Arizona
How Arizona State Developed Its 2026 NFL Draft Class
TEMPE — Less than two weeks remain until the Arizona State Sun Devils see at least four players selected in the 2026 NFL draft – the anticipation has truly reached a fever pitch amongst the fanbase as of late.
Arizona State’s rapid rise from a struggling program into a truly respected destination for player development under Kenny Dillingham has been awe-inspiring, though the top prospects out of the program took paths to this point that are now uncommon in the sport’s current landscape.
Jordyn Tyson
Tyson began his career with the Colorado Buffaloes – serving as one of the lone bright spots in their 2022 season. However, a knee injury and a coaching change led Tyson to move to Arizona State during the spring of 2023.
While Tyson was a four-star prospect in the transfer portal, he remained slightly unheralded as the 20th-ranked player at the position in that cycle. The Texas native worked for months on end to return from the injury and saw his fortunes change for the better when Hines Ward was hired as wide receivers coach in April of 2024.
| Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Ward played an instrumental role in Tyson making a statement during his All-Big 12 season in 2024, as the then redshirt sophomore showed refinement as a route runner, was exceptional as a run blocker on the outside, and consistently displayed football IQ that transcends what is typically seen from a young wideout.
Now, Tyson is projected to be a first-round selection in less than two weeks and is very likely to be the vessel that turns Arizona State into a reliable producer of elite wide receivers at the NFL level.
Keith Abney II
Abney was a three-year member of the Arizona State program after flipping his commitment from Utah State to ASU very late in the recruiting process (December 2022). He played sparingly early on as a freshman before seeing an uptick in snap share as the season progressed.
The three-star recruit was always seen as slightly undersized as a boundary player, but Abney’s work ethic, as well as exceptional coaching from CB coach Bryan Carrington, led to a 2024 season viewed as a quality showing from start to finish.
Abney capped off his career with an elite 2025 season that is one of the best individual seasons for a defender at ASU since Will Sutton in 2023. Hard work, incredible coaching, and being patient in the process have resulted in Abney now being a projected day two pick in the draft – he’s surely not the last standout at cornerback to be in this position moving into the future.
Max Iheanachor
Iheanachor’s journey from transitioning from playing soccer to football is truly incredible. The native of Nigeria began his football career in 2021 at the junior college level before joining Arizona State in 2023.
OL coach Saga Tuitele took a similar approach to Iheanachor’s development as the program did with Abney – the result was undoubtedly positive, as the 6’5″ tackle starred at right tackle in the 2024 season and took 484 snaps in 2025 without allowing a single sack. This is simply a reflection on the development process paying dividends in a brief period of time, and now Iheanachor is poised to be the first of many lineman prospects that Tuitele cultivates into an NFL player.
Keyshaun Elliott
Elliott has been underrated his entire football career, as he joined New Mexico State in 2022 as a two-star recruit before transferring to Arizona State following his sophomore season.
Elliott transformed from a high-volume tackler into an all-around stud at the position that paced the team in sacks in 2025 under the leadership of A.J. Cooper. Elliott was truly one of the most cerebral players at the off-ball linebacker spot in Tempe since Merlin Robertson, and is now slated to build a lengthy NFL career off of being a diverse player who is just as strong a leader.
Players such as Owen Long, Martell Hughes, and even Isaiah Iosefa are in position to extend Cooper’s track record as a talent developer – this fits a consistent mold that has taken shape at ASU under Dillingham.
The Arizona man known as the “QAnon Shaman” said Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s new Anti-Weaponization Fund is an abuse of power by a would-be “king.”
Jacob Angeli-Chansley – the face of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot with his red, white and blue face paint and horned fur headdress – denounced the $1.776 billion program as a “slush fund” for Trump to reward his loyalists.
The Justice Department announced the fund on Monday as part of a settlement with Trump, who had sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns. The settlement included an assurance that the IRS will drop all audits and claims for back taxes against Trump, his family and businesses.
“You think I’m gonna take a f—ing dime from Trump and the government after he’s using this thing to cover him and his family in perpetuity for all of their crimes?” he told Cronkite News by phone. “You think I’m gonna take a dime of that blood money?”
Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who participated in the Jan. 6 riot the day he returned to the White House in January 2025. Many had been convicted of assaulting police officers.
Cronkite News reached out to 17 of those defendants with Arizona ties. None besides Angeli-Chansley responded.
Thirteen were convicted or pleaded guilty to crimes related to the attack. Four of the cases were dismissed after the pardon. The charges included assault on federal agents, physical violence at the Capitol and seditious conspiracy.
