TEMPE, Ariz. — Days after Arizona State’s double-overtime loss to Texas, emotions have started to fade in the desert. All except one.
Arizona State’s run to the College Football Playoff will not be forgotten here anytime soon, if ever. To make such an impact, a team has to surprise. It has to succeed. But most importantly, it has to connect. The Sun Devils accomplished all three.
Fans left Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta angry and disappointed. Angry over a potential targeting penalty that wasn’t called. Disappointed over forcing Texas into fourth-and-13 in the first overtime, one stop from victory — only to give up a tying touchdown.
Mostly they left with pride.
In the buildup to last week’s game, Arizona State fans outnumbered Texas fans in downtown Atlanta. They walked through Centennial Olympic Park and visited the College Football Hall of Fame, all with a similar look. Can you believe this?
Jake Plummer was everywhere last week. An honorary team captain, he visited the hall of fame, stopped by a pregame media conference and hung out on the sideline. In 1996, he was the star quarterback of an Arizona State team that lost to Ohio State in the final minutes of the Rose Bowl, an outcome that robbed the Sun Devils of a national title.
What Plummer remembered most from that season was the love and respect everyone shared. How much the team hung out together. How he wanted to perform his best not to improve his NFL draft stock but for teammates like defensive back Jason Simmons and defensive lineman Shawn Swayda. “I wanted to do good for those guys and play my ass off right then,” Plummer said late this season.
Arizona State poll: Which best sums up how you feel about the Peach Bowl:
— Doug Haller (@DougHaller) January 4, 2025
This group had the same togetherness. Offensive guard Ben Coleman noted how difficult it is to create such a bond in the transfer-portal era. The Sun Devils had 60 newcomers this season, so their relationships had to extend beyond the practice field. Coleman said they watched football together on Thursday nights. They went to the mall and double-dated. They became a team.
Perhaps this explains Kenny Dillingham’s actions after the Texas game. As he consoled quarterback Sam Leavitt, the Arizona State head coach noticed players walking to the locker room. Dillingham sprinted and pointed them back to the middle of the field, where both teams congregated, and then approached three players sitting on the bench and did the same.
Asked about this, Dillingham shrugged, as if the answer was obvious. Sportsmanship, he said. You shake hands after you win, you shake after you lose. But after an elimination loss, a season ends in the locker room. For some, it’s the last time they take off the school uniform. Perhaps Dillingham wanted to keep everyone together, extending a magical season for just a few more minutes.
Dillingham would later post a team photo on social media. It was taken in August at Camp Tontozona, a unique place that has been part of Arizona State’s preseason for much of the past six decades. The Sun Devils are smiling in the photo, many holding up the program’s “Forks up” sign. In the middle, lying on the grass, posing like a GQ model is Cam Skattebo, the team’s star running back.
What an incredible season! Losing sucks! But man I have never been so proud of a group of young men in my entire life! The bonds this team has is old school, and it’s real, these relationships will live on forever! This is a team that truly loves eachother, and watching it first… pic.twitter.com/JW2PBxujPc
— Coach Dillingham (@KennyDillingham) January 1, 2025
At the time, Skattebo was fairly anonymous outside of Tempe. He had enjoyed a decent junior season, but nothing special. Dillingham spent the preseason praising Skattebo’s willingness to help on special teams. Then Skattebo went out and became one of the sport’s more popular players, a first-team All-American and star of the 12-team playoff’s early rounds.
Position coach Shaun Aguano said Skattebo asked him throughout the season whether this group was as good as the running backs Aguano had coached in the past. Aguano never would give Skattebo the satisfaction — “No, no, no,” he would say, just to motivate his emerging star.
At the Peach Bowl, Skattebo ended the discussion. He collected 242 all-purpose yards (188 after halftime) and threw a 42-yard touchdown pass. In a recent appearance on “The Dan Patrick Show,” Skattebo said the pass play — called “Philly Special” — was designed to go to Leavitt but he knew Leavitt was hurting so he threw deep to receiver Malik McClain instead.
