TEMPE, Ariz. — Do you think you are good enough to be a college kicker? Are you an Arizona State University student? If you answered yes to both of those questions, then ASU head football coach Kenny Dillingham wants to hear from you, as he announced the team will be holding open kicking tryouts after the Sun Devils' 24-14 loss to Cincinnati on Saturday.
"Our kicking game’s atrocious," Dillingham said. "So, if you can kick and you go to Arizona State, email me. We’re going to have kicking tryouts on Monday. So, bring it on, kicking tryouts Monday, let’s go."
And Dillingham made sure the reporters in the press room at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati knew he wasn't kidding.
"Yeah, I’m dead serious. We’re going to put it out on our social (media), we’re going to have a kicking tryout on Monday, we’ve got to find somebody who can make a field goal."
Dillingham's announcement came after ASU kicker Ian Hershey missed kicks from 41 and 48 yards in the second half against Cincinnati and as the Sun Devils' kicking game has struggled since the start of Big 12 play.
In their four conference games, ASU has made just one of their four attempted field goals and has missed two of their 13 extra-point attempts. Dillingham said the problems in the kicking game have made it harder on the coaches to make key decisions during games.
"It makes it even harder late in games when it’s clearly a kick scenario," Dillingham said. "That’s when it gets really hard because you’re like, ah, it’s clearly a kick, you definitely want to take points here, there’s no doubt in your mind and (Hershey) hadn’t had a kick this game and he was kicking good pregame, so I felt good about it, but, it is what it is. We’ve got to do a better job of getting him in a better mental state to kick, but at the same token, I’ve got to do a job and I’ve got to get guys on the field that can perform in those situations, as well."
And while Dillingham made it clear he wants to look outside his roster for a solution, he did say that he wants to see more from at least one of the kickers already on his team.
"We’ve got to find somebody who can kick it," Dillingham said. "And we’ve got to give (Carston) Kieffer more chances as well. I think we’ve got to get Kieff back in there too and then we’ve got to find more guys, we’ve got to try to get somebody else with us that can kick. But it’s 100% on me. Like, we’re not kicking well, I mean, s***, it’s my team, we’ve got to get somebody who can kick. So, we’ve got to get Kieffer some more reps."
Dillingham later apologized for his postgame comments in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter).
"I would like to apologize in my postgame press conference I talked about our kicking game like I do offense/defense. However the kicking game is always directed at one player. I should not have done that and I apologize. This team's losses will always 100% fall on myself. "
If you are interested in trying out and would like to email Dillingham, his email is kenneth.dillingham@asu.edu.
If the Sun Devils decide to bring in a new kicker, they will have some time to get that person ready to go. ASU has a bye week next week but then will travel to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to take on the Oklahoma State Cowboys on Nov. 2.
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