Arizona State football coach Kenny Dillingham had one last chance to claim a Coach of the Year award and couldn’t quite bring it home.
Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman was named the winner of the Paul “Bear” Bryant College Football Coach of the Year in festivities held at the Post Oak Hotel in Houston Wednesday night.
Other finalists included South Carolina’s Shane Beamer (whose father Frank is a previous winner of the award), Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, Boise State’s Spencer Danielson, SMU’s Rhett Lashlee, Army’s Jeff Monken and Texas coach Steve Sarkisian.
Fran Brown of Syracuse was honored as Newcomer Coach of the Year.
“It’s just an honor to be here. This is an unbelievable privilege,” Dillingham said in speaking to the media earlier in the day. “It’s a testament to our guys, a testament to our players and the work they put in all year and the leadership that the leaders of our football team had and it’s an honor to be here.”
Dillingham, 34, led the Sun Devils to an impressive 11-3 showing that included a 45-19 victory over Iowa State in the Big 12 championship game at AT&T Stadium in Dallas. That after the team was just 3-9 a year ago and picked to finish last in the conference. ASU made the College Football Playoff and lost to Texas 39-31 in a double-overtime Peach Bowl after being a 14-point underdog.
Dillingham said this season’s success didn’t come from massive changes over what he did the previous year, his first heading the program. It was about the character of the players brought in.
“It was nothing structurally. We really focused on the type of guy we recruited from the high school ranks or the transfer portal, guys who wanted to be at ASU, not guys we felt like we truly recruited or tricked or promised or guaranteed. There were no tricks, no promises, nothing with any of the guys we brought into the program. They wanted to be at ASU because they wanted to be at ASU and that unified the football team to grow together because they’re all like-minded. They didn’t want to be promised anything. That grew within the program and the relationships led the way.’
Dillingham was a finalist for all major coaching awards but had come up just short. Cignetti, whose team went 11-2 this season and lost to Notre Dame in the first round of the College Football Playoff, won the AFCA Coach of the Year Award, the Associated Press College Football Coach of the Year Award, the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award, the Home Depot Coach of the Year Award, The Sporting News College Football Coach of the Year Award and the Walter Camp Coach of the Year Award.
Freeman took home the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award and the George Munger Award.
Unlike those awards, the Bryant Award was voted on after the playoffs, which likely helped Dillingham’s cause because of how competitive his team was on the national stage. Freeman, however, had an equal claim since his team advanced to the national championship game before falling to Ohio State on Monday night at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: ASU coach Kenny Dillingham comes up short for final coaching award
