Garrettson’s departure a sad day

What do you call a quarterback who leaves behind a legacy, but isn’t considered a legend?

When Utah State head football coach Matt Wells announced junior quarterback Darell Garrettson would be leaving the team back in March, the news wasn’t met with any kind of major outcry.

Garrettson didn’t fit the narrative that traditionally establishes a college football player as “great” or “program-defining.” He was no four-year starter — in fact, he never actually played a full season. His number was never on the overpriced jerseys in the bookstore. For all of his successes, he still never broke out of his role as “the guy behind Keeton.”

And that’s a damn shame, because no quarterback has done more for Utah State football in the past two years than Darell Garrettson.

How quickly we forget this guy’s 2013 campaign. Thrown into a starting role following Keeton’s knee injury, Garrettson delivered five straight wins in record-setting fashion, and did it in the Aggies’ first season in the Mountain West. The true freshman went from taking reps in practice with the second string in September to setting the freshman record for passing yards (1,446) and connecting on 60.3 percent of his passes for the fifth best single-season mark for any USU quarterback ever — and those numbers are better than the guy who started ahead of him. He didn’t just fill in for our injured gunslinger, he dissected MW defenses like no freshman had in the history of the program.

He threw for 370 yards against Hawai’i and it was brushed aside because of the Warriors’ suspect defense. He capped off his freshman year by leading USU to a 21-14 win against a ranked Northern Illinois team in the Poinsettia Bowl, and was overshadowed by stellar play of the Aggies’ defense.

Perhaps if Garrettson were the starter heading into week one, he’d have gotten more credit for being one of the premier quarterbacks in the conference. Instead, most fans spent the year finding other reasons the team was winning and ignoring what a trainwreck the season could’ve been without Darell on the depth chart.

The Poinsettia Bowl alone should give USU fans a certain respect for Garrettson — but that’s not even the most important game he won as an Aggie.

Turn the page to 2014. Keeton is out again, and Garretson is expected to lead the charge against undefeated No. 18 BYU on the road as a 21-point underdog. In the first half, he notched 257 yards and three touchdowns on 14-of-17 passing before USU eased up on the gas, content to play defensive football the remainder of the game to lock up a 35-20 beatdown.

That’s the stuff of legend, and Garrettson did it all that game. He dropped a perfect 71-yard bomb to Hunter Sharp, he rushed for a 5-yard touchdown, he thrived under pressure and he surgically removed any hope BYU had for a shot at the BCS playoffs.

And when he left in March, here’s what we got —

“We thank Darell for his contributions to Utah State football the past two years and wish him the best in the future.”

That’s pretty weak. The story of these past two seasons should not be “Keeton got hurt but our defense is solid so it’s all good.” Go back to the press clippings from this past fall — that’s all you’ll see, and that’s not right.

Garrettson won’t have his number retired in the rafters. He never won USU a conference title or got us a national ranking. In a few years, he’ll likely be remembered for the BYU game and that game only — we’re still technically in the “Keeton era” after all. But what he did do deserves to be noticed, and his departure deserves to be met with a lot more respect — he’s earned that much.

—Logan Jones is a junior majoring in journalism. Contact him at logantjones@aggiemail.usu.edu or on Twitter @Logantj.