It's 'Ye Time in Tempe
Following Cam Skattebo's footsteps, Army RB transfer Kanye Udoh is one of VP's favourite transfer portal players for 2025.
It's game time, matter fact, it's ‘Ye time.
- Kanye West, musician
I have to give a shoutout to my friend Dwight for providing the inspiration for the feature of today’s article. I read his Christmas list of notable transfers at C2C and immediately knew I had to write about Army transfer Kanye Udoh, quoting none other than Yeezy to open the article. It’s what you all been waiting for, ain’t it?
Beyond the obvious cool factor, this transfer fits like a glove for all parties involved (my favourite). Udoh—who I’m also going to refer to as ‘Ye’ at various points in this article—is coming off an 1100 yard season where he also scored 10 rushing TDs.
For those who’ve been following along my newsletter series, you will recall that this past season was an abnormally productive one for service academy players. Navy’s QB Blake Horvath was at one point a Heisman front runner. Army QB Bryson Dailey probably should have been at the ceremony. And of course, Dailey’s wingman, ‘Ye, who offered a nice 1-2 punch for the Knights.
On the other side—for those who’ve been living under a rock this CFB season (or last)—Arizona State is losing one of the most productive RBs in all of CFB over the last two seasons. Cameron Skattebo originally promoted from Sacramento State (who have themselves now promoted up to the FBS level) to the Sun Devils in the 2023 offseason. His first year was a productive one, albeit plagued by inconsistency. 2024 was very different. For one, he doubled his rushing yardage total over 12 games. He also only failed to reach the end zone twice during the season, more than doubling his total score share from a year ago.
Skattebo was incredible for College Fantasy Football players in 2024, averaging over 30(!) PPG in PPR formats. This was in part due to the fact that he did a lot of different things for the Devils.
‘Ye probably won’t be filling the exact same role; that is, I don’t see him catching a lot of passes (he had a total of two catches over two years at Army). I suppose that’s also due to the system they run over there, but I can’t imagine the staff wouldn’t take advantage of Udoh’s receiving ability if he had it.
Another thing Skattebo would do occasionally (more so in 2023) is throw passes. Needless to say I don’t know that Udoh will be doing much of that either, but he at least will come in with some experience taking snaps directly from center.
It’s not often that service academy players transfer, and that’s part of what makes this move cool. It’s a new era of CFB indeed; unlimited NIL/transfers, service academy players topping the CFF leaderboard… however, some things will never change in this game of ours: when looking for production, always follow the volume. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the staff.
Coaching & System
RB1 PPG AVERAGE — HC: 20.28 — OC: 19.281 (half ppr)
Mr. Dillingham and his lackey, Marcus Arroyo have been good to the RB position over the years. Dillingham, most notably, was on that Memphis staff that fed Darrell Henderson Jr. to nearly 2000 yards on 214 carries (8.4 ypc).
The RB2 behind him was only six carries behind at 208, but rushed for nearly 800 yards less at 1122 yards (5.4 ypc). Henderson scored 22 TDs, while Patrick Taylor Jr. scored 16. Taylor’s production was more in-line with what you’d expect; evidently Henderson was a not only a premium IHOP membership holder but a damn fine football player as well. I mean, those are Ashton Jeanty numbers. In the NIL era, Hendo might have been better off hiring Luigi to put Taylor on ice, because if he saw closer to 300 carries that season my man was breaking the record book (and enjoying all the spoils $$$ that come with that).
Nonetheless, despite the fairly even split both runners got theirs. That’s unusual. Outside of that Memphis team, Dillingham’s history at RB isn’t very extensive or impressive prior to his arrival in Tempe with Skattebo. It does raise the question: how much of what we’ve seen under coach Dillingham was the result of elite playmakers such as Darrell Henderson Jr. and Cam Skattebo?
Some of those worries can be put to rest when looking at the OC, Marcus Arroyo. I’m most familiar with Arroyo from his UNLV days when Aiden Robbins broke out on the scene with 209 carries for 1011 yards and nine scores (on a poor UNLV team, mind you). The year prior Arroyo’s offence leaned on the six year wonder, Charles Williams, who put up similar numbers to Robbins (254-1261-15).
Arroyo was also on staff at Oregon where the staff relied on CJ Verdell as the RB1A. Verdell never saw more than 202 carries under Arroyo, but he did go over 1000 yards in both seasons. I remember these seasons well as I avoided Verdell in drafts, primarily because his production was very up and down, in large part due to inconsistent carries. Not my jam in standard formats, but in a bestball format that works perfectly fine.
