025 season didn't reach those heights. Arizona State finished 8-5, went 6-3 in league play, and closed the year with a 42-39 loss to Duke in the Sun Bowl. Staying in the arms race is exactly why Dillingham keeps pounding the fundraising drum, and why he's fine being the guy who says the uncomfortable thing at a place he loves.

He's picked his poison. He'd rather hear it for what comes out of his mouth than for what shows up on the scoreboard.

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