Raleek Brown took winding road to Arizona State-Baylor matchup of Big 12’s top 2 rushers

TEMPE — Arizona State running back Raleek Brown has battled through injuries and a position change to get to a matchup at Baylor on Saturday, where the Big 12’s top two rushers will face off.

Brown has racked up 292 rushing yards to trail only Baylor’s Bryson Washington (304) among Big 12 running backs. He’s done so on 31 fewer carries than Washington (66) to average 8.3 yards per rush.

ASU head coach Kenny Dillingham called Brown a “diamond that people forgot about” after a 144-yard game against Texas State.

“He made the kind of jump that I feel like (receiver Jordyn Tyson) made last year,” Dillingham said after the win. “Where he was working back and nobody really knew about him. Everybody forgets about you when you transfer somewhere and don’t play for a year ’cause you’re not a new transfer, but you’re just a guy on the roster now. And he put in the work, just like JT did last year. He put in the work and that work is showing up.

“He’s worked his butt off. I mean, he’s focused, he’s dialed (in), he’s competitive, he’s good in pass protection. Like, he’s earned the right to have a game like that.”

None of Brown’s 12 rushes were more impactful than a breakaway dagger, where he ran 75 yards untouched to give ASU a 34-9 lead with 12 seconds remaining in the third quarter. His run was the second fastest in Week 3 across the nation, according to Reel Analytics.

That rush alone was 27 more scrimmage yards than he had all of 2024, when he only saw the field in two games (27 snaps) because of a nagging hamstring injury.

“It means a lot, man. I’ve been working for like two years or a year and a half, been working a lot,” Brown said Saturday. “Just thank (the) coaches and everybody that believed in me that I could play running back.”

He credited ASU strength and conditioning coach Joe Connolly for how he was able to attack a healthy offseason, putting on 10 pounds from his 2024 listing of 185 pounds.

The Sun Devils have needed his production, as primary running back Kyson Brown injured his ankle after six snaps at Mississippi State. Raleek Brown stepped in to the tune of 110 rushing yards on 18 carries to break his season open.

Raleek Brown’s desire to prove himself at RB led to ASU transfer

Brown joined USC out of Mater Dei High School in California as the No. 42 overall prospect in the 2022 class and started to show his versatility late in his first season.

He finished with 227 rushing yards (5.4 yards per carry) and 175 receiving yards (10.9 yards per catch) with three touchdowns of each. But after flashing as a true freshman, the USC staff decided to move Brown to wide receiver.

“Just to get me out in space more,” Brown said on Tuesday of why USC made the call. “I was bought into it for sure. Anything the coach told me to do, I was bought into it, so I was just hoping that it worked out.”

He ended up redshirting in 2023, only getting 26 total snaps. He scored one touchdown, and it came in the only game where he got running back snaps (five) and rushing attempts (three).

Brown said ASU pitched him on switching back to running back, which was a prerequisite for him in the transfer portal.

“I was going back to running back no matter what. So if nobody (wanted) me at running back, I wasn’t going,” he said.

Now, he’s proving he can hold down the position in a loaded room.

“I feel like you can’t prepare for us ’cause everybody could do something different,” Brown said of the diverse approach that also includes Army transfer Kanye Udoh.

ASU will likely get Kyson Brown back on Saturday, so the Sun Devils could see what it looks like when all three are healthy for the first time since re-establishing the downhill identity in the second half at Mississippi State.

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