Running Back room headlines deeper 2024 Sun Devils team

(Photo: Marina Williams/WCSN)

Arizona State’s 2023 football season was largely a disappointment. Despite much optimism surrounding first-year head coach Kenny Dillingham, the team finished 3-9 and ranked outside the top 100 in total offense and total defense, scoring just 17.2 points per game and allowing 32.8 points per game.

However, if there was one bright spot on either side of the ball, it was the emergence of senior running back Cameron Skattebo. After being named Big Sky Offensive Player of the Year in 2022, Skattebo transferred to Tempe and continued to put up impressive numbers. With mounting injuries at the offensive line and quarterback, most of the offensive production fell on the legs, and even sometimes the arm, of Skattebo.

Skattebo carried the ball on the ground for 788 yards on 164 attempts, scoring nine touchdowns. Through the air, Skattebo totaled 24 receptions and 286 receiving yards, adding one touchdown. Skattebo also took a lot of snaps out of the Wildcat formation, completing six passes and throwing as many touchdown passes (1) as senior quarterback Trenton Bourguet.

One season later, Skattebo still plans to play a huge role in Dillingham and the new offensive coordinator, Marcus Arroyo’s offense, but now the running back room looks a lot different, boasting depth that goes six deep.

“The depth in that room is really, really good for us,” Dillingham said. “It is going to keep us fresh throughout the end of games. When (Skattebo) has to carry the ball 28 to 30 times in a game at times, and we are wondering why he’s not hitting his top speed, well, there you go. He’s carrying the ball 38, 26, 22 times in a game. We’ve got to be able to bounce that workload.”

The first piece of that depth is redshirt senior DeCarlos Brooks. Brooks transferred from California to ASU before last season, but a pair of injuries kept him sidelined for seven of the team’s 12 games. After sustaining a punctured lung in the second game of the season, Brooks initially played through the pain in his chest, but after an X-ray revealed the damage to his lung, he was forced to miss the following four games.

In only his second game following his return, Brooks was sidelined once again. This time, with a hamstring injury, missing three more games. Now headed into his second season with the Sun Devils, it appears that Brooks has made an effort to cut weight, dropping from a listed weight of 222 pounds in 2023 to just 210 pounds in 2024.

Brooks isn’t the only one who focused on dropping weight. Skattebo is 10 pounds to 215 pounds for his senior season, all to create more mismatches for the opposing defense.

“I think we have mismatches against linebackers in space,” running back coach Shaun Aguano said. “Anytime we can be a third-down back catching the ball in crucial situations, I think that’s always good. Those guys do a very, very good job catching the football out of the backfield.”

Skattebo and Brooks sit atop the two-deep and should see the lion’s share of the action in week one against Wyoming. But a trio of backs, all with the same last name, provide even more options to attack those mismatches both on the ground and through the air.

Sophomore Kyson Brown is the one remaining returner from last year’s team. Listed at 200 pounds, Brown could be the team’s fastest back, clocking a 10.95 in the 100-meter sprint during high school, and has played a prominent role in the two-deep since the spring. Last season, Brown played a feature role on special teams, logging the sixth most special teams snaps of any true freshman at a Power Five school.

Although he will likely miss the season’s first game due to injury, redshirt sophomore and USC transfer Raleek Brown is arguably the team’s most versatile back. Ranked as the No. 3 running back transfer prospect according to 247Sports when the team added him, Brown saw the field as both a running back and a wide receiver for the Trojans.

Listed at 5-foot-9 and 185 pounds, Raleek is the smallest back on the roster. He has already sustained a leg injury that kept him out of the final three weeks of fall camp, but Dillingham announced that the back is 90 percent recovered.

Finally, two post-spring additions who have made strong impressions this fall complete the room. Freshman Jason Brown Jr. rounds out the trio of Browns and is one of only five true freshmen who did not receive a scout team jersey last Saturday. The consensus four-star prospect has broken off multiple long runs this fall camp, and although he will likely not see much playing time early in the season, he is soaking up all the information from the veterans ahead of him.

“It’s hard because it’s a month and a half learning how to practice and the expectations,” Aguano said. “He does have five good role models in front of him. He’s come a long way since the first time we’ve been at practice, so I’m excited about his progress because he’s going to be a very good back.”

After senior George Hart III entered the transfer portal following spring practice, Dillingham and Aguano needed to add one more back in the post-spring portal, and they were able to grab someone who could be a difference-maker this season. Redshirt junior Alton McCaskill burst onto the scene with an all-world freshman year at Houston, finishing the season as the American Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year and tallying 961 yards with 16 touchdowns.

However, McCaskill tore his ACL the very next spring, missing the entire season. After transferring to Colorado for his junior season, McCaskill wasn’t able to see the field as much as he would have liked, appearing in just four games resulting in a redshirt. But now, he is 100% and ready to be a major contributor once again.

“I’d say I’m two years off of this (injury), so they say this is when you truly feel like yourself,” McCaskill said. “I’m fully with that 100-percent. I feel like myself, how I felt coming into college, that fully healthy guy, no mental fallacies or whatever. I’m fully fully there.”

Tempe has been home to some top running back talent over the last few years, with previous teams having NFL-quality backs like Rachaad White and Eno Benjamin on the field at Mountain America Stadium. But with a room six-deep, this group could be the most talented of the bunch.

“I think it’s one of the top,” Aguano said, comparing the strength of this season’s running back room to the past. “I think we have to get through the season and see how that plays out because we’ve had very good rooms within the past six years. But if I were a betting guy, I think it could be up at the top.”