Four years of Rudy Carpenter was enough to make some ASU football fans puke. Carpenter was a fierce competitor who often wound up injured because of his sometimes reckless style of play. The injuries took a toll on his production and thereby took a toll on the overall success of the offense. Last year was specifically a year that was hard on the Sun Devil faithful as the offense was one of the worst to ever line up in Sun Devil history.
So where does this leave the Sun Devils? It leaves them with a senior who hasn’t started a game in his career and hasn’t played in many games with any level of importance. Danny Sullivan is the senior QB who is the last of the Dirk Koetter era. Sullivan has had zero success in his career, save for some garbage time in the Holiday blow out loss ASU suffered in 2007.
For his career Sullivan has completed only 45-percent of his passes with only a completion percentage of 35-percent in garbage time last year. These numbers are VERY SCARY and it makes you wonder why Coach Erickson has a high level of confidence in Sullivan. Regardless of what Sullivan has done in spring practice and in fall practice to this point, the one thing seems to be true with him, he’s consistently inconsistent, even down right bad.
Beyond the problems Sullivan has the talk was the Sun Devils would be switching to more a zone read attack that requires the QB to be more mobile. Sullivan is no where near mobile for his size. He’s a tall big pocket passer with a strong arm that would struggle to keep a defense honest with his lead feet. So Sullivan doesn’t really fit the profile of the starting QB the Sun Devils need. Yet to this point he seems to be the one who will be the starter. He was the starter through the spring and now seems to be holding down the job through the first part of fall camp.
Sophomore Samson Szakacsy seemed to be the heir apparent. A fairly high rated recruit who was committed to USC at one time before being dumped in favor of Arkansas transfer Mitch Mustain, he was to be the guy. He has a nice package of arm strength and most of all he’s very athletic and mobile. It would seem that he should be the guy who comes in and takes over the offense that is geared more to his style of play. However to this point he hasn’t done much to sway the coaches away from Sullivan.
The dark horse in the race may be Brock Osweiller. Osweiller by all accounts is a freakish athlete with crazy arm strength. At 6-foot-8 he possesses a cannon for an arm, but is also way more mobile for a player of his size. He has all the tools, but hasn’t quite made his way up the depth chart. He is the true heir apparent and should be the starter next year with Sullivan’s departure. Osweiller is a true freshman who graduated high school early to be here for spring football. He did well enough in the spring to over take Chasen Stangel (who chose to transfer) and Jack Elway who quit the team to focus on academics.
The question is will the Sun Devils be able to get enough production from Danny Sullivan to overcome last year’s offensive failures. Hopefully the Sun Devils will plug in a player who is likely to be more consistent that Sullivan. Whether it’s a baptism by fire for Osweiller or a slight risk with the inexperienced Szakacsy.
Tags: ASU quarterbacks preview, Brock Osweiller, Danny Sullivan, Dennis Erickson, Samson Szakacsy
