The 2026 college football offseason is unlike any that Arizona State Sun Devils head coach Kenny Dillingham has had to prepare for in his coaching career. The Big 12 program will cross multiple time zones and the boundaries of college football norms to make sporting history in the Union Jack Classic, a game drawing substantial excitement as the season nears.
Kenny Dillingham Opens Up on Arizona State’s Union Jack Classic Opportunity
Yet, for many traditional college football fans, the question remains: Why? Why take the game away from college campuses, subject student-athletes to grueling time zone changes, and disrupt the rhythm of a season for a game over 5,000 miles away?
As we sit down to discuss the upcoming transatlantic clash during a virtual roundtable with UK media, Dillingham offers a refreshingly human perspective.
For the youthful driving force behind the Sun Devils’ resurgence, this trip is about far more than expanding television markets or brand building. It is about the fundamental, life-changing nature of the collegiate experience.
“Whatever we’re going to do, I’m going to look at it from a positive lens or try to spin it like that,” Dillingham explains when I ask him about the underlying purpose of bringing his student-athletes to the UK.
“For us, this is an opportunity for our guys to leave the country for maybe the first time ever. It’s an opportunity for them to play in a stadium that they’ll probably never play in again. It’s an opportunity to go and experience London, which they may never experience again, and see a different culture.”
It is a far cry from the cynical, business-first answers often peddled in modern college athletics. Dillingham recognizes the inherent value of the student-athlete journey.
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He acknowledges that while there are undeniable negatives, including traveling back on a Sunday, navigating a bye week immediately after, and adjusting to a “drastic” time change compared to even an East Coast road trip, the cultural immersion outweighs the logistical headaches.
To ensure his players actually absorb that culture, Dillingham has built intentional freedom into the itinerary. When the team lands in London from their Week 3 road clash against the Texas A&M Aggies, the playbook stays closed for the first 24 hours.
“I don’t want it on your mind of, ‘When am I going to get the opportunity to go do something?'” Dillingham tells the assembled reporters. “I want you guys to be able to go do it right when we land, go experience it, and then let’s lock back in to, you know, we gotta go win a football game.”
Arizona State heads to London to take on the Kansas Jayhawks in a Big 12 clash that is the latest step on a path of global expansion favored by commissioner Brett Yormark. There’s a football game to be played (and won), but there’s much more to it than the action between the hashes.
“Hopefully it creates bonds that makes our team tighter, and creates experiences they’ll remember for the rest of their lives”
Spent some time with Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham to talk about the Sun Devils’ trip to London for the Union Jack Classic 🇬🇧🏈 pic.twitter.com/FO2x93PS9A
— Oliver Hodgkinson (@hodgkinsonsport) May 19, 2026
“It’s about relationships and bonds,” Dillingham reflects. “To be able to do this earlier in the year, hopefully it creates bonds that make our team tighter, and they create experiences that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives with each other.”
The perspective is hardly surprising for a coach who has built Sun Devil success on a homegrown recipe of community engagement. It permeates everything Dillingham touches in Tempe. He has steadily grown the Arizona State program to a point where they are viewed as a legitimate threat, breaking out of the usual mold to become a highly talked-about destination.
That said, the cost of admission to winning college football is rising at a rapid rate. Dillingham is candid about the “adapt or die” reality of the modern game, emphasizing the need to activate the community to support the program’s ambitions.
But he also knows that fan support is earned, not given. It is earned through grit, through physical play, and through an undeniable passion that translates regardless of whether you’re playing in Sun Devil Stadium or Wembley.
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When asked what message he has for the UK fans who will fill the stadium this September, Dillingham’s answer is immediate and resolute.
“Hopefully, you see our football team play with a passion. Anytime our team takes the field, I want people to feel like, man, these guys gave everything they got. Maybe they didn’t play great. Maybe we threw a pick when we shouldn’t have. Maybe we fumbled the ball when we shouldn’t have. Maybe I had horrible play calls or a horrible decision in the game.
“But you know what? At the end of the day, they leave the game, and they say, ‘These guys care, these guys play hard, these guys play with a passion.’ You can be proud leaving the stadium. The most important thing to me is that people understand that our guys play hard and it matters to ’em.”
Physical. Intense. Passionate. The Arizona State football team is built on the reflection of its head coach. Dillingham and the Sun Devils will bring that brand of football to Wembley for the Union Jack Classic, a game whose benefits extend far beyond the field.
Tickets for Arizona State vs. Kansas can be purchased now on the Union Jack Classic
