Dirk Koetter will always be a coach defined by his quarterbacks.
After the Sam Keller-Rudy Carpenter soap opera, many fans and media members are either crucifying Koetter for indecisiveness and don't want to see his contract extended, or are lauding him for being a person of principle, depending on what side of the fence they sit.
But if it wasn't for another sticky situation involving Koetter's quarterbacks just four years ago, ASU would never have had two talented signal callers this season in the first place.
What's more, the program probably wouldn't have the tremendous offensive depth across the board it now enjoys.
And perhaps, the coach wouldn't even be here.
Koetter very well could have been fired by now if it wasn't for his decision to hand over the starting quarterback duties to current Oakland Raider and former Sun Devil great Andrew Walter four games into the 2002 season.
In spring 2002, Koetter made the now-unimaginable decision to start then-redshirt freshman Chad Christensen instead of the man who would become ASU's all-time leading passer.
Walter, entering his sophomore season at the time, was unfairly labeled a bust after seeing minimal action in 2001. People bellyached that Walter wasn't mobile, and Koetter relegated him to backup entering 2002 in favor of Christensen, a slightly more mobile player with a fraction of the arm strength and accuracy Walter possessed. But Koetter recruited Christensen. He didn't recruit Walter.
Christensen, a model student-athlete but likely not a Pac-10 caliber quarterback, struggled heavily with the offense, throwing 26-for-60 for 295 yards in his initial four starts combined. That's a far cry from the passing numbers ASU fans are accustomed to now.
With ASU trailing 22-0 in the fourth game of 2002 at San Diego State, Walter entered the game to rocket a 72-yard touchdown on his first pass of the game. He then threw a 33-yard touchdown on his second pass. When the day was done, Walter amassed 241 yards and four touchdowns in just more than two quarters of work as ASU took a 39-28 come-from-behind victory.
Walter never looked back after that, throwing a school record for yards in a season (3,877) in just 10 starts. That made him ASU's first and only 3,000-yard passer, a feat he accomplished again in 2003 and 2004.
Walter went on to throw for a Pac-10 record 536 yards in a 45-42 come-from-behind win over No. 6 Oregon later in 2002. The team trailed by 21 points early and Walter completed clutch pass after clutch pass to overcome the deficit.
In 2003, Walter threw for 408 yards on 34 completions, including a game-winning touchdown pass on the last play of the game to give ASU a 33-31 come-from-behind win at North Carolina.
As a senior in 2004, Walter tossed for 428 yards and five touchdowns against No. 16 Iowa in a 44-7 fireworks show.
He then engineered another come-from-behind victory, a 48-42 nail-biter over UCLA, as he threw for 415 yards and six - count 'em - six touchdowns, including a 46-yard score and a 65-yard go-ahead score, both with less than seven minutes left in the game.
And against Stanford a few weeks later, Walter threw for 415 yards and a game-winning touchdown with just nine seconds remaining to preserve a 34-31 win.
To those of you who complain about Koetter's 33-28 record at ASU, consider how bad that mark would have been without Walter single-handedly winning games over San Diego State and Oregon in 2002, North Carolina in 2003 and UCLA and Stanford in 2004. It would be 28-33, certainly grounds for being fired.
Without Walter, Koetter's record against conference opponents would be 14-26 instead of 17-23, and instead of having two wins in five years against ranked opponents (Oregon in 2002, Iowa in 2004), ASU's coach would have none, zilch, nada.
Also consider the "embarrassment of riches" Koetter said his offense currently enjoys.
After watching what a high-caliber quarterback can do in Koetter's system, Sam Keller decided to take back a commitment to Michigan in the spring of 2003 and head to Tempe.
Rudy Carpenter said he chose ASU in spring of 2004 over other schools because he wanted to throw touchdown passes instead of hand the ball off.
And what about star pass-catching recruits like Zach Miller, Rudy Burgess, Mike Jones and Chris McGaha? Think there's a chance they would have come to ASU if there was a quarterback in place throwing for about a 100 yards a game, like Christensen was?
So no matter where you stand on Keller versus Carpenter, the situation has been blown out of proportion because Koetter really couldn't have made a bad decision - if not morally, at least football-wise - with either Keller or Carpenter. Both players would give the Sun Devils an opportunity to win games.
That wasn't the case in 2002, when Walter sucked up his ridiculous demotion in spring football, waited his turn and then proceeded to rewrite the record books - something this year's signal callers weren't willing to do.
So say what you want about Koetter, good or bad, regarding his time thus far in Tempe.
Just remember, Walter is the man who saved the program.
Reach the reporter at drex1_phx@hotmail.com
