ATLANTA – Texas may or may not be the best football program in the country when the 2024 season ends. But Arizona State has already claimed the title of Most Entertaining, regardless of what the scoreboard says. And Cam Skattebo of the Sun Devils could have forced a new Heisman vote in 2024.
Texas won the Peach Bowl on Wednesday afternoon in a ridiculously entertaining 39-31 double-overtime victory, and now advances to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas to face the winner of the Rose Bowl. Meanwhile, Arizona State has wrapped up one of the most wildly exciting seasons in recent college football history, pummeling the Longhorns and creating a true folk hero along the way.
Skattebo, who finished fifth in this year’s Heisman voting, will live on in Texas nightmares after Wednesday, a reminder that records, resumes, history and pedigrees mean nothing among tackles.
The Sun Devils were 13 1/2-point underdogs, and from the start, that seemed like a generous line. The Longhorns put 14 points on the Sun Devils in just over a minute in the first quarter. Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers threw just two passes (a 54-yarder to Matthew Golden and a 23-yarder to DeAndre Moore Jr.) and Texas took a 7-3 lead less than seven minutes into the game. game.
One Arizona State three-pointer later, Texas’ Silas Bolden returned a punt 75 yards for a touchdown. The score was 14-3 and it looked like the game was about to become the fifth consecutive blowout of the College Football Playoff.
However, over the next two and a half quarters there was a strange stagnation. Arizona State held the ball almost three times longer than Texas, 32:49 to 12:11 through three quarters. But the Sun Devils just couldn’t close the deal. On five straight drives, Arizona State entered the Texas 40 (three of them in the red zone) and came out with a total of just three points. But at the same time, the Sun Devils were harassing the hell out of the Longhorns, making the short time Texas was on the field miserable. An Arizona State drive stalling at the Texas 2 led directly to a Longhorns safety, which would prove significant very soon.
And then came the fourth quarter, when all hell broke loose, and Cam Skattebo. First, Ewers, who had struggled after that opening drive, led Texas on a crucial 13-play, 76-yard touchdown drive to take a 24-8 lead and seemingly salt the game.
Skattebo had other ideas. He threw — yes, threw — a 42-yard touchdown pass to Malik McClain, and Arizona State converted a two-point conversion to close the gap to 24-16. Two plays later, Arizona State’s Javan Robinson intercepted Ewers. Skattebo made Texas pay, burning the Longhorns on the next play for 62 yards and, soon after, scoring a touchdown and the tying two-point conversion.
Deeply shaken, Texas advanced 35 yards before stalling, and kicker Bert Auburn’s 48-yard field goal attempt went wide right, leaving the score at 24-24 with 1:39 left. Arizona State’s next drive stopped at midfield with a controversial decision not to target.
Ewers then took control at the Texas 20 with 57 seconds left in the quarter. With the game in his hands, Ewers calmly led the Longhorns to the Arizona State 21 to set up a game-winning 39-yard field goal attempt with just two seconds remaining. Auburn’s kick was more than enough, but it missed the left post to set up overtime.
Arizona State got the ball first in overtime and quarterback Sam Leavitt nearly connected with McClain for another long touchdown. Arizona State opted to go for it on fourth-and-1, and Leavitt sneaked the ball in to convert. Later, facing a third-and-14, he ran for 16 yards to set up first-and-goal at the Texas 23-yard line. You know what happened next… Skattebo dove for the touchdown that put Arizona State up 31-24. .
On Texas’ first overtime possession, trailing for the first time since trailing 3-0, the Longhorns had trouble moving the ball and quickly faced a fourth-and-8, which became fourth-and-13 after a penalty , for the game. . But Golden got behind the Arizona State defense, and Ewers found him for an all-or-nothing 28-yard touchdown to force a second overtime period.
This time, Texas didn’t pull its punches. Ewers found Gunnar Helm for a 25-yard touchdown on the first play of the second overtime, and then again targeted Golden for the successful two-point conversion to go up 39-31.
Skattebo caught a short pass to advance to the Texas 12-yard line on the first play of Arizona State’s second possession. But Leavitt’s final pass of the day was intercepted by Texas’ Andrew Mukuba, and Arizona State’s dream season died just short of the end zone.
The two programs took very different routes to get to Atlanta. Before the Peach Bowl, Texas and Arizona State had met exactly once in history: 2007, when a Longhorn team led by Colt McCoy defeated the Sun Devils, 52-34.
This year, Texas began the season as one of the top-ranked programs in the country, while Arizona State was projected to finish at the bottom of the Big 12. Texas returned its pair of standout quarterbacks, Quinn Ewers and Arch Manning, and a friendly SEC. The schedule helped ease the Longhorns’ transition to their new conference. Struggles against Georgia in both the regular season and the SEC championship pushed Texas to the No. 5 seed, where the Longhorns easily handled 12th-seeded Clemson in the first round of the playoff.
On the other end of the preseason polls, Kenny Dillingham’s 2024 Sun Devils were nothing more than opportunists, both on the field and in the transfer portal. Embodied by thunderous running back Cam Skattebo, Arizona State ran a chaotic, free-for-all offense in the Big 12, and more often than not emerged victorious. The Sun Devils won the Big 12 Conference championship and made the College Football Playoff at 11-2.
Clemson’s upset win in the ACC championship opened the door for Arizona State to claim the final first-round bye despite being ranked 12th in the CFP standings. The Peach Bowl had been designated as the “host” site for the ACC champion, but when lower-ranked Clemson earned the ACC’s automatic bid, Arizona State moved into the spot… leading to the bizarre two-game scenario. schools traveling across half the country for the game.
Maybe it was the distance, or maybe it was the fact that Texas could potentially play three games in Atlanta over six weeks, including the SEC and national championships, but game attendance was below capacity. Admission prices dropped as low as $14 in the hours before kickoff. That’s a problem the powers that be in college football will need to address in future seasons.
Texas will return home for the next round and face Rose Bowl winner Oregon-Ohio State in Dallas on January 10. What will the Longhorns have learned by then from their brush with oblivion? It’s an open question, and one that Texas will need to answer very quickly if it wants to advance further in the playoffs.