Kenny Dillingham compares offensive gameplan to Harry Potter

TEMPE, Ariz. — Learning an offensive playbook is a difficult mental task for any player. It’s even more difficult learning a whole new playbook, game plan, and scheme due to a coaching change. That’s what Arizona State players are experiencing right now as fall camp chugs on. All of that is 10 times more difficult for a quarterback, especially a true freshman. A quarterback needs to know the job of every player on every play. It’s a lot to learn and can be a mentally hard task. Freshman QB Jaden Rashada is dealing with that challenge right now, and new head coach Kenny Dillingham understands it.

Dillingham empathizes with learning a new offense

On Monday’s practice freshman QB Jaden Rashada got a few opportunities to take reps with the first-team offense. Rashada overall performed well but had a few mental errors. Nothing out of the ordinary from a freshman.

After practice concluded, Dillingham had a few words explaining the difficult process of learning an offense. He used an analogy that Harry Potter fans will appreciate.

“This is the hardest it will ever be mentally because we have everything in our offense, everything in our defense and we’re calling it all,” Dillingham said. “It’s saying, ‘Hey, what was chapter seven of Harry Potter about? Oh crap.’ Well now in a game, it’s like, ‘Hey, read chapter seven for a week and tell me about what chapter seven is about.’ As opposed to read Harry Potter and tell me what chapter seven is about. That’s what we are in right now. Game week is read chapter seven, and that’s what we’re going to focus on. So I think as game weeks progress, if he’s doing it now, that’s only going to get simplified, the mental side.”

Fall practices are going to be some of the hardest moments mentally for all players to learn the playbook, but that preparation will be key for successful game weeks.

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