PHOENIX – In 2019, a 5-foot-10, 200-pound running back was the talk of the town in Rio Linda, California. With a signature surname and a personality that screams, literally, for anyone’s attention, Cam Skattebo was destined for big things.
The only problem: Nobody outside of the nearly 17,000 people in his hometown knew about him. Although college football programs recruited him, schools such as UCLA visited but didn’t view him as a priority target.
He didn’t receive any scholarship offers. When he visited UCLA, the Bruins were working hard to land Salpointe Catholic’s Bijan Robinson (who later enrolled at Texas and now stars for the Atlanta Falcons). Skattebo was thrown on the back burner, as a last resort option.
UCLA didn’t even spell his name correctly on his name tag for his unofficial visit.
“In my mind, I’m thinking he is really getting sold short,” said Rio Linda High School football coach Jack Garceau, who coached Skattebo for three seasons. “I could not get a straight answer as to why people felt the way they did. Maybe it was his height, maybe it was his lack of speed, maybe it was the fact that he was a white running back. I never really got that perspective.”
After bulldozing through two seasons at Sacramento State, becoming a College Football Playoff darling at Arizona State, and now taking the leading role in the backfield for the New York Giants, no one is questioning his ability on the field anymore.
It’s his boisterous personality that has grasped the attention of the nation, with his celebratory backflips and bruising runs turning him into a rookie sensation in New York, New Jersey and the hearts of old school, hard-nosed football fans everywhere.
Setting the tone
Skattebo has become beloved in sport’s biggest market, and with one of the NFL’s most desperate fan bases. The New York Giants have managed just two winning seasons in the past decade, despite having rosters littered with stars such as Saquon Barkley, Odell Beckham Jr. and two-time Super Bowl champion Eli Manning.
Losing is often described as a feeling worse than the thrill of victory. Big Blue has been feeling blue since its Super Bowl win over the New England Patriots in 2012.
“Over the last decade it’s probably been the worst culture that I’ve seen,” FOX Sports NFL reporter Ralph Vacchiano said. “It’s not like there are bad guys, they’re not loaded with criminals, but there’s this losing feeling. They don’t have a direction. If you look back over the last 10 years, the amount of times they’ve changed coaches and general managers and quarterbacks, you’re going to see that affects the players. A lot are there for a couple of years, they do nothing but lose, and they move one.
“Even for professional athletes, that weighs on you.”
The 2025 season hasn’t flipped that narrative, with the Giants starting 2-4 and sitting in last place in the NFC East. However, Skattebo and rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart have created a new buzz in East Rutherford that has inspired an upswing.
Skattebo initially put himself on the national radar with 121 yards from scrimmage against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 3, adding a touchdown run with a backflip for good measure. He ranks third among rookie running backs this season with 338 rushing yards.
Anybody who walks the hallways of the Giants facilities or in the tunnel of MetLife Stadium before a game can hear the echoes of Skattebo’s best Ric Flair impression.
Or in the middle of position meetings.
Or in the middle of coach Brian Daboll’s media availability.
There's no one quite like Cam Skattebo 🤣 pic.twitter.com/Lu3CHjYx0T
— New York Giants (@Giants) September 19, 2025
“It’s a daily thing,” Daboll said with a smirk.
The screaming around the facility is something Skattebo was known for in Tempe as well. He would let out primal yells and crash ASU coach Kenny Dillingham’s press conferences as a way to unload his infectious energy.
Dillingham loves to watch Skattebo’s joy for the game, rather than the touchdowns and the ensuing acrobatics.
“That’s the childhood game that he still gets to play, and he gets to do it for a living,” Dillingham said. “If it’s something you have to do versus something you love to do, eventually when talent catches up, what is the separating factor? Skatt’s separating factor is his mentality, and nobody can ever take that away from him.”
A perfect scenario
The rookie fourth-round pick has built quite the reputation in just a few months with the Giants. His chaotic energy has sparked optimism within the locker room and invigorated a fan base into believing that he and Dart could lead a new era of Giants football.
“Dart and Skattebo represent a youthful energy that the franchise really needed,” Vacchiano said. “Neither of them come in with the baggage of the last two, three, five years. They’re all about hope. Other players can start to feed off that. I think that they’re bringing the attitude not only in their play, but in their words and leadership.
“I had player after player tell me, ‘How can you not feed off that? If he’s running hard, I’m going to run hard.’”
Skattebo’s wild spurts of energy and mentality to seek out contact when running the football hasn’t always garnered the same positive reception. Garceau said Skattebo had a fumbling problem at times in high school, which he worked hard to overcome. Skattebo has fumbled just once so far in his young NFL career, and never put the ball on the ground in his two seasons at ASU.
At Rio Linda High, Skattebo took his role as a leader very seriously. His loud and brash nature was prevalent for him as a teenager, but not as well received.
“There’s a lot of immaturity that goes along with (Skattebo’s fiery personality), with your emotions swinging one way or another,” Garceau said. “Sometimes that stuff would come off as negative. He was fiery and he would jump down somebody’s throat, and from a coach’s perspective, you understand what he’s doing. But he was on a different level that other kids and parents didn’t understand, so it came off as negative.”
