As the college football offseason navigates the transfer portal and courtroom, the Arizona State Sun Devils and Kansas Jayhawks’ preparations for an important milestone in the 2026 college football season continue apace.
On Sept. 19, the two Big 12 programmes will make history at Wembley Stadium in London, squaring off in the inaugural Union Jack Classic, the first college football game ever played at the iconic venue. For Sun Devils defensive lineman C.J. Fite, the opportunity to cross the Atlantic represents something far more meaningful than a Week 3 road trip.
Arizona State’s C.J. Fite Opens Up on Union Jack Classic Clash With Kansas
Fite joined a Union Jack Classic media call this week, and when asked whether the London game factored into his decision to return to Tempe for one more season, the 6’2″, 305-pound defensive tackle didn’t hesitate.
“It was something that I thought would be cool to be able to do,” Fite explains. “So, it was in the back of my mind. It was more of, now I get to come back, now I get to come to London. I get to have this experience that not everybody can do, not everybody has. It’s going to be fun, I’m excited.”
There’s a segment of the American college football fanbase that bristles at the idea of games being played abroad. The arguments are familiar and loud, ranging from despair over taking games away from campuses, faux rage over perceived player safety issues, to a simple lack of understanding of fans’ interest in the game outside the traditional heartland.
Yet, for the student-athletes at the centre of these conversations, the perspective is often strikingly different.
Fite sees the trip as a genuine catalyst for personal growth, the kind of experience that a kid from Tatum, Texas, with a population of roughly 1,300, might never otherwise encounter.
“I feel like it can grow you as a person,” Fite reflects. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. In life, you have to do things that you probably wouldn’t do before to be able to grow. I don’t know that I would have went to London before this trip.”
“I’ve always said it would be cool to go to this place, this place, and London has always been that place,” Fite continues. “Knowing me, I probably wouldn’t have went, so to actually be able to go, I feel like it’s going to push me to do more things and step out of that comfort zone.”
For all the institutional talk about globalising the sport and expanding brand footprints, with Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark having spoken openly about wanting the league to be the most globally relevant conference in college athletics, the human dimension of these games can get lost.
These are young men, many of whom have never left the country, being handed an opportunity to see a part of the world they might not otherwise visit until well into adulthood, if at all.
What does Fite want to experience most? Not the tourist traps or Instagram landmarks. He wants to feel the culture.
“Really the environment and culture. Small things excite me,” Fite says with a warmth that comes through even on a media call. “So, I heard someone on a call say ‘cheers,’ and stuff like that is cool to me because you don’t hear it all the time. Picking up on different things, different cultures, that’s the biggest thing I’d like to see.”
“Even with the team here, so many people have different things that they do back home that they bring to one locker room. So, to be able to go to somebody else’s place and see how they do things, how they talk, what they eat, to be immersed in that, that’s the thing I’m most excited about.”
There’s that curiosity again. As someone who fell in love with college football from across the pond, hearing a player talk about the cultural exchange with such genuine enthusiasm is the part of the Union Jack Classic story that deserves more oxygen.
Fite’s Road to Arizona State, From Tatum to Tempe
The Union Jack Classic will be another chapter in a football journey that, like so many of the best stories in this sport, almost didn’t happen the way it did.
Fite grew up in Tatum, a small town in East Texas, where football is woven into the fabric of daily life. A multi-sport athlete at Tatum High School, he dominated on the defensive line while also playing on the offensive side of the ball, and competed in shot put and discus for the school’s track and field team.
Over his sophomore and junior seasons, Fite amassed 94 total tackles, 23 tackles for loss, and eight sacks, the kind of production that had college programs taking notice, even if his three-star ranking didn’t reflect the full picture.
By the summer of 2022, Fite had committed to Arizona State. The Sun Devils were his choice, the desert his destination. Yet foundations built on sand aren’t always the most solid.
Herm Edwards was fired after a disastrous start to the 2022 season, the program was mired in NCAA investigations, and the on-field product was crumbling toward a 3-9 finish. For a high school senior weeks away from signing day, the uncertainty was overwhelming.
“My senior year, I was committed to ASU, but I was committed to the old staff,” Fite recalls. “When the old staff got fired, I had to decommit. It was a few weeks before I had to sign, I didn’t know where I was going to go, and I had just hurt myself, so I didn’t have all my senior film, and I was just trying to figure out where I was going to go.”
Fite was a 17-year-old, injured, lacking a full final campaign of film, trying to navigate one of the most consequential decisions of his young life with a ticking clock in a far cry from the polished narrative of recruiting highlights and signing day ceremonies.
