Sam Leavitt has watched Cam Skattebo flatten defenders from close range. He knows the running back’s appetite for contact is real. What bothers him is the idea that the New York Giants star is simply an unhinged football player who lives to run over people.
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Leavitt, who played alongside Skattebo at Arizona State before transferring to LSU in 2026, pushed back on that image during an October 27 appearance on Matt Moscona’s Locked On LSU.
“Scat’s actually not crazy,” Leavitt said. “He has some crazy traits about him for sure. And he’s crazy about football and a crazy hard worker and all that, but no, he’s really just an incredible human.”
The running back has built his NFL identity on finishing runs through contact. Leavitt’s point is that the same intensity does not tell you much about the person once the pads come off. The latest collision brought the label back.
In the first quarter against Houston, he took a handoff, lowered his helmet, and drove through safety M.J. Stewart. The collision left Stewart on the turf, but the seven-yard gain was wiped out when officials called Skattebo for unnecessary roughness and assessed a 15-yard penalty.
“I’ve never seen that ever from a ball carrier getting flagged for this,” Matt Moscona said to Sam Leavitt.
Skattebo was immediately furious. Giants head coach John Harbaugh was too, confronting officials over a call that turned a productive run into a costly setback. Harbaugh later argued that Skattebo had a unique playing style.
“Skatt runs low. You have to run low. You have to run low to protect the football,” Harbaugh said. The Giants head coach also called the act of moving the head while running low like Skattebo does a “physical impossibility.”
The call also came after Skattebo had already been fined $7,073 for impermissible helmet use following the Giants’ September win over Tennessee.
The NFL has made lowering the helmet a point of emphasis in an effort to reduce dangerous collisions, even when the contact comes from a ball carrier rather than a defender. However, flags for lowering the helmet are incredibly low.
For starters, in 2022, officials handed out 229 fines for lowering helmets, but only four penalties were called on the field. Most of those fines are from defensive players, yet Skattebo has become the first player this season to be flagged on offense.
Skattebo, though, has shown little appetite for changing the way he runs. After the Houston game, he complained that the league celebrates his physicality in highlight clips but penalizes him for it on the field.
“If I’m going to continue to get flags for it or fines for it, I guess I’m going to play for free,” Skattebo said on Sunday.
That is the version of Skattebo fans see most often: a back who treats every yard as something to be earned the hard way. Leavitt does not dispute that description. He simply thinks it leaves out most of the person.
“That’s what I always tell people: just someone who actually really cares about individuals. Big heart,” Sam Leavitt said. “Always shows me and my family big love. So, I have nothing but love for him.”
The two spent the 2024 and 2025 seasons together at Arizona State, where Skattebo became one of the most productive RBs in college football. Leavitt, now at LSU, saw how much thought his teammate put into the game away from the collisions that made him a crowd favorite.
During an earlier interview with USA Today, Leavitt recalled Skattebo approaching an offensive lineman in practice to explain how he wanted a block executed on an inside-zone play.
“He wants them to get more vertical on the step he wants to take,” Leavitt said. “So, I’ve never really seen a running back coach the lineman on how to block.”
That attention to detail helped turn Skattebo into a star at Arizona State. In 2024, he rushed for 1,711 yards and 21 touchdowns, added 605 receiving yards and three more scores, and finished fifth in Heisman Trophy voting.
He was the centerpiece of a Sun Devils team that won the Big 12 and reached the College Football Playoff for the first time. Now, at the Giants, he brings the same attitude and physicality.
Against Houston, for instance, he rushed for 124 yards and helped the team win in overtime with his incredible 42-yard run. Still, if the flags don’t stop, the team has to find a balance between his aggression and his production.