ASU head football coach Kenny Dillingham was forced to rely on the transfer portal last offseason with little time to recruit. Now he's flipping the script with a talented December signing class that will help the Sun Devils for seasons to come.
Dillingham landed a record 29 student-athletes, the eighth-largest class in the entire NCAA and the third-largest in the Big 12. The December class consists of 16 high school players and 13 Division I transfers.
The Sun Devils’ class was ranked as the 40th-best in the country and the eighth-best transfer class by 247Sports. Dillingham said he believes that establishing his tenure in Tempe helped him recruit better high school athletes instead of relying on a mix of transfers.
"I think being here a year allowed us to recruit better prospects, like more talent, more size, more speed," Dillingham said. "We weren't finding the diamonds in the rough as much. We're finding these guys that we had to win some battles for. Those are the guys that have the measurables."
Some of Dillingham’s most exciting additions include a pair of promising running backs to add versatility to the backfield. ASU signed four-star recruit Jason Brown Jr. from Washington, ranked as a Top-20 running back in the 2024 class, and transfer redshirt sophomore Raleek Brown from USC.
"Our running backs were physical, downhill guys who aren't wideouts," Dillingham said. "I think getting a guy like Raleek allows us to kind of dictate a little bit to the defense and really create plus matchups when he does flex out."
The Sun Devils potentially increased offensive versatility despite losing redshirt junior tight end Jalin Conyers to the transfer portal. Dillingham said opponents treated Conyers like a wide receiver, which made it harder to create false matchups that favored ASU. His answer to Conyers’ departure was signing four-star tight end Jayden Fortier, the top-ranked player from Oregon, and transfer redshirt junior tight ends Markeston Douglas and Cameron Harpole from Florida State and San Diego State, respectively.
The incoming class will also help address holes on the offensive line that impaired ASU last season. The Sun Devils’ shallow line made it nearly impossible at times to run plays even sub-par offenses could or attempt field goals, such as when they didn’t have enough blockers to kick a short field goal to potentially upset Washington. ASU took a step in the right direction by signing five offensive linemen but Dillingham recognized that the class won't solve all his problems.
"I think we got some big bad fill-in-the-blank dudes who are going to road rage people," Dillingham said. "But I think we need some length of tackles still."
Defensively, the program had to fill holes at linebacker and in the secondary. Dillingham said he'll need transfer linebackers redshirt junior Zryus Fiaseu from San Diego State and junior Jordan Crook from Arkansas to make an immediate impact. He also expects the three high school corners and two defensive linemen he recruited to compete for starting spots as true freshmen.
Dillingham said he expects his additions to help the team improve its record next season, but there’s still a long way to go. A central element of the December class is building the foundations for recruiting pipelines. Dillingham recruited players from 13 different states but appeared to focus his efforts on Texas by signing six from the Lone Star State, two more than he recruited from Arizona.
Dillingham’s culture controls his recruiting strategy. He said he wants the program to be a place for good people who love football. The approach has left some higher-ranked players off of his boards; however, it may help build a solid foundation for the team during the move into an evolving landscape of college football dominated by NIL and waves of transfers coming and going each season.
"We're not going to trick somebody to come here," Dillingham said. "We're not going to try to go and put on a full-court press to somebody that doesn't want to be here. We want people who want to be here that are good people."
Edited by Shane Brennan, Alysa Horton and Sadie Buggle.
Reach the reporter at jcbarron@asu.edu and follow @jackcbarron on X.
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