For Air Force, a Pleasant Surprise : Falcons Are 5-2 Despite Losing 28 Players From Last Year

On its way to last Saturday’s game against Notre Dame, the Air Force Academy football team’s chartered bus broke down.

It was a sign of things to come for the Falcons later that afternoon, but certainly not an indication of how things have gone this year.

Air Force, which plays San Diego State Saturday night, lost to Notre Dame, 31-3, but its season record is a surprisingly good 5-2.

Surprising?

Consider that the Falcons lost 28 players from last year’s depth chart. One was quarterback Bart Weiss, Offensive Player of the Year in the Western Athletic Conference.

“You don’t replace a guy like Bart Weiss,” Coach Fisher DeBerry said. “He was the third guy in NCAA history to rush and pass for 1,000 yards in a season.

The fact that Air Force runs the wishbone offense made the vacancy created by Weiss’ graduation more difficult to fill. It’s a complex offense to run, and wishbone quarterbacks are hard to find.

“It’s a pretty exacting offense,” DeBerry said. “It demands a lot of precision. There is a lot of technique and small things required to make big things happen. There is no substitute for game experience.”

Troy Calhoun, who played sparingly in two games last year, started out as Air Force’s No. 1 quarterback. He lasted three games.

The third game was against Wyoming, and Air Force lost, 23-17. The Falcons did not make a first down in the second half.

Enter James Tomallo, the third-string quarterback at the season’s outset.

“We felt our production was not what we needed,” DeBerry said. “We felt Jimmy had improved as much as anyone in the program. We felt he deserved the opportunity.”

Tomallo’s first opportunity was against Colorado State. He ran the wishbone well and Air Force won, 24-7.

Next came Utah, a pivotal game. Air Force trailed at halftime, 35-14. It won, 45-35.

“Utah never stopped us, we just stopped ourselves,” DeBerry said. “We played entirely different the second half.”

Rarely do wishbone teams rebound from three-touchdown deficits at halftime. When the Falcons came back, Tomallo established himself as the quarterback.

Without Weiss, the Falcons are still running the wishbone effectively. They have averaged 225.2 rushing yards a game, tops in the Western Athletic Conference. All three of the Falcons’ top running backs average at least four yards a carry.

Senior fullback Pat Evans, the top rusher, has carried 129 times for 514 yards and 6 touchdowns. Evans said the offense has hardly missed a beat this year.

“Bart (Weiss) was a great player, talent- and leadership-wise,” Evans said. “Everybody can be replaced. Our quarterback has done a good job of being his own man. A quarterback in the wishbone has to do a lot of thinking. Experience definitely helps. (But) there haven’t been any complaints this year.”

Maybe the Falcons haven’t complained about their quarterbacks, but they have complained about their schedule. Though a young team would ideally open with a couple of nonconference games, the Falcons began with five WAC games.

Furthermore, Air Force plays only seven WAC games, one fewer than the conference’s other contenders. Though 4-1 thus far in the WAC, Air Force will be eliminated from the race by a loss against either SDSU or Brigham Young (Nov. 1).

“That’s the way our season has been,” DeBerry said. “Every game has been monumental for the simple reason we were the only team in the country to open with five league games in a row. That’s a tough pill to swallow, particularly with a young team. We’ve done real well with the challenge.”

Air Force has grown accustomed to success of late. In the previous three seasons, the Falcons won 30 games, including three bowl games.

“We’ve started a tradition here,” senior cornerback Tom Rotello said. “It’s a solid program, no doubt about it. I don’t think we’ve dropped off that much. We made a lot of mental mistakes early, which goes back to being a young team. After seven games, we can’t exactly call ourselves a young team anymore.”

The Falcons would prefer to avoid any future breakdowns, whether it be on the field or in the bus.

Aztec Notes

Crowd-control improvements will be implemented at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium when the Aztecs play Air Force Saturday night. There will be additional turnstiles opened and security will be increased in the parking lot and inside the stadium. . . . Officials from the Freedom Bowl in Anaheim will scout both SDSU and Air Force Saturday. . . . Holiday Bowl officials will scout Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Stanford, UCLA, USC and Washington State this weekend.