4. Arizona State Sun Devils11-2 (7-2 Big 12 regular season)What’s next: First-round bye; vs. winner of No. 12 Clemson-No. 5 Texas at Peach Bowl, Jan. 1.Head coach: Kenny Dillingham (Second season, 14-11 overall)About Dillingham: A graduate of Arizona State and native Phoenician, Dillingham returned to Tempe in 2023 after five impressive seasons as an offensive coordinator, with stops at Memphis and Florida State alongside fellow former Sun Devils assistant Mike Norvell.ResumeHighlighting a late-season push with six straight wins are Arizona State’s signature victories over fellow Top 25 teams Kansas State and BYU. The 24-14 and 28-23 wins followed a pattern of close calls through the Sun Devils’ season, with nine of their 12 regular-season games decided by 10 points or fewer — including the two losses at Texas Tech (30-22) and Cincinnati (24-14). They busted out of the trend of close calls with a dominant 45-19 shellacking of Iowa State in the Big 12 championship.Postseason historyArizona State’s last appearance in one of the postseason events that became part of the Bowl Championship Series and four-team Playoff era’s New Year’s Six predates either system. The 1996 Sun Devils came a possession away from a national championship with their Rose Bowl Game loss to Ohio State. This season’s Playoff is the closest Arizona State has come to returning to that high watermark since the 2013 team lost to Stanford in the Pac-12 championship game.The road to AtlantaRest is the first order of business for Arizona State after a surprisingly lopsided win in the Big 12 title game. No. 5 Texas hosts Clemson on Dec. 21 and the winner meets the Sun Devils on Jan. 1 in Atlanta at the Peach Bowl.Names to knowRB Cameron SkatteboHe shares a conference with the top Heisman Trophy contender (Colorado’s Travis Hunter) and a position with the other (Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty), or else Skattebo might be in the conversation himself.His 172.8 all-purpose yards per game in the regular season were second-most in the nation. He is only 74 yards shy of tying the conference single-season rushing record after putting up 170 yards in the Big 12 title game, and his three TDs against Iowa State put him atop the single-season TD record list.