See our previous coverage of the Anti-Weaponization Fund and “QAnon Shaman” in the video player above.
Angeli-Chansley pleaded guilty to a charge of obstruction of an official proceeding. He served 27 months of a 41-month sentence. He was released from federal prison in March 2023.
During the riot, he carried an American flag fastened to a spear and used a bullhorn to call other rioters to the dais in the Senate chamber.
“He stated that ‘Mike Pence is a f—-ing traitor’ and wrote a note on available paper on the dais, stating, ‘It’s Only A Matter of Time. Justice Is Coming,’” according to prosecutors.
At a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the compensation fund, saying it will be open to anyone victimized by a politically motivated prosecution, not just Jan. 6 defendants.
“It’s not limited to Republicans. … It’s not limited to the Biden weaponization. It’s not limited to, in any way scope or form, January 6 or to (targets of special counsel) Jack Smith. There’s no limitation on the claims,” Blanche said.
He rejected Democrats’ assertions that the fund is a massive, taxpayer-funded attempt by Trump to whitewash the assault on democracy.
“I think it’s telling that everybody on the left and … the liberal side of the media immediately says it’s a slush fund for President Trump’s friends,” Blanche said. “If anything else, that’s an outright admission that they know that the people that really had this Department of Justice weaponized against them were President Trump and his friends. But … that is not what the AG order that I signed yesterday says.”
Blanche, who served as Trump’s private attorney in several cases – prosecutions over election interference and classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago and allegations of hush money paid to an adult actress ahead of the 2016 election – faced strong criticism from Senate Democrats.
“You are acting today like the president’s personal attorney and that’s the whole problem,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who also noted that a huge banner with Trump’s portrait was draped over the front of the Department of Justice building in February.
At a homeland security committee meeting Tuesday, Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego called for legislation barring establishment of a fund of the sort proposed by the Trump administration.
He called it outrageous to provide compensation to “traitors who attacked the Capitol.”
“No president, Republican or Democrat, should be able to use the federal treasury as a personal checkbook,” he said.
Angeli-Chansley now refers to himself as the “American Shaman.” He was heavily involved in the QAnon movement, which centered on a conspiracy theory that Trump was fighting a cabal of Satan worshippers who engage in child sex trafficking.
He was a strong MAGA supporter when the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, interrupting congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Angeli-Chansley has since become disenchanted with Trump. He has also repudiated the QAnon movement.
In a rambling phone conversation with Cronkite News, he repeatedly cited Trump’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting federal trial for trafficking young women and girls for sex.
He reiterated his anger with Trump for resisting the release of the Epstein files.
And he criticized Trump for attacking Iran and supporting Israel, among other things.
Angeli-Chansley sued Trump for $40 trillion in September 2025, asserting he is the true leader of the free world and vowing to use the sum to wipe out the national debt. The lawsuit was dismissed. He later filed a lawsuit against the CIA, FBI, World Bank and others in Maricopa County.
He urged fellow Jan. 6ers to “reject that … money.”
If courts allow the fund to operate, Angeli-Chansley said, it would mean that Trump “can do whatever it is that he wants.”
Teacher unions call for board member’s resignation after ‘Nazi salute’
Teacher unions call for District Boardmember Kimberly Fisher’s resignation after she made a “Nazi salute” during a public meeting on May 26, 2026.
Provided by Deer Valley Unified School District
School teacher unions are calling for the resignation of a Deer Valley Unified School District board member after she made a “Nazi salute” and said “heil’ at the end of a public meeting on May 26.
Boardmember Kimberly Fisher stretched out her arm, making the salute motion and repeating the word “heil” twice after the board president called for a vote to adjourn the meeting.
Fisher defended her actions in a Facebook video after the meeting, stating she made the gesture because she felt that the board had been under a “dictatorship” led by Board President Paul Carver and the district’s superintendent.
“All I could think of tonight was Hitler, so that’s why I said heil or whatever,” Fisher said in an eight-minute-long video.
Prior to the motion, Fisher and the board members were speaking on scheduling future meetings to discuss changes to district boundaries. Superintendent Curtis Finch stated they could not discuss the topic because it was on the meeting’s agenda. Then Carver quickly called for a vote to end the meeting, which prompted Fisher to make the salute.
The board members did not immediately react or acknowledge Fisher’s salute at the May 26 meeting.
This was not the first time Fisher has recently come under scrutiny. In October, she was slammed with a violation of Open Meeting Law by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, The Daily Independent reported.
