Unveiling of the Hands-On Defense : Matadors Never Lose Their Hold on St. Mary’s With Five Sacks : COMMENTARY

The hot new item for the Cal State Northridge football team this year is the run-and-shoot offense.

But Saturday, the Matadors unveiled yet another new weapon: the run-and-sack defense.

A large share of the credit for Saturday’s 45-13 rout of St. Mary’s College has to go to a defensive unit that seemed to have its collective hands on the ball almost as often as Gael quarterback Mitch Mantua.

And when those hands weren’t wrapped around the ball, they seemed to be wrapped around Mantua.

The Matadors collected five sacks (by Steve Dominic, Darrell McIntyre, Ray Johnson, Mike Pestana and Pat Cerruti) and five interceptions (two by Simon Goss and one each by Reggie Wauls, Dan Coleman and Johnson).

The Galloping Gaels, who might have been better be characterized Saturday as the Retreating Gaels, got 87 yards rushing, but lost 77.

And CSUN was at its toughest when it had to be. On one occasion, St. Mary’s took over on the Matador two-yard line, but three downs later found itself pushed back to the 19.

It got so bad late in the game that Gael second-string quarterback Pete Johnson, entangled as usual by Matador arms and legs, switched hands and shoveled the ball underhanded to a receiver. He only picked up a few yards, but, what the heck, it was one of the few things that worked all day.

St. Mary’s got its first score after recovering a fumbled punt at the three. The Gaels’ other touchdown came after an interception that gave St. Mary’s the ball at the CSUN 16.

“It’s really so simple,” Northridge Coach Tom Keele said. “We were better than they were.”

And bigger.

The Matador defensive front line, from left to right if you have the misfortune to be standing in front of it, includes the 6-4, 235-pound Dominic at one end and the 6-0, 240-pound McIntyre at the other. The tackles are Joe Barbosa (6-4, 240) on the left and Doug Minor (6-2, 255) or Pat Ricciardi (6-0, 255) on the right.

Now compare that, and this requires a touch of sadism, to the St. Mary’s offensive line.

At tight end is Jon Braff (6-2, 180). The guards are Steve Wimer (6-1, 215) and Earle Aku (6-2, 210). Center Eric Smith has some size at 6-3, 230. The bulk of this line comes at tackle, where Ken Copas is 6-4 and 250 and Lloyd Brown fills out nicely at 6-9, 290.

So what happens?

Brown spends the whole day looking at the number on Dominic’s back. And St. Mary’s long afternoon turns out to be a short one for Copas, the only returner on that line. He is knocked out of action in the first quarter with a knee injury.

“Those are the things you have to live with,” said Gaels coach Joe DeLuca, puffing away in his office on a cigar after watching his game plan go up in smoke. “They have a bigger, faster, better team than they had last year. But if I had expected anything like this, I wouldn’t have come to work.”

So there’s one explanation for the dominance, a difference in size that gave St. Mary’s little or no time to put its game plan into effect. At times, you almost expected to see a roughing-the-passer penalty against the offensive line.

There was another factor. While the Denver Gold of the United States Football League has been given much of the credit for sharing their run-and-shoot offense during their training camp at Northridge last January, the Chicago Bears also deserve an assist. For the defense.

It seems Chicago defensive coach Buddy Ryan came out to work with the UCLA Bruins on defensive alignments this year, and that information, in turn, was passed on by Bruin assistant coach Greg Robinson to the Matadors.

The result is a four-man alignment for CSUN, but usually a five-man rush, not to mention a new look in the secondary, which depends basically on man-to-man coverage.

“We’ve changed our philosophy,” said Mark Banker, Northridge defensive coordinator. “We used to use zone coverage and had a bend-but-don’t-break defense.

“But now we are going with the man-to-man. We’ve got two good cornerbacks in (Jonathon) Bradshaw and (Steve) Benjamin. You are not going to get two that are much better at this level.”

There was also a third factor at work out there Saturday, according to Banker, perhaps the most important factor. Despite surrendering 56 points to Nevada Reno in their season opener two weeks ago, the Matadors avoided any damaging psychological aftereffects.

“This was the first time we played with that type of enthusiasm and emotion in the last two years,” he said. “On defense, so much more depends on emotion than it does on just the X’s and O’s.

“In the past, they believed in their ability, but they just didn’t have the confidence. You know, we are always told what great guys we have on this team as far as being people. Well, it’s true. They are great kids. But sometimes, you have to get a little nasty. I tell them, ‘Don’t smile at me. Get mad at me.’

“Today, I think they saw they can bring out that nasty side.”