Exclusive: C.J. Fite Discusses Motivation, Team Chemistry, and More

TEMPE -- Arizona State's 2025 season is now just three days away.

A large part of the 11th-ranked Sun Devils' success a season ago was the rise of numerous players into stardom.

Defensive tackle C.J. Fite is one of those players.

The junior lead the charge of the first-ranked run defense in the Big 12, and has serious designs of a player that will be playing on Sundays in the near future.

Arizona State on SI secured an exclusive interview with the star on Tuesday - the transcript of the interview with some commentary is below.

Fite Interview

Q: C.J. - I know how important your family, your faith, and your brotherhood is to you. How much have all three of those contributed to you pushing to be your best every single day?

Fite: "Oh yes, it gives me a reason to do everything. It gives me a why. Obviously, I know God gives me this ability and I'm just trying to give him glory through the whole thing. Just trying to appreciate every day because I know it's a blessing to just be here. It's a blessing to just be able to be a part of something like this. So, and obviously my family and the brothers around here just support you every day. It drives you to keep going."

Q: You played high school ball in Texas, obviously. How much did playing in such a competitive state help you progress into becoming a quality college player?

Fite: "I say at the end of the day, it's all just football, no matter who you play football is going to be football. So, it doesn't matter who I play against, as long as my technique goes, part of the game really. I mean, growing up, I was in the lower division, like 3A, so people really didn't really look too much where I was at.

So I mean, at the end of the day, I was just playing football, so it's not like, everybody's like, Oh, he plays for Texas, so he plays in Texas, so he's got to be a good player. I was still overlooked. Nobody really cared where I played at. It was just a matter of what I put on tape. So tape doesn't lie. So wherever we at - you have good tape, they're going to find you."