Fisher could not be immediately reached for comment.
How the community is reacting to Fisher’s Nazi salute
The local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization focused on advocating against antisemitism and hate, denounced Fisher’s use of the salute.
“We unequivocally condemn this behavior that glorifies Nazis and Hitler. Regardless of intent, these actions instill fear in the community and are unbecoming of officials entrusted with educating children,” said Sarah Kader, the deputy regional director of ADL Desert, in a social media post.
The Arizona Education Association and the Deer Valley Education Association are calling for Fisher’s resignation.
“Kimberly Fisher should apologize to the DVUSD community and step down,” the state union group wrote on X.
The local teacher union wrote in a Facebook statement that they were “horrified and disgusted” to see Fisher’s actions.
“Any leader who uses a Nazi salute during a School Board meeting is unfit for public service. There is no justification for this behavior,” the union wrote.
Boardmember Stephanie Simacek, in a statement, said “this is what antisemitism looks like when people get comfortable” and called for an “immediate censure.”
“I am calling for accountability. And I am calling on every parent, educator, and elected official Republican or Democrat — to stand up and say clearly: THIS HAS NO PLACE HERE,” she wrote in the statement.
Simacek is also a house member in the Arizona State Legislature and is running for a state senate seat.
She wrote, “What happened in that room was not a joke.”
The school district “does not condone, support, or endorse gestures or language associated with hate, discrimination, intimidation, or violence in any form,” said Kayla Pologa, a spokesperson for Deer Valley, in a written statement.
“As an elected official, Mrs. Fisher speaks and acts independently,” Pologa wrote.
She said Fisher’s views don’t reflect nor should be attributed to other board members or members of the school district.
Who is Kimberly Fisher?
Fisher has been a Deer Valley School District parent for 24 years, according to her biography on the district’s website. She had two children graduate from the district and her third is being homeschooled in his final year, her biography states.
She had previously served on the board from 2015 to 2018.
In 2017, Fisher was the school board president and was criticized for a social media exchange with a teacher.
She was reelected in 2020. Fisher’s current term ends in 2028.
Former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, the Republican candidate for Congressional District 5, is facing new criticism following a recent report published by The Arizona Republic.
What we know:
The article cites unidentified sources who allege Lamb engaged in racist and homophobic text exchanges and sent inappropriate and threatening messages to women.
There are a few things working in Lamb’s favor, which are his name recognition combined with an endorsement from President Donald Trump.
Big picture view:
Analysts said it ultimately comes down to what voters decide at the ballot box.
“People have weathered worse,” Stan Barnes said.
Barnes is a political consultant and former Republican state senator. He points to other figures, like former President Bill Clinton and current President Trump, who both faced high-profile misconduct allegations.
“The American people said, all right, but we still want to vote for him, and Mark Lamb could be in the same situation,” Barnes said.
What they’re saying:
Lamb has largely kept quiet on the issue, a strategy Barnes said can work for candidates.
“He might decide, you know what? It’s salacious, it’s unprovable,” Barnes said. “A lot of people won’t believe it, people aren’t paying attention, and name ID and Trump endorsement’s going to carry me through.”
Inquiries were made to Lamb’s campaign. They responded with a statement, saying in part: “The Arizona Republic admitted that their article was based on a 10-year-old text from a person that couldn’t be located, or might not be a real person. Not exactly what one would call quality, independent journalism.”
However, the allegations could present challenges for his path to Congress.
The other side:
“The problem for Mr. Lamb and his candidacy is that his opponent will attempt to remind voters,” Barnes said.
Lamb’s Republican opponent, Daniel Keenan, spoke out against the former sheriff following the report.
“This story only adds to a pattern of disqualifying, disgraceful, and embarrassing behavior unbecoming of a congressman,” Keenan said in part.
Dig deeper:
Noble, a political data researcher, said the accusations could hurt Lamb with moderate voters.
“There’s really no strong candidates running in that primary because he’s cleared the field,” Mike Noble said. “It’s going to hurt him with women, it’s going to hurt him with independents, self-identified moderates, those that have a high school or less education.”
In a heavily Republican district, Noble said if the accusations gain traction, it could help the opposing party.
“It could potentially be fatal for him in the general election and actually give Democrats an opening in the general election, which normally they wouldn’t,” Noble said.
What’s next:
On the Democratic side, there are four people running in the primary for Congressional District 5. The primary election is scheduled for July 21.
The Source: This information was gathered from the article from The Arizona Republic, a political consultant and Lamb’s campaign.
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