Arizona State was picked to finish last in the 16-team Big 12. The Sun Devils are now meeting Texas in the Peach Bowl in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals. The player who sparked that incredible run also epitomizes it. 

Cameron Skattebo — 1,568 rushing yards, 19 rushing touchdowns, 506 receiving yards and three receiving touchdowns — went from high school graduate with no FBS offers to fifth-place finisher in the 2024 Heisman Trophy voting. The running back has gone from cult hero to folk hero, displaying an uncanny knack for breaking tackles and for blowing people’s minds. 

Leo Skattebo III (Cam’s father): Before he turned 3, we got him a bike for Christmas.

Becky Skattebo (Cam’s mother): He (Cam) argued with my dad (Cam’s grandfather) to take the training wheels off. “I don’t want em! I don’t want em!” wouldn’t take no for an answer. My dad popped them off. “Welp, he’ll eat dirt a couple of times and then he’ll figure it out.”

Leo Skattebo IV (older brother): They took him out on the bike. He goes down the street, and within two minutes, he’s full speed pedaling back and goes, “Watch this!” And he stands up on the seat of the bike coming down the street.

Becky: He’s going, “I don’t have to hold the handlebars!” The neighbors just stood outside hysterically laughing.

Leo III: I think that’s when I knew he was gonna be different.

Becky: At about 18 months, we were sitting at the dinner table and a neighbor knocked on the door. She’s standing there with Cam in a diaper. He had climbed over the fence and dropped over the other side to play with her kids.

The scariest thing he ever did was when he was 2. We were watching his dad play softball. He had been standing next to me and we were watching his dad at bat. It seemed like a split-second but when I turned and looked. He was gone. I started to panic. Everybody was yelling his name. His brother ran to the bathroom and was calling his name. People are looking under the bleachers. Then, the umpire says, “Well, there, he is!”

We looked straight up above us. He had crawled all the way up the chain-link backstop and was looking down on his dad that was at bat. It was like 14 or 16 feet up on those rounded backstops. One of the guys started to climb the fence and Cameron turned around but instead of backing down like a normal person, he came down head first, like a little Spiderman. He’s been doing things that are inexplainable from pretty much Day 1.

Leo III: Yeah, he did a lot of weird things.

Leo IV: All he ever cared about was winning. It didn’t matter if we were playing a video game, or wrestling on the trampoline. He wanted to beat me.

Becky: We had many holes in the sheetrock from the boys wrestling, slinging each other around the house. They never took it easy on him. They tossed him around pretty good, and he’s just always been able to handle it.

Leo IV: I was six years older than him and he wanted to beat me in everything. I didn’t take it easy on him.

Becky: He’d always competed with older kids, whether that was wrestling in the front yard or on the field. When he says he can do something, it’s real hard not to believe that he can do it.

Jack Garceau (Rio Linda (Calif.) High School coach, Skattebo’s coach from 2017-19): I’ve known Cam since he was a little boy, because I coached his older brother, so we’ve always heard about Cam coming up in our youth program. We’d go watch him. He was just a little ball of muscle. He had that little mohawk and it just always fit his image.

I became the head coach when he was a sophomore. It was the first day of spring ball. It was a blocking drill. No pads and he just was not going to lose. If he got beat in any one-on-one drill, he was going again. I came home and told my wife, “This guy is way different than anybody we’ve ever had.”

In 2018, Rio Linda won its first section title in 14 years, led by Skattebo. The junior running back scored seven touchdowns and ran for 313 yards in a 63-12 win over Casa Roble.

Chris Horner (Casa Roble (CA) High School head coach): After that game, I saw him by the bus. I remember dapping him up. I said, “Bro, you were so fun to watch. I’ve never seen anything like that. Good luck. I’m a huge Rio Linda Knights fan from here on out.”

Skattebo had a prolific high school season but struggled to gain traction with major FBS programs. (Photo: Aaron M. Sprecher / Getty Images)

A few weeks later, on Rio Linda’s opening series of the CIF State Division 5-AA Title Game against San Gorgonio, Skattebo had a 67-yard touchdown run where he broke 11 tackles. He finished with 396 yards and three touchdowns on 29 carries in a 38-35 win. He was doing it all through his parents’ divorce. 

