They are the champions, my friend: ASU football wins Big 12 title, awaits CFP fate

Most Outstanding Player Cam Skattebo shows off his championship belt after Arizona State defeated Iowa State in the Big 12 championship game at AT&T Stadium Saturday. (Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images)

ASU quarterback Sam Leavitt celebrates after his touchdown pass against Iowa State. Leavitt passed for 219 yards and three touchdowns. (Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images)

ARLINGTON, Texas – In late November, a highlight reel of Arizona State running back Cam Skattebo running over defenders as an 8-year-old emerged on X. His mother’s response?

“He use to put on his brother’s shoulder pads and run into telephone poles at the football field while the older kids were playing,” Becky Skattebo wrote about the post.

On Saturday in the Big 12 Conference championship, Skattebo wasn’t running into telephone poles anymore. He was running through Iowa State Cyclone defenders like a warm knife slicing through a stick of Kerrygold butter.

After the Sun Devils lost first team All-Big 12 wide receiver Jordyn Tyson, the whole world knew Skattebo would be the focal point of Arizona State’s attack at AT&T Stadium. It didn’t matter. ASU dominated Iowa State 45-19, improved to 11-2 on the season and will represent its new-look 16-team league in the 12-team College Football Playoff.

Exactly where remains to be seen. After the game, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark lobbied for the Sun Devils to leapfrog Boise State in the final rankings that will be released Sunday. ASU sits five spots behind the Broncos in the latest CFP poll.

The higher ranked team secures a first-round bye, while the other hits the road for a first-round game.

“Last year, they left a team (then-undefeated Florida State) out because of a quarterback,” ASU coach Kenny Dillingham said. “We’re 11-1 with our starting quarterback, having beat four ranked teams and we won the Big 12 championship. … I definitely think we should host a game.”

Skattebo, of course, received the Most Outstanding Player award following the game. With Arizona State receiving national attention and the player’s new position as darling in the eyes of the public, he was honest after the game.

“I’ve been disrespected my whole life. I’ve always been the underdog,” Skattebo said. “Nobody respects that I am the best running back in the country … and I’m going to keep proving people wrong.”

Skattebo, who started his college career at Sacramento State, sports an underdog mentality that is an embodiment of the entire program. Even after reaching the title game, doubters still loomed. Those people were silenced … quickly.

The do-it-all back opened the game with a 28-yard carry that immediately set the tone. The Sun Devils were going to run early and often. Those runs opened up some deep pass opportunities, which redshirt freshman quarterback Sam Leavitt cashed in on with relative ease. Senior wide receiver Xavier Guillory was the beneficiary of some of those shots, especially without his receiving mate Tyson. Guillory hauled in a pair of touchdowns.

“We knew when one man goes down, somebody had to step up and we all collectively as a group stepped up,” he said. “I was proud of how everybody reacted to a pressure situation in the Big 12 Championship.”

No one stepped up more than the man in the ASU backfield wearing No. 4 on his jersey.

In the 2023 season after transferring from Sacramento State, Skattebo showed flashes of brilliance but was held back by ASU’s makeshift offensive line and lack of a productive passing offense. He was forced to play quarterback at times, the genesis of the now well-known “Wild-Skat” formation.

A year later, Skattebo, Dillingham and the Sun Devils stood on a stage on the field in AT&T Stadium with confetti falling on their heads. Without him, the Sun Devils likely wouldn’t be where they are, with their fates now in the hands of the College Football Playoff selection committee.

ASU running back Cam Skattebo and coach Kenny Dillingham celebrate with the trophy as confetti falls in AT&T Stadium Saturday. (Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images)

Skattebo finished the game with 170 rushing yards, 38 receiving yards and three total touchdowns.

There was one moment that wasn’t his finest but he avoided disaster. Skattebo received a direct snap and the play was broken from the start deep in Iowa State territory. He ran backward and went back and forth across the field, desperately avoiding defenders before chucking up a prayer of a pass that was nearly intercepted. Dillingham was asked what went through his mind during the play.

“Don’t do it,” he said with a chuckle. “That was going through my head … but that’s Skat. It defines Skat. He’s just one of those guys that he works so hard, he finds a way to be successful.”

His signature play of the game was nothing short of spectacular. Early in the second quarter with the game tied at 10, Skattebo took a handoff to the right for what looked like it would be a solid gain of 12 yards. An Iowa State defender grasped at his legs to no avail, while another bounced off him. He took off with another Cyclones player in pursuit who couldn’t bring him down either.

Finally, 58 yards later, Iowa State pulled him down. It was a run reminiscent of Marshawn Lynch’s “Beast Quake” for the Seahawks in 2011.

Not surprisingly, his teammates are thrilled to have him around.

“I got the best seat in the house, it’s pretty wild,” Leavitt said. “I’ll hand him the ball … kind of peek back and get ready for a gain of five … and I just see (Skattebo) weaving through some traffic and busts loose and goes for 70.”

“He’s the best player in the nation,” Leavitt said.

The praise didn’t stop at Skattebo’s teammates. His efforts earned the respect of the Cyclones as well.

“I feel like, when he gets his engine going, it’s hard to stop him,” ISU defensive tackle J.R. Singleton told reporters. “It’s really hard to tackle him one-on-one.”

While Skattebo solidified himself as one of the nation’s best backs and players in Saturday’s game, it will be hard to reach New York City for the Heisman Trophy ceremony. However, everyone within the Arizona State program believes he belongs there.

“Want to turn on the tape?” Dillingham said.

For now, the fans, the staff and the players can take a step back and recognize where they now are. The country knows about Arizona State football. The Sun Devils are a power conference champion with a Heisman Trophy contender and a young quarterback with a future as bright as the sun. This team won three games last season.

“It just shows what we can be,” Dillingham said. With the right direction, with the right players who are committed to the program and committed to work, I think you can achieve anything here.”

With a kid that used to wear pads and run into telephone poles, the Sun Devils have climbed the mountain when no one believed they could.