Rudy Carpenter is struggling to sleep.
It’s Oct. 28, 2005, and the then 19-year-old redshirt freshman quarterback is stirring in his Tempe hotel room on the eve of his first collegiate football start.
One week earlier, Carpenter had replaced injured junior quarterback Sam Keller. He had thrown three touchdown passes in a 45-35 loss to Stanford.
Now, though, he was faced with sprinting out of the tunnel as a starter for the first time.
“I was extremely nervous just walking around in the hotel room,” Carpenter said.
Whatever nerves the wide-eyed quarterback had when he arrived at Sun Devil Stadium the next day quickly dissipated.
Carpenter threw for 401 yards and three touchdowns, as he led ASU to a 44-20 homecoming win over Washington.
“After the game I was like, ‘I’m and idiot. What was I nervous for? That was probably the easiest thing I’ve ever done,’” Carpenter said.
Forty straight starts later, Carpenter acknowledges that the game hasn’t always come as easy as he thought it would.
“In 2005 nobody knew who I was. Nobody cared what I was going to do,” Carpenter said. “I just dropped back, saw a coverage and threw it up.
“I never thought it would have been this difficult, because after that season I was like, ‘Man I don’t understand why everybody’s not good.’”
While it hasn’t always been easy for Carpenter, one constant has remained. For 41 consecutive games he has lined up under center, the longest active streak among college quarterbacks.
ASU coach Dennis Erickson has been in awe of the quarterback’s consistency.
“He’s been the starter for a lot of years and won a lot of games… which is not an easy thing to do,” Erickson said. “What he’s accomplished at that position is about as good as anybody who’s ever played here.”
With his streak of starts, Carpenter, 25-16 all-time as a starter, has been chasing down ASU’s passing records too.
With two regular season games left — against UCLA on Friday and UA on Dec. 6 — Carpenter is only 351 yards shy of becoming the Sun Devils’ all-time passing leader.
Current leader Andrew Walter was a senior in 2004 when Carpenter was redshirting as a member of the scout team.
He said he gave little thought to one day joining Walter atop the ASU record books.
“At that point, I was just hoping I was going to get two years to play,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter figured that he would spend the next two seasons as the backup to Keller.
In 2005 Keller threw for over 1,443 yards in ASU’s first four games, and it looked as though Carpenter would be holding a clipboard on the sideline until his junior year.
But Keller suffered a season-ending injury to his thumb midway through the schedule, giving Carpenter his chance. He hasn’t relinquished the post since.
Carpenter’s tenure as Sun Devil quarterback, though, has not come without controversy.
Despite a brilliant end to the 2005 season in which Carpenter was the nation’s most efficient passer, then ASU coach Dirk Koetter said the battle for the quarterback position would be an open one during spring practice.
At the end of camp, Koetter named Keller the starter, but two days later on Aug. 20, 2006, the coach changed his tune.
“I made a mistake on the quarterback situation and I’m changing my mind,” Koetter told The State Press at the time. “I have to do what’s best for Arizona State’s football program.”
Koetter reportedly gathered the team’s veteran players before settling on Carpenter.
Published reports vary regarding other details, but the shakeup had a two-pronged effect: Carpenter grabbed the reins and Keller transferred to the University of Nebraska.
Playing under scrutiny as the one chosen to be the future of the team, Carpenter struggled in his first year as the full-time starter; his completion percentage dipped from 68 to 55 percent and ASU finished 7-6 overall.
In their first season under Erickson in 2007, Carpenter and Co. rebounded, posting a 10-3 record and earning a share of the Pac-10 Conference title.
That left Carpenter with much to hope for in his senior season. In a disappointing campaign this year, though, many of those hopes have faded away.
Carpenter is pained by the realization that what he hoped would be a benchmark season for the program has turned instead into a forgettable one.
“Last year we had a 10-win season, and we thought we were going to be a part of what was going to get everything turned around,” Carpenter said.
In addition to a six-game losing streak this season, Carpenter had to endure a sprained ankle that almost kept him out of action.
Erickson said the quarterback who wears his emotions on his sleeve has handled this season’s adversity in stride.
“When you’re a senior and you’ve had the success that he’s had, and to have only won four games right now in his senior year, obviously it’s disappointing,” the coach said. “Since I’ve been here, how he handles things is awfully good as far as I’m concerned.”
As Carpenter prepares to dig his cleats into the turf at Sun Devil Stadium for the last time on Friday, he wonders about the legacy he will soon leave behind.
He said he has thought about the reception he will hear when he takes part in the senior day festivities before ASU’s final home game.
“I hope it’s good,” Carpenter said. “I feel like I’ve tried to be a good Sun Devil — the best I can be. I hope people will at least respect that.”
Reach the reporter at nkosmide@asu.edu.
