Kenny Dillingham’s first year at Arizona State will be difficult, but 2023 slate has lots of home games

The Pac-12 Conference has seen a lot of changes this offseason. The transfer portal has been busy, and the coaching staff has changed at a couple of programs.

One of them is Arizona State, which finally moved on from Herm Edwards and hired former Oregon assistant Kenny Dillingham.

When the Pac-12 schedule was released for 2023, the Sun Devils must not have felt good about the quality of opponents on their slate, even though ASU has eight home games.

Jon Wilner of The Mercury News detailed some nuggets of Arizona State’s schedule, and it’s going to be a tough year in the desert as Dillingham gets started:

“The first year of Kenny Dillingham’s tenure features eight home games, most of them early in the season,” Wilner wrote. “The Sun Devils open league play against USC, and the finish is rugged with Utah and UCLA on the road (in back-to-back fashion) and Oregon and Arizona at home. If ASU plans to become bowl-eligible, it needs to have five wins locked up when November arrives.”

The Sun Devils did land Notre Dame QB Drew Pyne, so that’s a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, playing USC to begin and then Utah and UCLA on the road is a brutal slate for them in the Pac-12.

At least the Herm Edwards era is over.

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Story originally appeared on Trojans Wire