The call that changed everything came from the new coaching staff. Kenny Dillingham had been named head coach on Nov. 27, 2022, and his assistants, defensive coordinator Brian Ward and defensive line coach Vince Amey, wasted no time reaching out.
“I got a call from our DC and d-line coach, and they were talking to me, reassured me, and I could tell they were genuine, tell they were real people,” Fite explains.
“I already loved it out here. I loved the environment and what it looked like. At that point, I was just trying to figure out who I was going to be with. I felt comfortable, and after a lot of prayer, I was blessed to be here. It’s been one of the best decisions of my life.”
By Dec. 12, 2022, barely two weeks after decommitting, Fite had recommitted to Arizona State. He signed nine days later and was one of the first recruits in the class to reaffirm his pledge to the new regime, a small but telling detail about the kind of person Fite is and the faith he placed in the coaches who would shape his development.
The results speak for themselves. As a true freshman in 2023, while his peers back in Tatum were attending prom, Fite was going pad for pad with veteran transfers in spring practice. He played 350 snaps that season (fourth-most among all true freshman defenders in the Pac-12), logging 15 tackles and a fumble recovery despite Arizona State stumbling to a 3-9 record.
The 2024 season, though, is where the story turns into a fairytale.
Fite started all 14 games as the Sun Devils, picked dead last in the Big 12 preseason media poll, ripped off one of the most improbable runs in recent college football history.
He posted 30 tackles, four tackles for loss, two sacks, and a fumble recovery he returned for a touchdown against Mississippi State, earning second-team All-Big 12 honours as Arizona State captured its first Big 12 championship with a 45-19 demolition of Iowa State.
The ride continued into the College Football Playoff, where Arizona State pushed Texas to double overtime in the Peach Bowl before falling 39-31. The sleeping giant had woken up, and Fite was one of the players at the heart of the transformation.
His junior campaign in 2025 saw continued growth, even as the Sun Devils navigated a more uneven season. Fite’s 6.5 tackles for loss were a career-high, with 4.5 of those coming in a devastating three-game stretch against Texas State, Baylor, and TCU. His anchoring presence helped ASU’s run defence finish second in the Big 12 for the second consecutive year.
Across 37 career games, Fite has accumulated 73 tackles, 12 tackles for loss, three sacks, two passes defensed, one forced fumble, and two fumble recoveries, including the one he took to the house.
Faith, Football, and Fite’s Return to Arizona State
Despite that production, he chose to return for his senior season rather than declare for the NFL. The decision wasn’t made lightly.
When Fite talks about why he came back, there’s no calculated weighing of draft stock or financial projections. There’s faith, there’s community, and there’s a deep appreciation for the people around him.
“This place has been special since I got here my freshman year,” Fite explains. “Nobody’s changed. The coaches have been the same as when I first got here. Real people, and they’ve been real from the start when I got recruited.”
“Coach Dillingham does a good job of bringing in the right people, genuine people who care about everybody. You have no choice but to get better here. You’re around good people. You have fun. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
That authenticity is the thread that runs through Fite’s entire story.
From a small-town Texas kid navigating a coaching change weeks before signing day, to a two-time Pat Tillman Leadership Council member who leads Arizona State’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes bible study, to a proven difference-maker anchoring one of the Big 12’s best defensive fronts, the consistency of character is striking.
He’s not the most vocal player on the roster, by his own admission, but his leadership is felt in the way he carries himself, in the standard he sets daily.
Heading into 2026, Fite will be one of the most tenured members of a Sun Devils roster that has seen significant turnover.
With edge rushers Prince Dorbah and Elijah O’Neal departing alongside defensive tackle Jacob Rich Kongaika, and key contributors lost to both the NFL Draft and the transfer portal, Fite’s presence in the middle of defensive line coach Diron Reynolds’ unit becomes even more critical.
He’s projected by many as not just the best interior defensive lineman in the Big 12, but as one of the premier draft prospects on ASU’s roster alongside receiver Omarion Miller, running back Kyson Brown, and cornerback Rodney Bimage Jr.
Don’t expect Fite to be consumed by the individual accolades, though. When he talks about 2026, it’s the collective journey that lights him up, the chance to lead a new generation of Sun Devils, to chase another Big 12 title, and yes, to walk out of the tunnel at Wembley Stadium on a September afternoon with his teammates beside him.
For a kid from Tatum, Texas, who once didn’t know where he was going to sign, that’s quite the view ahead.
If you want to catch Fite and Sun Devils in action when they take on Kansas in the Union Jack Classic, tickets are available now. To map out the road to the Big 12 Championship Game, PFSN’s CFB Playoff Predictor allows you to predict or simulate the entire 2026 college football season.Â
