Kansas is headed into Saturday morning with the stakes plain to see: if the Jayhawks want to stay on track for bowl eligibility, this one has to be treated like a must-win. Waiting on the other side is Arizona State, and the matchup comes with a little history attached as the two programs meet in London at Wembley Stadium for the inaugural Union Jack Classic.
It’s a landmark setting for college football. Wembley, long known for major soccer events and some of the world’s biggest music acts, will host a college game there for the first time.
Kansas and Arizona State have met only once before, and that came in October 2024 when KU traveled to Tempe. The Jayhawks pushed hard but left with a 35-31 loss.
That Sun Devils team looked very different from the one KU will see now, with quarterback Sam Leavitt, running back Cam Skattebo and wide receiver Jordyn Tyson all part of the attack then. Leavitt is now with LSU, Skattebo is with the New York Giants and Tyson is with the New Orleans Saints.
Arizona State arrives at 1-1 after a blowout win to open the year and a tougher showing the next week. The Sun Devils opened by crushing Morgan State 70-7, piling up 681 total yards - 432 through the air and 249 on the ground.
A week later, they ran into No. 9 Texas A&M and fell 48-20 in College Station, though they were still hanging around through three quarters before the Aggies pulled away.
The quarterback leading ASU now is junior Cutter Boley, a Kentucky transfer who has been sharp through two games. He threw for 387 yards and six touchdowns in the opener, then followed that with 254 yards and two more scores in the loss to Texas A&M.
Arizona State’s biggest weapon on offense has been senior receiver Reed Harris. He already has 15 catches for 326 yards and four touchdowns, and 189 of those yards plus two scores came against the Aggies. His 326 receiving yards rank fourth in college football, and his eight receptions of more than 20 yards lead the nation.
Up front and off the edge, the Sun Devils have also built a defensive line that looks like the strength of the team. Senior lineman C.J.
Fite is the anchor, with edge rushers Emar'rion Winston, a Baylor transfer, and Jalen Thompson, who came over from Michigan State, helping drive the pressure. Arizona State has generated a quarterback pressure rate of 38.3% per play while blitzing only 13 times so far this season, and that ability to get heat without sending extra bodies makes the group especially dangerous.
Kenny Dillingham is in his third year leading the program. An ASU alum, he took over in 2023 as the youngest head coach in the Power 5 conferences at the time, at 32. Before that, he served as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Auburn in 2019, Florida State from 2020-21 and Oregon in 2022.
Dillingham has gone 23-18 overall at Arizona State and is 20-9 in Big 12 play since the Sun Devils joined the conference in 2024. He won Big 12 Coach of the Year after steering ASU to the 2024 Big 12 Championship in its first season in the league. In December 2025, he signed a contract extension that made him the second highest paid head coach in the Big 12 at approximately $7.4 million per year.
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Randy Bennetts First Big 12 Path Could Define Arizona States Season
Randy Bennetts first season guiding Arizona State mens basketball is still a little way off, but the shape of the challenge is coming into focus now that the Big 12 has rolled out the full regular-season schedule. The Sun Devils are trying to turn the page after a season defined in part by difficulty away from home, and the league slate will be one of the biggest indicators of how quickly Bennett can settle the program into a new rhythm.
The early calendar at least gives Arizona State a chance to find its footing before the grind of conference play takes center stage. The Sun Devils will open with a preseason exhibition against New Mexico on Oct. 25, 2026, then begin the official season against East Tennessee State on Nov. 2, 2026. From there, the real test will come in how Bennetts team handles the long haul of the Big 12 schedule, where road trips and weekly adjustments tend to separate hopefuls from contenders. [Read more 🡒]
ASU Faces A Wembley Test That Could Change Everything Against Kansas
Arizona State is about to step into a setting college football rarely sees, with the Sun Devils and Kansas set to meet at Wembley Stadium in London in Week 3. It will be the first FBS matchup played in England, a novelty that comes with more than just a new backdrop. Both programs have had to think through the kind of travel, timing and preparation that usually never enter a game week, and it has made the build-up as unusual as the venue itself.
For Kenny Dillingham, the challenge is not just getting his team ready to play, but getting it ready to play on a schedule that calls for a 9 a.m. MST kickoff across the Atlantic. Lance Leipold has been working through the same kind of planning on the Kansas side, which is part of what makes this trip so intriguing. The game carries the feel of a one-off event, but for Arizona State it is also a real early-season test, the sort that can reveal how a team handles disruption before the conference grind settles in. [Read more 🡒]
Arizona State Heads To London With One Problem It Must Fix
Arizona State left Week 2 with a frustrating lesson after its loss to No. 9 Texas A&M: the Sun Devils did enough in stretches to be competitive, but too often undercut themselves with mistakes. Nine penalties, four turnovers and special teams miscues helped swing the game away, even as the team outgained the Aggies and got notable individual efforts from Reed Harris and Lyrik Rawls.
Now the focus shifts to Kansas, and Kenny Dillingham has made it clear the next step is less about style points than cleanliness. The Sun Devils showed they can move the ball and stand up to a ranked opponent, but the margin for error disappears when execution slips in all three phases, especially with a trip to London on the horizon. [Read more 🡒]