Arizona State: From worst to first-round bye

Last season, The Arizona State Sun Devils were in the Pac-12 conference and finished 10th in the conference and tied for the worst overall record with Stanford, finishing the season 3-9.

Because of the fallout of the Pac-12, the Sun Devils went to the Big 12 conference along with Arizona, Colorado and Utah.

Arizona State did not have high expectations coming into the 2024-2025 season, especially how they did the previous year.

At the beginning of the 2024 season, Kenny Dillingham was the youngest head coach in college football at 34 years old and entering his second season as head coach of Arizona State.

For some reason, people thought that a coach as young as him couldn’t do anything with Arizona State.

But, Dillingham has been coaching since he was 17 years old and went from high school to offensive coordinator for many schools including Oregon who is coached by Dan Lanning who is only 4 years older than Dillingham and has Oregon as the only undefeated FBS team.

When the 2024 Big 12 Football Media Preseason Poll came out, despite not playing a single Big 12 game, Utah was ranked the number one team in the conference.

Out of the four teams that came from the Pac-12, Arizona State was ranked the lowest.

Arizona State was not only ranked the lowest out of those teams but they were ranked the lowest in the conference.

With this poll, people didn’t expect much of Arizona State but they started the season off strong against their non-conference opponents.

However, they lost their first Big 12 matchup against Texas Tech which increased the amount of doubt that people had for ASU.

But, they won their next two games against two of the supposed best teams in the conference including Kansas and Utah who they hadn’t beaten since 2018.

Then, they went on a two-game road trip in which they lost to Cincinnati but beat Oklahoma State, another team that was ranked in the top five of the preseason poll.

And ever since then, they haven’t lost a single game and won their first Big 12 title against Iowa State 45-19 in their first year in the conference.

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This was their second conference championship win of the 21st century and their first since 2007 and they won it with USC.

This win and a win by Clemson over SMU was enough for the Sun Devils to get a first-round bye in the College Football Playoff.

Arizona State went from worst in the Big 12 to getting a first-round bye which nobody could have expected.

One of the big reasons why Arizona State was able to perform so well this season was because of their running back Cam Skattebo.

The senior and transfer from Sacramento State was one of the best players in college football this year and the only reason why he isn’t the best running back in college football is because of Ashton Jeanty.

Skattebo is second in the country in all-purpose yards and currently fifth in the country in rushing yards.

He is also tied with Tennessee running back Dylan Sampson with 22 touchdowns and 132 total points.

All of Arizona State’s top players are from the transfer portal including Skattebo, Sam Leavitt, Jordyn Tyson and Myles Rowser.

If Arizona State continues to perform like this, we could see them back in the playoffs in the next few years and hopefully higher up in the preseason poll.

Massimo Buonagurio is a first-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email him at mkb6750@psu.edu.