Leo IV: My mom and dad had been together for about 20 years. That was hard. It was hard on Cameron. I was away at college. I lived in Ohio, had a son. I wasn’t there to be the big brother for him. And at the most formative moment for him — he’s 16 and everything around him is falling apart. Somehow on Friday nights, he was able to tune out all that emotional distress, when he was falling apart on the inside, and still be the best player in the state. A lot of kids can’t handle that. That showed me this kid has something different than other kids have mentally.

It’s very easy to let that affect you, and start lashing out at other people around you. He just didn’t do that. He continued to be a leader.

Becky: When we split up, his coach was really instrumental in keeping him focused and letting him vent, giving him room when he needed. I don’t think we’ll ever really know if it fueled him or if it almost derailed him.

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That same year, Skattebo led the Knights to the California 5-A state title by rushing for 3,550 yards and 42 touchdowns. He averaged almost 12 yards per carry but he was still a zero-star recruit who had no scholarship offers.

Garceau: Bigger schools did come. We had UCLA, USC. Utah, Air Force but they just passed on him. It made us all kind of doubt ourselves.

Cam Skattebo: I went to UCLA right after my junior year. They told me that I wasn’t good enough for this level. I can’t remember who I was sitting with at the time. It was (Bruins running backs coach Deshaun) Foster’s assistant. Bjian (Robinson) was at the facility and that was their focus. They spelled my name wrong on my name tag. It was just an unofficial visit there. I was just sitting in the back, hanging out. Me and my father. It was a humbling experience.

Troy Taylor (Stanford head coach, former Sacramento State head coach 2019-22): We were evaluating players. I couldn’t really find anybody who said we should go on the kid. I put on the tape. You could see the anger when he ran and the determination. I was five or six clips in and I said, “We’re taking this guy!”

I remember specifically that run (where he broke 11 tackles in the state title game). I just couldn’t believe that no one else would go on the kid. I’m not always right but I decided on the spot.  We were his only offer. Everybody missed on that one.

Cam Skattebo: I wasn’t too worried because I knew at some point in my life I was gonna take that next step even if I had to go the juco route. I knew I was gonna make it. But I definitely sat around a lot of days hoping for a text from somebody, which never happened. I finally got Sacramento State, and I was the happiest kid in the world.

Taylor: Then he came to our camp and he was kind of a prick when he competed. It was one-on-ones against the linebackers. He would win the rep and then get up and cut in line and take another rep. He just had that attitude that you don’t want to compete against this kid. I just fell in love with him.

Malcolm Agnew (Sacramento State running back coach, 2021-22): In 2021, he was unbelievable in spring ball because of how physical he was, and because of how competitive he is. It was practice No. 6. This kid touched the ball probably around 10 times that practice, and he scored every time. And we had a pretty good defense.

My favorite play was when we ran this middle screen with him. It was a poor throw, but the dude caught it with his left hand like down towards where his knees are — and he played baseball so he’s really good at tracking the ball — and had the ability to make a guy miss as he was turning and catching it. Then, he made another guy miss and scored. I said to our head coach, “That is one of the best plays I’ve ever seen.”

Taylor: His first game, it looked like he was playing with younger people who didn’t belong on the field with him.

Jason Eck (New Mexico head coach; then-Idaho head coach): He killed us (Idaho) in 2022. He reminds me of Jim Brown highlights.

Agnew: I’ve seen this kid hit standing backflips. I’ve seen this kid broad-jump almost 11 feet. He did a 10-7. I’ve seen him throw a baseball 95 miles an hour to the point where the Sac State baseball coach asked him if he wanted to play in the offseason. We didn’t let him.

