yards and 28 touchdowns

Can Taylor Kelly end up as the greatest ASU QB everTEMPE, Ariz. Football has been around for a long time. Only slightly younger are the barroom debates about who are the greatest players in the game. Armed with varying levels of logic, stats, biases, and (fuzzy) memories, such discussions are a time honored and well worn fan tradition.As Arizona State’s 2014 season draws ever closer, Sun Devil Nation has the opportunity to participate in one that holds a growing degree of validity.Two years ago, there were certainly no expectations that this topic could one day be broached. In fact, such a notion would likely have been roundly laughed off.Currently, there are four players who I firmly place the "greatest of all time" discussion: Danny White, Jake Plummer, Andrew Walter and Rudy Carpenter. All four of those players had the rare combination of overall success, signature moments, longevity, and statistical excellence to put them head and shoulders above the rest.There have been other excellent players throughout ASU history such as Mark Malone, Mike Pagel, Jeff Van Raaphorst, and Brock Osweiler, but each fails to reach that foursome in one area of the key criteria or another. Van Raaphorst, in particular, was a difficult omission.So can Kelly not only get in the red bottom shoes mix, but make a case for the top spot?His career has become one of the more remarkable Sun Devil football success stories in recent years, transforming into one of the most dynamic dual threat quarterbacks in the nation.Kelly initially won the job over Mike Bercovici and Michael Eubank prior to the 2012 season and helped guide ASU to a 2 0 start over undermanned NAU and Illinois teams. The next week, he struggled in a disappointing road loss to Missouri, raising lingering questions about his long term viability.It was that moment that Kelly points to as setting him upon his current course of success.the Missouri game, we went down there and we lost a real close one," Kelly remembers. "I threw an interception to lose the game. I just bounced back from there and things just started to go my way. I just put that behind me and focused on myself and my team and how to make them better. that defeat, Kelly led ASU to three straight wins, throwing 11 touchdowns without an interception, his place as the team’s starter was solidified, and the rest is recent history.Just how historic remains to be seen. Let’s dig in.Obviously, the game of football has changed drastically and evolved by leaps and bounds over the decades. Where once the "three yards and a cloud of dust" mentality dominated the game, football over the last 20 years has become an aerial circus, with pass first attacks becoming the new norm. Add in ASU’s up tempo attack, which greatly adds to the number of offensive plays the team runs per game.Kelly is just one of the many quarterbacks to benefit from this offensive shift, and that makes comparing his stat line against those of previous decades nearly an apples to oranges affair. Consider that Kelly threw exactly double the amount of passes in 2013 than White did in 1972. A look at the record book finds the eight highest single season passing attempt totals in Sun Devil history have all come since 2002. Fun.While Kelly enjoys the advantages of a far great number of plays and a scheme designed with a focus on his dual threat talents, he ultimately still has to make the plays, and that is something that he has done so repeatedly over the past two seasons.In fact, Kelly’s 2013 may have been the greatest single season statistical performance ever seen by a Sun Devil quarterback.He threw for 3,635 yards and 28 touchdowns while running for 852 gross yards (608 after sack yardage factored in) with another nine touchdowns. His 4,243 yards of total offense set an ASU single season record.After just two seasons as the starter, Kelly already finds himself in some rarefied air.Kelly’s Current All Time Ranks in ASU History64.6 completion % (1st) louboutin replica7,853 yards of total offense (4th)57 passing TD (5th)547 completions (5th)6,705 passing yards red bottom shoes cheap (6th)847 attempts (7th)So where could he end up? If we take the average of Kelly’s christian louboutin shoes replica first two seasons and place those numbers as his 2014 stat line, Kelly would finish with his name atop many key categories.