Subtle dig? Kenny Dillingham gives rousing quote on visiting Mississippi State

After Mississippi State football made the cross-country trek to Tempe last season to take on Arizona State, the Sun Devils are now making the return trip to Starkville for a Week 2 clash on Saturday night at Davis Wade Stadium.

ASU HC Kenny Dillingham was asked his team making the trip to Starkville and how visiting a smaller town would impact his team's travel and lodging plans. His answer is sure to make Mississippi State fans raise their eyebrows...

"Now that we play in a lot of smaller towns, we stay further away from stadiums in our road games. So we stay about an hour and 20, an hour and 15 away from the stadium this week because that's the nearest hotel that's not a casino. No, that's the truth...that wasn't even a joke."

Kenny Dillingham

The only problem with this statement? There are no casinos in Starkville. The closest is over an hour away from town, ironically how far Dillingham claims the Sun Devils had to stay outside of Starkville in order to avoid a casino. Also...there are hotels in Starkville! Several, in fact.

Now I won't pretend Starkville is loaded with available hotel rooms, but if Arizona State did not feel the accommodations available in town were ideal for a football team, there are several more options right down the road in Columbus, where plenty of visiting teams have stayed in the past. Making it sound as though they're forced to engage on some arduous journey to get to the stadium is a bit much.

And where is this notion that all the available overnight options in or around Starkville are casinos coming from? That's simply wildly inaccurate and paints a pretty unfair picture of the city and Starkville community.

Was Kenny Dillingham taking a shot at Mississippi State and Starkville?

Look, do I think Kenny Dillingham was actually trying to take a shot about Starkville? No. In fact, I seriously doubt he actually knows anything about the town to begin with considering he's never coached a game there in his career.

It didn't come across as him intentionally playing into the typical negative stereotypes we tend to hear about Starkville. To me it sounds like Dillingham is just going by whatever he was told the situation was for the week by his team travel coordinator. And clearly, Arizona State's understanding of the situation is poor.

And to be fair, visiting teams staying outside of town isn't anything unique. It's pretty common, and that's true nationwide. But whoever at Arizona State thought they would need to stay an hour and 15 minutes away because casinos were the only other option are sorely mistaken.

Whether it was a dig or not, Mississippi State fans are certainly not going to take well to Dillingham's comment. Hopefully it fires up the Bulldog faithful to create an even more hostile environment inside Davis Wade Stadium Saturday night. And hopefully Arizona State's long bus ride to the stadium gets them off their game...