Cam Skattebo reveals that the play for his touchdown pass was called “Philly Special” and explains that he actually called an audible so that he could throw it to the receiver. @ASUFootball pic.twitter.com/VD3KaGHpwg
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) January 2, 2025
The performance cemented Skattebo’s status as one of the great players in school history and one of college football’s best stories. In just two seasons, the Sacramento State transfer produced 2,494 yards (10th in school history) and 30 rushing touchdowns (4th).
Nearly an hour after the Texas loss, Skattebo walked out of the Arizona State locker room for the 25th and final time. He wore a black hat and Hawaiian lei. A duffel bag hung off his left shoulder. Skattebo carried the game’s Offensive MVP trophy in his right hand. Some players cannot be replaced. He is one.
Leavitt walked out behind Skattebo, which was symbolic. Next man up. Earlier, Leavitt, a redshirt freshman, had thrown the interception that sealed Arizona State’s fate in the second overtime. During the postgame news conference, Leavitt had talked through tears. As he left the locker room, his eyes were still red.
A year ago, Leavitt, looking for a new school after leaving Michigan State, had watched film with offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo during a recruiting visit. Dillingham had dropped in, sitting on a file cabinet. The conversation lasted so long, five or six hours, that Leavitt’s dad, Jared, fell asleep. “They were talking over my head,” Jared explained in October. “And it was dark.”
An instant connection was made.
Leavitt developed into one of the country’s top young quarterbacks — athletic, fearless and confident. Twelve days after throwing for 219 yards and three touchdowns in a rout of Iowa State in the Big 12 title game on Dec. 7, Leavitt sat courtside with receiver Jordyn Tyson at a Phoenix Suns home game against the Indiana Pacers.
During a dead ball, Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton, an Iowa State product, walked over and talked. After Royce O’Neale swished a 3-pointer before the halftime buzzer, falling and landing near their seats, Leavitt and Tyson leaned over and celebrated with the Phoenix forward. As one Arizona State official observed, Leavitt that night might have been the most popular athlete in the arena.
Freshman Sam Leavitt threw for 2,885 yards and 24 touchdowns during Arizona State’s surprising run to the College Football Playoff. (Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
With Leavitt, Arizona State could be a top-10 team next season. His connection with Tyson, an All-Big 12 receiver who suffered a season-ending collarbone injury, should be among the nation’s best. Leavitt already has popped up on the early 2025 Heisman Trophy lists. His reaction: “It puts a little bit of pressure (on me), which I love.”
It will take time for the transfer portal to shake out, but most of Arizona State’s key players, including talented defensive lineman C.J. Fite and all-conference safety Xavion Alford, are expected to return. The program’s NIL collective, which helps raise funds to compensate players, has improved, ranking in the middle of the Big 12’s 16 teams. Arizona State’s alignment, from president Michael Crow to the coaching staff, has not been better.
This is not a program synonymous with sustained success. After the 1996 Rose Bowl march, Arizona State finished 9-3 the next season but then went four years without posting a winning record. In 2007, the Sun Devils, under new coach Dennis Erickson, went 10-3 but didn’t win more than six games over the next four years.
In 2013 and 2014, coach Todd Graham led Arizona State to back-to-back 10-win seasons, the first time that had happened since the early 1970s. In a postgame radio interview at the end of that second season, Graham said this was the start of something special. That the Sun Devils would compete for championships. He then went 6-7, 5-7 and 7-6 and lost his job.
Dillingham has preached since the day he was hired in 2022 that an active fan base is required for the Sun Devils to reach their football potential. Before the Peach Bowl, he said it’s easy for everyone to get involved when the team is winning. It’s easy to show support when a team authors such an irresistible story, picked to finish last, overcoming all odds.
But what happens in three months, Dillingham asked. What happens at the spring game? What happens with ticket sales? His point: The enthusiasm needs to carry over. It cannot reset as it has in the past.
Can you believe this?
Dillingham does.
“We have to become an obsessive fan base,” he said. “And if we can do that in the fifth-largest city in the country where people go to retire, we have got something special. That’s the mix. I’ve seen it. We’ve got to bring it back to life.”
GO DEEPER
Arizona State’s remarkable season sets it up for program’s biggest task — sustaining success
(Top photo of Sam Leavitt and Cam Skattebo celebrating a touchdown during the Big 12 title game against Iowa State: David Buono / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
