INDIANAPOLIS – The season Cam Skattebo had at Arizona State – the career too – made it hard not to notice the running back, although help to watch the video is available.
“(Arizona State coach) Kenny (Dillingham) brings it over to me and says, ‘Why don’t you check this guy out,'” Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon quipped with a chuckle at the NFL Scouting combine.
“I’m not through that part of the evaluation process but I know he lit it up this year,” Gannon said of the Sun Devils star. “I know he’s a really good dude, high football-character, who loves ball. It’ll be cool to watch him.”
Skattebo’s fascinating college career at ASU now evolves into a fascinating NFL draft process. He comes out in a year loaded with talent at running back, with a frame (he officially measured at the Combine at 5-foot-9.5 and 219 pounds, but had the second-best vertical jump) that doesn’t usually catch the eye as a top choice in the backfield.
His speed is in question, and while he won’t run the 40 in Indianapolis – choosing to wait for ASU’s March 27 pro day – the confidence he has in his traits is apparent.
“It’s pretty simple,” Skattebo said. “I’m physical, people don’t think I’m as fast as I am, which I am fast. Punish the defender, because they don’t want to do it for four quarters.”
Skattebo won’t run a 4.4, but the mid-4.5s would help. A big pro day could get him into the third round. The deep running back class also puts the fourth and even fifth round in play. He is a known commodity thanks to his unreal postseason play for the Sun Devils, a battering ram with ridiculous balance.
“He just chooses violence,” NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah said. “I don’t know if I have ever seen a more aggressive runner who just seeks out contact and who can absorb contact.
“When I was looking for a comp for him, my first thought was, ‘OK, he is like a shrunk-down James Conner. I was like, ‘Gosh, more of anything he reminds me of a Plinko chip from ‘The Price is Right’ bouncing off everything and everybody.”
The Conner comp will make Cardinals fans take notice, although the chance of Arizona taking a running back a year after spending a third-round pick on Trey Benson and after re-signing Conner to an extension is practically nil.
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