Andrew Walter’s arm, a fleet of talented receivers and a smashing defense have propelled Arizona State into the national rankings and helped bury bitter memories of a disappointing 2003 season.
In his fourth season, coach Dirk Koetter has the No. 22 Sun Devils 3-0 heading into Saturday night’s Pac-10 opener at home against Oregon State.
In the name of winning, the sometimes strained relationship
between the star senior quarterback and the coach has been mended.
“We both understand this is it for me and him on the same team at ASU,” Walter said. “It’s all about wins. We just have a good understanding about what it’s all about right now. There’s no other goal than getting a win every week, so it’s pretty easy to be on the same page when it’s like that.”
Every Sun Devil was on that page last Saturday night, when Walter threw for 428 yards and five touchdowns in a 44-7 rout of then-No. 16 Iowa.
The rousing victory in front of a noisy capacity crowd in Tempe was exactly what was expected of Koetter when he was hired out of Boise State after Arizona State fired Bruce Snyder following the 2000 season.
The Devils sputtered to 5-6 last year, and Walter flirted with leaving school for the NFL. At 6-foot-4, he has the size and arm to make it at the professional level. But his prospects for a high draft pick weren’t great, and the lure of one last shot at college football brought him back.
He wanted to leave school a winner.
“That’s why I came back,” Walter said. “I didn’t come back to break any records. Those are all nice, but I came back to have success as a team.”
Walter has put up gaudy numbers at Arizona State. His five TD passes against Iowa gave him 66 for his career, breaking Jake Plummer’s school record. He needs 12 more to break John Elway’s Pac-10 record of 77.
Walter already has the top two single-season yardage marks in school history, and his 536 yards at Oregon in 2002 also is a school record.
But this year he is helped by a solid running game, led by Loren Wade, and a big group of wide receivers. Derek Hagan leads the group with 24 — and he is on a streak of six consecutive 100-plus-yard receiving games. Freshman Zach Miller, who plays tight end and H-back in Koetter’s wide-open system, had a breakout game against Iowa with 10 catches, including a pair of spectacular touchdown grabs.
Outside the program, few expected much out of Arizona State this season. The media covering the Pac-10 picked the Sun Devils to finish sixth. But within the program, with a flood of returning players, there was a growing feeling of self-confidence.
“I think our guys are aware that when they put it together, they can play,” Koetter said.
A big weakness through the coach’s first three seasons in Tempe has been on defense, but this season the coaching staff shifted from a 4-2-5 scheme to a 4-3.
The defense also was bolstered by the return of hard-hitting safeties Ricardo Stewart and Emmanuel Franklin, who both missed all or most of last season with injuries. Junior college transfer Dale Robinson, Justin Burks and Jamar Williams have been outstanding at linebacker. Williams was the Pac-10 defensive player of the week.
They have brought a mind-set that had been missing in previous seasons.
“There’s a lot of guys out there who just love to hit,” Walter said. “They just have an aggressive, violent attitude that you need.”
The fast Arizona State start could become meaningless in a hurry. Walter said his job is to make sure those around him don’t let up after the Iowa victory.
“The more success you have, maybe the more you have to tighten down,” he said. “You don’t want it to get to people’s heads.”