Walter Has Found His Place in Sun

Everything is reportedly fine at Arizona State, now that the coach and the quarterback have bypassed the “Dr. Phil” option and privately settled their differences.

There was a major breakthrough last Saturday, when sophomore quarterback Andrew Walter passed for a Pacific 10-record 536 yards in Arizona State’s 45-42 victory at sixth-ranked Oregon.

Think about that. In a conference that has produced John Elway, Troy Aikman, Drew Bledsoe, Rodney Peete, Warren Moon, Steve Bartkowski, Jake Plummer, Dan Fouts, Danny White and Joey Harrington, some guy named Andrew Walter has now passed for more yards in one game than any of those other guys.

“That’s pretty elite company,” Walter said by phone from Tempe this week. “I figured [the record] would be more than 536. It’s obviously a huge number, but I figured it would be more.”

That Walter was able to stand tall in the pocket and slice and dice the Oregon secondary was no small achievement, especially when you consider that only months ago, during spring football practice, there was a meeting involving Arizona State Coach Dirk Koetter, Walter and Walter’s parents about Andrew’s possible transfer.

“It was not a touchy-feely meeting,” Koetter said this week. “We laid it down, ‘Here’s what he’s not doing; here’s what he has to do to get better.’ Because we thought there was a good chance that he may leave the program.”

Walter, a hotshot prospect recruited by former coach Bruce Snyder’s staff, played sparingly as a freshman in Koetter’s first season and lost the starting job last spring to redshirt freshman Chad Christensen.

Koetter didn’t like the way Walter was handling his offense and Walter didn’t like that he wasn’t Koetter’s guy.

It was Snyder, fired after the 2000 season and replaced by Koetter, who’d tracked Walter out of Colorado’s Grand Junction High, Snyder’s staff that had broken down Walter’s high school tape and guided him through the recruiting process.

And then this new guy comes in?

“That was a big part of it actually,” Walter said of the adjustment to Koetter.

“I think it’s part of the business, where a new coach comes in and you have to start over. That was kind of hard, I suppose, to go through that. But where we’re sitting now, it’s been worth it.”

Arizona State (6-2) now shares the conference lead with Washington State, not bad for a team picked to finish ninth.

The victory at Oregon earned No. 23 Arizona State its first top-25 ranking since 1999.

Add this to the fact that Plummer, the former Sun Devil standout quarterback, has led the Arizona Cardinals to a share of first place in the NFC West, and it’s almost enough to make Phoenix-area fans forget they live in an inferno.

Walter’s part of this saga could have gone terribly awry. He opened fall camp as a backup to Christensen and wasn’t happy about it.

His relationship with Koetter was ... ?

“A little touchy, I guess is the word,” Walter said.

Koetter is young, bright, innovative on offense and basically from the my-way-or-the-highway school of coaching.

“If guys aren’t getting it done, I’m pretty good about telling them what they need to do to get better,” Koetter said. “Most guys, especially quarterbacks, have been told their whole lives that they’re the greatest player on Earth. I don’t know, I think my relationship with Andrew is fine. But I don’t really know.”

Koetter gives Walter credit for not dragging the team down with his woes and Walter gives his coach credit for giving him the chance to earn the job back.

Christensen started the first four games, with Walter playing parts of all four. Koetter noticed, though, that whenever Walter went in, the offense seemed to “spark up.”

With Arizona State trailing San Diego State by 22 points on Sept. 14, Walter “sparked” the offense with four scoring passes en route to a comeback victory.

He started his first game against Stanford and threw for 414 yards, then passed for 474 yards in a loss to North Carolina. In less than a month, Walter has become the first player in school history with three, 400-yard passing games.

Walter thinks the whole program has turned the corner.

He says, frankly, that last year’s team, with many holdovers from the Snyder era, “didn’t believe in what Coach Koetter was teaching us and telling us, and I think that really hurt chemistry and coach-player relationships with all of us as players.”

You surmise, perhaps, Walter was even one of those guys.

Pac Bits

Oregon fans are combing over the eerie similarities of the school’s last two costly defeats.

Last year, the Ducks’ national title hopes were dashed on Oct. 20, when they lost at home to Stanford. This year, the Ducks’ national title hopes were dashed on Oct. 19, when they lost at home to Arizona State. In both games, the victors were led by sophomore quarterbacks. Last year it was Chris Lewis, Saturday it was Walter. In both games, Oregon blew 14-point second-half leads. In both games, the Ducks scored 42 points in defeat. Last year, Oregon’s loss to Stanford ultimately sent the Ducks to the Fiesta Bowl. Here’s where the similarities end, because Oregon isn’t going to the Fiesta Bowl this year.

More on Walter: He kept the Pac-10’s single-game passing record at home. Walter eclipsed the mark previously held by Arizona State quarterback Paul Justin, who in 1989 threw for 534 yards against Washington State. Jeff Van Raaphorst, another former Sun Devil, is third on the list at 532 yards. The NCAA single-game record is held by former Houston quarterback David Klingler, who in 1990 threw for 716 yards in a game against ... Arizona State.