Rio Linda won a state championship during Skattebo’s junior season, in which he was instrumental to the Knights’ success. He carried the ball 305 times that year, picking up a staggering 3,550 yards on the ground along with 42 touchdowns.
He still wound up with no scholarship offers and not a single star to his name.
“I had a conversation with him before he went to Sac State,” Garceau said. “I said, ‘If you let down that tough guy exterior and show people that there’s something else inside other than you’re angry all the time, and show that emotion and show that you’re bought in and all you want to do is win, you would be beloved.’”
Two seasons at Sacramento State allowed Skattebo the opportunity to transfer to a Power Four program in Arizona State, which was beginning a rebuild in 2023 under first-time head coach Kenny Dillingham. Skattebo and his new coach reshaped the program in two seasons, taking home a Big 12 championship in 2024. In his senior season with the Sun Devils, Skattebo finished fifth in the voting for the Heisman Trophy.
The energy between Dillingham and Skattebo matched perfectly, and at times it seemed like one was always trying to top the other. Two years in Tempe alongside Dillingham allowed Skattebo a chance to harness his angry energy on the field into a more connective passion that brought his team together.
Cam Skattebo crashes Kenny Dillingham’s press conference@InfernoIntel pic.twitter.com/pExtF2tARf
— Logan Brown (@LoganABrown) October 6, 2024
“I think things really resonated between him and Dillingham when he got to Arizona State,” Garceau said. “It was one of those perfect scenarios that he kind of fell into. Right place, right time, right circumstances, and it brought out the best in him. … That fire doesn’t always have to be a negative thing. It could be a very positive thing that people catch on to and it becomes infectious.”
‘He’s genuinely an idiot’
The Giants have gravitated toward the spotlight Skattebo has helped place on the team. Nothing fixes a bad culture like winning, but to get there, an organization needs players like Skattebo to lay the groundwork.
Dart, a second-round pick from Ole Miss, quickly became friends with Skattebo during rookie mini camp. The pair got to know each other on a plane ride to the NFLPA’s rookie event in May. It was a perfect opportunity for Skattebo to introduce himself in the only way he can.
“I fell asleep on the plane and I wake up to this dude wet-willying me and trying to put food on my face while I’m sleeping,” Dart told ESPN’s Jordan Raanan. “That is kind of an accurate representation. It’s 100% [who he is].”
Dart is the piece to the puzzle Giants fans will be keeping a much closer eye on. His relationship with Skattebo has bonded them into a dynamic duo of sorts, with the sole goal of saving the organization from years of misery. Like Batman and Robin, Dart and Skattebo are ready to restore faith in Gotham’s football fans.
“Skatt’s somebody who it doesn’t matter where he is or who he is around,” Dart said. “He just acts himself. I think that is something early on people try to figure out when you don’t really know a guy. But when you figure out that it’s genuine, you figure out what kind of friend he is, what kind of teammate he is. He’ll do anything it takes to win.”
It’s impossible to change a franchise overnight, but the Giants have found a pair of rookies to bump the excitement level. With similar mentalities and motivations, they are building the proper culture to win in a big city.
Give us your best Cam Skattebo 👹 pic.twitter.com/laUZETRbUp
— New York Giants (@Giants) October 2, 2025
“He’s genuinely an idiot,” Giants receiver Gunner Olszewski said fondly of Skattebo. “(Reserved) is not in his wheelhouse. He doesn’t know where he’s at. Most rookies when they first get into the league are like, ‘Oh my god, it’s the NFL.’ For him it’s just another day playing football.”
‘Diamonds are forever’
For Skattebo, it all traces back to his time in Tempe, where he learned how to win and how to foster a connection within his team that is rooted in on-the-field production and authenticity off of it.
In Rio Linda, the 23-year-old is already something of a legend whose shadow of accomplishments casts over the Sacramento suburb, his last name known to most everyone. A person passing through will see the No. 44 jerseys, and the locals are quick to mention he is homegrown.
“His dad was a great athlete, his brother was a great athlete, and he just took it to another level,” Garceau said. “There’s a ton of pride in him being a hometown guy. It’s not like he transferred into Rio Linda and became a dude, he grew up here. He drank Rio Linda water in his baby formula.”
Now that his journey spans from coast-to-coast, Skattebo’s hard-nosed running and contagious personality is well-known, and maybe a bit wild. The “Nature Boy” – a nickname he borrowed from Flair, the iconic wrestler, which has stuck since his Rio Linda days – will continue to scream and shout, lowering his head into defenders and backflipping into his passion for the game he’s grown up destined to play.
He might be “a bad little kid” on the field, according to New Orleans Saints linebacker Demario Davis, but that personality carries over into a relatable person with whom fans can connect even if they will never step on an NFL field.
At Arizona State, there may never be another game at Mountain America Stadium without at least one No. 4 jersey in the crowd. Just like they do in his hometown of Rio Linda, tales of his thundering runs and undeniable charisma have started spreading like ghost stories.
In the words of Flair, “Diamonds are forever, and so is Ric Flair.”
And so is Cam Skattebo.
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