Arizona State wasn’t supposed to be bowl-eligible in 2024, let alone a top-four seed in the College Football Playoff — yet, here they are.
The Sun Devils had the luxury of watching the first round from home and are now set to face No. 5 Texas in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, with a spot in the CFP semifinals on the line.
While the rest of the playoff field was pretty well decided a dozen weeks into the season, Arizona State’s ascent up the ladder didn’t come on strong until very late in the year.
After a loss at Cincinnati in Week 8, Arizona State had a 5-2 record and virtually no chance of making the CFP field, but they kept their heads down and kept working. Since then, ASU has gone a perfect 6-0 and outscored opponents by an average score of 37-19, three of those wins coming over ranked teams.
As ESPN’s Bill Connelly points out, the analytics suggest that Arizona State’s hot streak to finish the season was as impressive as anyone else over that span.
“ASU finished the regular season as the hottest team in FBS, overachieving against SP+ projections by 19.9 points per game during a six-game winning streak,” Connelly writes. “In four of those wins, Cam Skattebo averaged 162 rushing yards, but the Sun Devils beat UCF without him and controlled K-State with Skattebo averaging 2.9 yards per carry. The defense overachieved as much as the offense.”
Meanwhile, Texas’s offense over its last seven games struggled to live up to its expectations, and its turnover rate is cause for concern.
Can Arizona State ride its hot streak to a victory over the Longhorns, who are favored by just under two touchdowns? Connelly spells out the path for it to happen and how the other games could end in upsets in his story over on ESPN.
