(Photo: Spencer Barnes/ WCSN)
Week two of the 2024 season saw running back Cameron Skattebo emerge into the national spotlight for the first time, behind his dominant rushing performance. Soon-to-be New York Giant Skattebo’s 262 rushing yards became the Arizona State football team’s second-best single-game rushing performance, before Skattebo took the top spot on the single-season yard record later that season.
Now, week two of the 2025 season saw two more ASU running backs emerge into the national spotlight, with redshirt junior running back Raleek Brown and junior running back Kanye Udoh racking up 110 and 105 yards, respectively. However, unlike Skattebo’s performance from a year ago, it wasn’t enough to get the victory as the No. 12 Sun Devils (1-1) fell 27-24 to the Mississippi State Bulldogs (2-0).
“Try to take advantage of my opportunity and do what I can to help this team win,” Udoh said. “Raleek did the same thing, so it wasn’t just me out there.”
Week one for the Sun Devils raised questions about the running back room, with 229 total rushing yards, but 99 of which came from the legs of redshirt sophomore quarterback Sam Leavitt through designed scrambles and broken plays. Week two answered these questions about the running back room, but it wasn’t without a difficult start.
Junior Kyson Brown left the game early after he ran for 73 yards in week one. This put the bulk of the rushing workload on Udoh and Raleek Brown. The pairing initially struggled to get going; however, the whole offense struggled in the first half. At halftime, the run game had made up 65 of the offense’s 95 total yards.
After Udoh only reached 19 yards on a couple of carries in week one, his performance against Mississippi State provided a massive relief for ASU in the absence of Kyson Brown.
“(Udoh) did an unbelievable job,” head coach Kenny Dillingham said. “He ran by his pad level. Our offensive line did a good job [helping with] running the football.”
Udoh helped to change the momentum on the very first drive of the second half. On an eight-play, 75-yard scoring drive, offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo’s offense ran the ball on every play. Mixing Udoh and Brown handoffs with designed scrambles for Leavitt gave the offense life.
“Our guys were ready for that, and we coached a lot,” Dillingham said. “It did set the tone and everybody felt a jolt of confidence from it.”
From there, the Sun Devils offense was a machine running the ball. While the offense wasn’t quite as prolific as Skattebo’s one-man machine, this year’s running back room seems to have multiple cogs in the backfield unit.
“We had to run the ball to open up the offense,” Raleek Brown said. “So that was our game plan [in the] second half to get downhill.”
As good as Skattebo was, this year’s running back trio, even without Kyson Brown due to injury, offers such an elite level of versatility. Raleek Brown continued to showcase his playmaking ability through his quickness and agility, while Udoh looked like a taller Skattebo at times, through his bruising running ability.
However, on the penultimate offensive drive for the Sun Devils, the running game carried the offense for 83 yards, but the machine stalled out as Udoh couldn’t punch it in from the goal line.
“Just couldn’t punch it in,” Udoh said. “Tried breaking a tackle, then two more people came. Just wasn’t able to get that final push.
While it wasn’t enough to push ASU onward to victory, ultimately, the run game’s own versatility showed promise in the new Skattebo-less era, but it needs to continue to sustain performance for national applause from last year.