One thing about both coaches is that they have used their RB1s in the receiving game each season. They both average around 2-3 targets per game for the RB1. I’ve already mentioned that Udoh wasn’t really the receiving type at Army, which again doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t do it, rather that we don’t have any evidence that he can at the moment. But even if he’s just a battering ram, both coaches average over 15 carries per game for the RB1. That’ll work just fine in CFF. Despite those Oregon splits, Arroyo’s RB1 averages nearly half of the total team carry share as well.
Both coaches average a similar split in run vs. pass, hovering around a 55/45 split in favour of the run. They each average around 25 seconds per play, which is about standard in the FBS.
Kanye Udoh (6’0, 215)
2023 STATS: 179-1117-10 (13 PPG)2
Udoh is entering his fourth year of college football. Originally a two star prospect from New Jersey, he did not play in 2022 for the Knights, but cemented himself as a fixture in the backfield from 2023-2024.
But here’s what’s interesting about ‘Ye, according to 247 Sports he held offers from the likes of Nebraska, Syracuse, Rutgers and Maryland. Evidently, obtaining his services was quite the coup for Army coming out of high school.
I decided to do some detective work, looking back at his senior year highlights in high school and… I’ll be damned if this kid didn’t have five-star level highlights. Go watch for yourself and report back to me if you disagree. The size, the physicality, and his speed were apparent on tape, and it does leave me wondering how he wasn’t rated higher as a recruit. But, this does partially explain the P4 interest despite the two star rating. Needles to say, I was blown away; his movements reminded me a lot of a young Leonard Fournette in high school. I’m going to assume the level of competition wasn’t very good, but still, an impressive looking runner.
Udoh ran for 500 yards in his first season, and then doubled it this season with 1117 yards. His most notable performance as a freshman in my mind was going over 100 yards vs. LSU. Granted that was not a great defence by SEC standards that year, but we’re still talking about a roster full of future NFL players.
In his first two seasons, Udoh averaged over five yards per carry for the Knights. Due to his performance this past season, Udoh was selected to the All-American Athletic Conference second team and was recently named to the ECAC first-team. He was also named the ECAC Division Rookie of the Year in 2023. Officially, he has two years of eligibility remaining.
His head coach, Jeff Monken, spoke about Udoh’s transfer in December:
I think there were some things going on, feelers being put out through other channels . . . It’s not permissible for coaches to contact other players at other colleges directly, but through other channels. I think that just kind of got him thinking about the opportunities (at) other places.
According to my sources, Udoh apparently said this to Monken in confidence before he announced his move…
I done played the underdog my whole career
I've been a very good sport, haven't I, this year?
Post-transfer, Udoh himself spoke about the move to ASU here:
Closing
I like early transfers like this that are great fits because at least there’s some hope that he’ll go under-the-radar by the time drafts kick off in the Spring/Summer. Presumably, there’ll be another round of movement in the April transfer portal period, and those will loom larger on most drafters’ minds when the time comes.
Unfortunately, when there’s a player as productive as Cam Skattebo leaving, there will be a lot of eyes on this backfield regardless. As is the case with all transfers, it’s not guaranteed that Udoh ends up being the replacement for Skattebo, or that there isn’t a committee approach in his absence. As the great Billy Bean once said when replacing his star players for the Oakland A’s “we’ll recreate him in the aggregate”. That often happens in the world of college football, too.
At this time, I have a hard time seeing Udoh being viewed as a sure-fire RB1 option in CFF, despite what Skattebo did this year. He feels more like an RB2/RB3 option at best for most drafters. Where he ends up getting selected will be determined by a variety of factors that are still yet to be determined, such as: whether ASU brings in other RBs, and what the word out of camp is once those kick off.
It is also still yet to be determined how many experienced offensive linemen ASU will return, or field via the transfer portal.
It may interest the reader to know that I was able to track down ‘Ye for some thoughts for this article. I asked him about his time at Army, to which he told me that during his first week in the military Monken told him “we eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast” to which Udoh told me he recalled thinking at the time “you eat pieces of shit for breakfast?”
Certainly an interesting story but I was more interested in his outlook for the 2025 college football season, to which he left me with one quote: “Everybody wanted to know what I would do if I didn’t win……. I guess we’ll never know”. Make of that what you will. ◾
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Sample size of 2018-2024 excluding the COVID season.
Half ppr