Jordan HammVideo by Eliav Gabay
If you asked any college football fan over the summer that a team would come out of the Territorial Cup with its 10th win and a shot to play for the College Football Playoff, the overwhelming majority would say the Arizona Wildcats ran it back and met the expectations placed on them.
But it’s the Sun Devils that are heading to the Big 12 Championship after back-to-back three-win seasons.
The team that was picked dead-last in the preseason conference rankings have pushed back on outside expectations and distractions to win and win frequently.
They did it by knowing who they are.
On August 1st – ASU’s second practice of fall camp – Kenny Dillingham was asked about the buy-in of a team that was picked to be last in the Big 12 by media at the time.
“We’re a team with a lot of guys that were misfits at their last place. Guys that went to a small school because the big schools didn’t believe in them,” Dillingham said. “Now they’re here. Or they went to a big school and were a superstar and it didn’t work out like they wanted. We’re a group of misfit underdogs that nobody thought was good enough at one point.”
These misfit underdogs just hit double-digit wins for the first time in program history since 2014 thanks to a 49-7 over Arizona on Saturday.
It’s college football’s best turnaround that was fueled on self-awareness.
Self-awareness for a group of individuals. Self-awareness for what the program could be.
Cam Skattebo, who Nick Saban deemed his favorite player on Saturday morning, had one offer to Sacramento State coming out of high school despite accumulating 6,000 total yards in his prep career.
Sam Leavitt, with 22 touchdowns to just five interceptions on the year as a redshirt freshman, transferred from Michigan State because Jonathan Smith didn’t recruit him locally to Oregon State.
Jordyn Tyson, the team’s leading receiver, was coming off tears to his ACL, MCL and PCL in 2022.
X Alford and Jake Smith hadn’t played since the 2021 college football seasons.
The offensive line was more battered and bruised than a ripe banana in 2023.
Caleb McCullough hung with the program during its lowest times. He embraced the competition when new faces come in and came up huge whenever his name was called in 2024.
Former walk-on Trenton Bourguet, who donated his own money to the Sun Angel Collective, didn’t blink when there were additions the quarterback room over the years. He competed, didn’t complain and was named to the leadership council ahead of the season. He capped off his Sun Devil on Saturday by completing a pass to his brother Coben in the town they grew up in.
Fans took shots at Chamon Metayer for transferring from Cincinnati to Colorado before re-entering the portal and heading to Arizona State. He’s been an asset on the field and earned rave reviews from Sun Devil coaches for what’s added to the culture.
Offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo, who coached Leif Fautanu at UNLV previously, said the center was vastly overlooked by Power 5 programs and the Rebels had a “gem” with him at the center position.
These stories are riddled throughout the roster, countless misfits finding a home in desert.
The saying (generally) goes: One man’s misfit is another man’s leader.
The underdog mentality was present all year. Whenever Dillingham saw a Big 12 logo in front of media, it usually followed with a “Welcome to the Big 12. We’re the worst team in it.”
It was fuel, but it was never an excuse.
“You don’t see the hard work that we put in, the uncomfortable conversations that we had,” X Alford said after the Territorial Cup win. “You all know how hot it is in AZ. Imagine running, getting ready for the season, 150 guys screaming at each other trying to win, actually trying to get better.”
That self-awareness turned out to do wonders for the team – ironically – even if they didn’t know it at the time.
Dillingham was asked what his response would have been if someone told him over the summer that ASU would win 10 games. He said he couldn’t answer that because that question wouldn’t have been thought to be asked.
What about getting to seven wins this year?
“I would have said we won some close games.”
“These guys are special. We never focused on the outside noise. We never focused on everyone saying we were good now. We never focused when someone said we were bad. We didn’t let all that stuff blind us from what we believed we could accomplish.”
And now this program, this group of misfits, picked last in the Big 12 just four months ago, have punched their ticket to the Big 12 championship.
