ATLANTA – Texas may or may not be the best football program in the country at the end of the 2024 season. But Arizona State has already secured the title of “Most Entertaining,” no matter what’s on the scoreboard. And the Sun Devils’ Cam Skattebo may have just forced a Heisman vote in 2024.

Texas won the Peach Bowl on Wednesday afternoon with an incredibly entertaining 39-31 victory in two overtimes and now moves on to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas to face the Rose Bowl winner. Arizona State, meanwhile, is coming off one of the most exciting seasons in recent college football history, hitting the Longhorns hard and creating a bona fide folk hero in the process.

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 between tackles have no meaning at all.

The Sun Devils were 13½-point underdogs, and at the start that seemed like a generous odds. The Longhorns scored 14 points against 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.

One three-throw later at Arizona State, Texas’ Silas Bolden returned a punt 75 yards for a touchdown. The score was 14-3, and the game looked like it would be a fifth straight win in the College Football Playoff.

However, the next two and a half quarters saw a strange stalemate. Arizona State held the ball almost three times as long as Texas, 32:49 to 12:11 through three quarters. But the Sun Devils just couldn’t get the deal done. Arizona State managed five straight drives inside the Texas 40 – three of them in the red zone – and came away with just three points total. But at the same time, the Sun Devils were pressuring the Longhorns hard, making what little time Texas was on the field a living hell. An Arizona State drive that stalled at the Texas 2 led directly to a Longhorns safety situation that would soon prove significant.

And then came the fourth quarter when all hell – and Cam Skattebo – broke loose. First, Ewers, who struggled after that first drive, led Texas on a crucial 13-play, 76-yard touchdown drive to take a 24-8 lead and seemingly put the game away.

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 cut the deficit to 24-16. Two plays later, Arizona State’s Javan Robinson intercepted Ewers. Skattebo made Texas pay by rushing the Longhorns for 62 yards on the very next play and scoring both a touchdown and the game-winning two-point conversion shortly thereafter.

Texas, rattled, drove 35 yards before stalling, and kicker Bert Auburn’s 48-yard field goal attempt flew right wide, leaving the score at 24-24 with 1:39 left . Arizona State’s ensuing drive ended with a controversial non-targeting call at midfield.

Ewers then took over at the Texas 20 with 57 seconds left in the fourth. With the game in his hands, Ewers calmly led the Longhorns to the Arizona State 21 for a game-winning 39-yard field goal attempt with just two seconds left. Auburn’s kick was more than long enough, but it missed the left post, setting up overtime.

In overtime, Arizona State got the ball first, and quarterback Sam Leavitt nearly hit McClain for another long touchdown. Arizona State elected to convert on fourth-and-1, and Leavitt held the ball on a sneak to convert. Later, facing a third-and-14, he gained 16 yards for the first-and-goal at the Texas 23. You know what happened next… Skattebo rushed for a touchdown, giving Arizona State a 31-24 lead.

On Texas’ first possession of overtime, the Longhorns trailed for the first time since falling behind 3-0, struggled to move the ball and quickly faced a fourth-and-8 play that went to fourth after a penalty and turned 13. 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.

This time Texas wasn’t kidding. Ewers hit Gunnar Helm for a 25-yard touchdown on the first play of the second overtime and then targeted Golden again for the winning two-pointer for a 39-31 lead.

Skattebo caught a short pass and got inside the Texas 12 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 ended short of the end zone.

The two programs took completely different routes to get to Atlanta. Before the Peach Bowl, Texas and Arizona State had met exactly once in history: in 2007, when a Colt McCoy-led Longhorn team defeated the Sun Devils 52-34.

This year, Texas began the season as one of the top-rated programs in the country, while Arizona State was projected to finish near the bottom of the Big 12. Texas brought back its pair of top-notch quarterbacks, Quinn Ewers and Arch Manning, as well as a gentle SEC schedule that helped ease the Longhorns’ transition into their new conference. Struggles against Georgia in both the regular season and the SEC Championship landed Texas at No. 5, where the Longhorns easily defeated No. 12 seed Clemson in the first round of the playoffs.

At the other end of the preseason polls, Kenny Dillingham’s 2024 Sun Devils were extremely opportunistic both on the field and in the transfer portal. Personified by thunderous running back Cam Skattebo, Arizona State threw a carefree, chaotic offense against the Big 12 and emerged victorious in most cases. The Sun Devils won the Big 12 Conference championship and went 11-2 in the College Football Playoff.

Clemson’s surprising win in the ACC Championship opened the door for Arizona State to secure the final first-round bye spot despite being seeded No. 12 in the CFP rankings. The Peach Bowl was designated as the ACC champion’s “home stadium,” but when lower-ranked Clemson won the ACC’s automatic bid, Arizona State moved into the slot…leading to the strange scenario of two schools across the board for the event half country travel game.

Maybe it was the distance, maybe it was the fact that Texas could potentially play three games in Atlanta in six weeks – including the SEC and national championships – but the game’s attendance wasn’t adequate. Ticket prices dropped to as low as $14 in the hours before kickoff. This is a problem that future college football officials will have to deal with in the coming seasons.

Texas returns home for the next round and will face the winner of the Oregon-Ohio State Rose Bowl on January 10 in Dallas. By then, what will the Longhorns have learned from their brush with oblivion? That’s an open question that Texas needs to answer very quickly if it wants to advance in the playoffs.