I've been a big supporter of Lisa Love and the personnel decisions she's made as our athletic director. But Monday, she pulled the plug too early on football coach Dirk Koetter.
I know many ASU football fans and members of the media will disagree with me, but by the same token, most ASU football players would probably agree with me.
Announcing her decision, Love commented that Koetter has taken the program to a wonderful place, but there is a higher platform ASU is looking for.
It's no secret that ASU fans want their team to earn a trip to the Rose Bowl. They want ASU to dominate the Pac-10 and that's not unreasonable. You should always set your sights for the highest goals.
However, only two teams get to play in the Rose Bowl every year, and it's not as if our team was sitting at home every year during the bowl-game season.
Koetter has led the Sun Devils to three consecutive bowl games, winning the last two with the third yet to be played.
Although Koetter didn't have his team smelling roses during his six years here, it's too soon to say he never would have or what he has accomplished hasn't been good enough so far.
Building a football program takes time, and Koetter deserved at least one more year to prove his mettle.
Furthermore, Koetter was working with a young quarterback. Rudy Carpenter had a great freshman showing after Sam Keller was injured, but he hit the sophomore slump this season.
Many people blame Koetter for mishandling his quarterback situation at the beginning of the year.
Although the information about the situation was limited, we did learn Koetter changed his mind about choosing Keller to start after having a meeting with the team's leaders.
Since both Carpenter and Keller had been doing well in training camp, and since the team obviously expressed support for Carpenter, I think Koetter made the right choice.
He lost a lot of public support for refusing to discuss the reasoning behind his change of heart, but I think he was protecting his players from further public scrutiny the way a classy coach should.
I have no doubt the sudden pressure mounted onto Carpenter's shoulders had a great deal to do with his faltering play at some points during the season.
Given at least one more year of experience and stability, who knows where Carpenter might take the Devils? But one thing is for certain, he wanted to play next season under Koetter.
Firing Koetter this year will cause more instability within the team and program and set us back a few years when the next two could have been great.
And to top it all off, Love fired Koetter just eight months after giving him a contract extension. Which means it's going to cost us $2.85 million to get rid of a good coach.
Koetter deserved one more year to get his wins in California and to get some wins against highly ranked opponents. His record of taking us to bowl games and going 4-2 against UA merited at least another year at the helm of our football program.
At the ASU football awards banquet Monday night, Koetter handled his firing with great class. While every coach and player had great things to say about Koetter, and were disappointed with his firing, Koetter himself brought some humor to the microphone and stayed positive.
Koetter was surely struggling with his emotions. He was coming off the highest high of pounding the Wildcats on their own field the night before, and then experienced the lowest low of learning he wouldn't be back with his team next year.
But he kept his composure, spoke with class and focused on the privilege he had of coaching our team. I can't help but feel we're walking away from a great man and a good coach, and I wish we had one more year to see if his coaching would soon have matched his character.
Laura Thorson is a history and political science senior. Reach her at: Laura.Thorson@asu.edu.