Skattebo is the heart and soul of Arizona State’s turnaround. (Photo: William Purnell / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

In Skattebo’s first season at Sacramento State, he ran for 520 yards, averaging over 9 yards per carry, scoring six touchdowns. In his second year, he had almost 1,900 all-purpose yards and was named Big Sky Conference Offensive Player of the Year, helping the Hornets go 11-0 in the regular season. But after Taylor left to become Stanford’s head coach, Skattebo opted to enter the transfer portal.

Taylor: (Then-Arizona State offensive coordinator) Beau Baldwin called me: “We’re trying to figure out whether to go on Skatt. What do you think?” I said, “Beau, he’s an incredible player. You guys would be crazy not to take him.” Beau pulled the trigger.

The Sun Devils were in the midst of a massive rebuild. They finished 3-9 in 2022 and subsequently hired 32-year-old Kenny Dillingham, an ASU graduate, to lead the program. They were an undermanned team in 2023, but Skattebo emerged as the backbone of the overhaul. He did almost everything for the Sun Devils. He was a finalist for the Paul Hornung Award, given to the nation’s most versatile player. He’d run for 788 yards, but also played some quarterback, completing six passes on 15 attempts for 150 yards and a touchdown. He averaged over 42 yards per punt. He lined up at receiver for another 100-plus snaps.

This year, the Sun Devils were seeded fourth and got a bye in the first iteration of the 12-team College Football Playoff. They will play 5-seed Texas in the Peach Bowl on Jan. 1 for a spot in the Playoff semifinals. 

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Marcus Arroyo (ASU offensive coordinator): I think (former USC analyst Kliff) Kingsbury was the first guy who told me about him (Cam). Kliff’s like, “Dude, they got a back down there that is bananas. This little sawed-off White guy.”

Joe Connolly (ASU strength coach): Last season, we saw a lot of flashes of unbelievable balance, unbelievable body awareness. He was our starting quarterback at one point, our starting punter, our starting running back, often playing wide receiver. One of the biggest things we did this offseason was tightening the nutrition, the consistency. He was north of 230 pounds and now he’s around 218. He’s increased his speed and his quickness. All those things really showed this year. He never has to come off the field. He is absolutely relentless.

Cam: I think my top speed was the high 19s (miles per hour on the GPS) last year. Right before training camp this year, I almost hit 21.

Arroyo: The guy can really run. He’s hitting 20 MPH on his GPS in the game. It’s crazy where he doesn’t look like he’s moving that fast sometime. When you see guys go up against real guys, and you’re like, “OK, let’s see what this looks like?” And every time, he takes the torch. God-dang, these guys just can’t even tackle this guy. Against Utah, those guys are really big and fast and talented, and he ran over those guys. He was absolutely insane against Iowa State.

Morgan Scalley (Utah defensive coordinator): For as much punishment as he dishes out, and as much as he takes, he is so durable. His shirt get ripped and all the crap he takes, and he just keeps coming back. He’s like Rocky.

Taylor: I always said he was like a Viking. A couple of hundreds years ago, he’d have been at the front of the boat with horns on his helmet, ready to jump onto the other boat to take it over.

Horner: Our coaches (at Casa Roble) had a text chain while we were watching what he was doing to Iowa State (in the Big 12 title game). It was another level. When we lose to a guy like this doing what he’s doing to a college team, it should make us feel a lot better about that drubbing that he put on us in his junior year of high school. Yeah, we lost to Cameron Skattebo, but so did everybody else!

Taylor: He’s been doubted at every single level, and they’ll doubt him again for the NFL, but watch, he’ll end up being an NFL player — and a good one.

Leo III: Whoever drafts him or wherever he ends up, if he just plays in the preseason, he’ll earn his spot on the team. But if they get him on the field and give him the opportunity, he’s going to make somebody very smart.

Garceau: Now, we all feel validated. We knew exactly what we were looking at and nobody else understood. We would hear everything from he’s too small, he’s too short, he’s not fast enough. There was the stigma of the White running back; the fact that we weren’t a giant school. There was just always that one little thing. I am just glad he got the opportunity to show everybody what he can do. But if you change that, and he maybe he gets a big ride out of high school, maybe we’re not here today.

(Photo: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)