The Rudy Carpenter bandwagon seems much more spacious now that everyone has apparently jumped off.
Following last Saturday’s 49-21 whooping provided by the No. 20 Cal Bears, ASU’s sophomore starting quarterback was served not a slice but an entire serving of humble pie.
How bad was last weekend’s performance? So bad Carpenter threw four interceptions, lost a fumble, had two potential picks dropped by Cal and had another fumble recovered by his own back.
Ouch.
The Sun Devil signal caller was even quoted after the game as saying, “I guess I’m not as good as I thought I was.”
In fact, Carpenter thought he was so good that he should jump over former ASU senior Sam Keller, an already successful collegiate performer, before the season began.
Rumors surfaced, a team mutinied and ASU coach Koetter, scared out of his mind to not let another Loren Wade-type sketchy situation go down, pushed Keller out the door for Carpenter.
At the time it seemed like a great idea. Carpenter outplayed Keller in the final pre-season scrimmage, torching his own defense and impressing his teammates and coaches.
News flash:, he is neither the first nor the last quarterback to have a career-best performance against the Sun Devil defense.
All the hype for Carpenter’s success in 2006 was built off his wins last season filling in for the injured Keller.
Carpenter led the nation in passing efficiency because his résumé consisted of wins over Washington, Washington State, Arizona and Rutgers.
But those wins were not exactly prime measuring sticks of evaluating greatness.
ASU needs Carpenter to shake the bad game off and step his play up to the level that Koetter thought he was capable of playing in the preseason.
With weapons like emerging running back Ryan Torain and the best under-publicized tight end in the nation, Zach Miller, Carpenter has options on how to pick apart the Oregon defense.
He needs to get the ball into the hands of his playmakers so the pressure to move the Sun Devils up and down the field isn’t squarely on his shoulders.
If ASU wants to continue its winning ways against the Ducks, (3-1 in last four meetings) Carpenter can’t turn the ball over.
Now that the Sun Devil running game has been established as a threat to opposing defenses, it is time for Carpenter to re-establish himself as a prime-time performer.
Even after his career-worst stinking-up-the-joint performance against California, Carpenter still leads the Pac-10 with 11 touchdown passes and has led the Sun Devils to outscore opponents 56-14 in the second half.
And while Oregon’s defense has been tough against the pass – only allowing 182.7 yards of passing and three touchdowns in three games – the Ducks are not getting to the quarterback. The lack of pressure has the defensive unit only totaling six sacks in three games.
Without a steady pass rush, the secondary has only been able to intercept two passes this year.
The last bit of bad news for ASU heading into this match up was the announcement that senior right tackle Andrew Carnahan will be out for the season with a knee injury.
Carpenter’s right side will be under attack on Saturday, but not to worry. When Carnahan went down last week, former walk-on redshirt freshman Richard Tuitu’u stepped in and did a nice job.
With declining confidence despite abundant talent around him, Carpenter will have the home crowd behind him looking to raise his spirits, and in return hopefully he can raise his level of play.
And if he delivers one good performance, the bandwagon will be churning once again.
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