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By Aman Sharma
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Arizona State Sun Devils head coach Kenny Dillingham had a crude answer for anyone blaming travel chaos after his team beat the UCF Knights 26-13 on Nov. 14.
The victory, Arizona State’s sixth, locked up bowl eligibility for a team that didn’t reach Orlando, Florida, until game day.
A nationwide Federal Aviation Administration ground stop had scrambled travel for programs heading into Week 11. Dillingham wasn’t letting his players hide behind it.
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He told reporters as much afterward.
“Excuses are like [expletive]” Dillingham said. “Everybody has them and they all stink. And that’s what tonight would have been. Like, it’s just an excuse. At the end of the day you’re going to take the field, for 60 minutes, and play a football game.
“You’re either going to get it done or you’re not. Nobody’s going to care what the circumstance was, because nobody cares about circumstances. They care about results.”
That order lasted roughly four hours the afternoon before kickoff and hit flights by the hundreds. Teams leaving later that day needed a backup plan.
For the Sun Devils, that meant a 6 a.m. departure from Tempe, Arizona. Kickoff slid from 3:30 p.m. ET to 5:30 p.m. ET.
Dillingham took pride in how his players handled the early start.
“We let 105 college kids stay in their own room the night before a game, and everybody was in their seats at 5:54 in the morning. Early. Talk about a good sign. And when I saw that happened, I was like, ‘OK. It’s Friday night in Tempe. It’s the most unique thing that could happen. And we got everybody, [every] person six minutes early, ready to rock, at 5:54 a.m. Zero complaints from our football team.”
On the field, Arizona State raced to a 10-0 lead. Cardae Mack carried 25 times for 111 yards and a touchdown. The team piled up 165 yards and two scores on 42 carries.
Quarterback Jake Fette went 21 of 36 for 196 yards without a touchdown or an interception. Four field goals did the rest, not bad for a group that boarded before sunrise.
UCF quarterback Alonza Barnett passed for 257 yards with one score, but the Knights managed 54 rushing yards and 311 overall.
Next up for the 6-4 Sun Devils, 4-3 in the Big 12, is a home date with the Oklahoma State Cowboys on Nov. 21 at 10:15 p.m. ET.
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