Kenny Dillingham: "Most people in life would rather see other people fail so they don't have to work hard."

Kenny Dillingham received the news Arizona State would self-impose a bowl ban at 6:30 a.m. on Sunday. Or Tuesday in his world, because the Sun Devils open his first season as head coach on Thursday against Southern Utah. 

After learning the news, Dillingham then had to go inform the players just before they opened their game-week Tuesday schedule with a special teams meeting. 

"To think that 18-to-22-year-olds are going to go out and have a good Tuesday practice is absolutely delusional," Dillingham said Sunday. "But I think the guys battled. The guys did the best they can do."

The bowl ban comes as Arizona State battles an NCAA investigation for allegedly recruiting during the COVID-19 dead period. Those (alleged) violations were clearly committed by the previous regime, and so why AD Ray Anderson did not self-impose the bowl ban after firing head coach Herm Edwards last Sept. 18 -- the day after ASU lost a 30-21 home game to Eastern Michigan, dropping the Sun Devils to 1-2 en route to a 3-9 season -- shows an unconscionable lack of foresight and a dangerous lack of incompetence.

Speaking Sunday morning though, Dillingham didn't have the luxury to reflect about how waiting until four days before Game 1 of the new regime to impose the bowl ban -- thereby emotionally submarining the season before it could begin -- reflected on the decision-making ability of his superiors. He had to go lead a special teams meeting, and then coach a practice. 

"What I just told the team is, nobody cares about your circumstance. In reality, most people in life would rather see other people fail so they don't have to work hard than actually work hard enough to beat them. Everybody looks at this like, 'Oh, great. Arizona State's not going to be motivated anymore. That's a win.' That's how the majority of the world thinks. Nobody wants to work hard to achieve success. They want to bring other people down lower than them, and they can do the exact same work ethic," Dillingham said.

"So people are looking at us and they're satisfied. They're singing for joy. They're ecstatic. They think there's no way Arizona State football's going to keep their mindset to compete. And that's the challenge is, it's us vs. us every day."

After opening against Southern Utah, Arizona State hosts Oklahoma State and defending Mountain West champion Fresno State to round out non-conference play. ASU then hosts No. 6 USC. 

Even without a bowl ban, the Sun Devils could very easily be 1-3 at the 1/3rd mark of the season (ASU's over/under is 4.5 wins). If that comes to pass, Dillingham and the staff's real work to keep the team emotionally invested will truly begin: ASU faces No. 10 Washington, No. 14 Utah and No. 15 Oregon (the first two on the road) dotted among its Pac-12 schedule. 

The battle Dillingham began at 6:30 on Sunday morning will continue through Nov. 25, when Arizona State closes its season against Arizona in the Territorial Cup. 

"If we allow people to feed off of this circumstance for us, then that's on us," he said. "And it's my job to get our team to rally behind each other to go compete and go work at the highest level."