THE RACE FOR THE WFC FOOTBALL TITLE : Portland St. : You’d Be a Defensive Expert, Too, With a Name Like Pokey and No Passing Reputation
The career of Ernest (Pokey) Allen hasn’t followed a conventional pattern, if there is such a thing for a football coach.
For instance, how many coaches can say they were fired only hours after their defense shut out its opponent?
Pokey can.
How many coaches have made the huge jump from college secondary coach to pro defensive coordinator in a single bound?
Pokey did.
And how many defensive specialists could make it through a full season as head coach at Portland State, where defense is about as popular as the weather man?
Pokey has just about done it. In fact, he just might win a championship in his first season.
Portland is 4-1 in the Western Football Conference and tied with Cal State Sacramento for first place going into tonight’s game against Cal State Northridge at North Campus Stadium. Northridge is half a game behind.
If Portland defeats Northridge tonight and Northridge beats Sacramento next week, Portland will be WFC champion and maybe, just maybe, people will stop glaring at Pokey every time the word “defense” slips out of his mouth.
But probably not. At least not for a while.
It’s going to take more than a conference championship to make Portland fans forget a couple of guys named Mouse and Neil.
Coach Mouse (there is a trend of unusual nicknames here) Davis brought a pass-happy offense called the run-and-shoot with him when he was hired in 1975. Portland had suffered through four consecutive losing seasons with a combined record of 13-29. Davis was 8-3 in his first year and passing has been more than a fancy ever since.
In 1977, quarterback Neil Lomax arrived. He left in 1980--1,607 attempts, 938 completions, 13,220 yards and 106 touchdown passes later.
No wonder Allen says he had to go on record promising that his team would pass before Portland would hire him.
“There’s no question that Portland is perceived as a passing school,” Allen said in a telephone interview this week. “People here like the pass and they remember Mouse Davis because that was about the only time they won.”
Portland fans will happily note that the Vikings lead the WFC in passing again this season.
Nevertheless, Allen says he’s trying to sneak multisyllabic words like “diversified” into the Portland vocabulary.
“Past Portland teams threw a lot more than we did and had a very simple running attack,” Allen said. “We still pass, but we also have a very sophisticated running game.”
Kevin Johnson, a junior transfer from Chabot College in Northern California, was third in the conference in rushing before suffering a season-ending knee injury last week. He had rushed for more than 100 yards in six consecutive games.
“He was a real media sensation around here,” Allen said. “I guess they had never seen anyone run before.”
Johnson tore knee ligaments on the same play he broke the school’s season rushing record. How’s that for a bad omen?
The Vikings are still dangerous, however, as long as quarterback Chris Crawford and receivers Brian Coushay and Barry Naone are healthy.
Crawford, a 5-11, 180-pound left-hander, has completed 177 of his 280 pass attempts for 2,336 yards and 15 touchdowns.
“He’s out of the Doug Flutie mold,” Allen said of Crawford. “He’s not very big and his arm is good, not great, but he’s a good scrambler and he gets the job done.”
Coushay, from Newbury Park High, is one of the WFC’s most physically gifted athletes. He runs 40 yards in 4.55 and has high-jumped 6-10, long-jumped 23-7 and triple-jumped 50 feet.
He can also catch. An all-conference selection last season, Coushay has 39 receptions for 663 yards and 6 touchdowns.
Naone, a 6-3, 223-pound tight end from Kailua, Hawaii, leads the conference in catches with 54 for 582 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Allen has obviously caught on to this passing stuff quickly, though the Portland media has not once used the phrase “Air Pokey.”
Portland’s defense, however, has been surprisingly shaky. The Vikings are next to last in the WFC, allowing 363 yards a game.
Allen is confident that Portland would do better if everyone gets healthy. “I don’t think we’ve started a game with a full outfit yet,” he said. “Against Sacramento, we were without a defensive lineman that could walk.” Portland lost that game, 52-20.
Allen would seem to be the right coach to improve a porous defense. He has been a defensive specialist most of his 14 years as a coach.
He started out as co-coach at Simon Frazier University in Canada. After four years there, he was defensive coordinator at Montana and Eastern Washington and the defensive backfield coach at Cal before becoming defensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Express and then the Portland Breakers.
It was the Express--who else?--that fired Allen the same day his defense shut out the Oakland Invaders, 10-0.
“The coach, John Hadl, told me that Don Klosterman wanted an NFL coach,” Allen said about the team’s general manager. “I think we were something like fourth in the league in defense at the time, and something like or next to last in offense. So what did they do? They fired the guy on defense.”
And what defensive genius did the Express hire? Buddy Ryan? Joe Collier?
Nope. The winner was former Rams Coach Ray Malavasi. Well, no one said a good NFL coach.
THE WFC RACE
League Overall School W L T W L T PF PA CS Sacramento 4 1 0 5 3 1 281 222 Portland St. 4 1 0 6 3 0 274 228 CS Northridge 3 1 0 7 2 0 256 177
GAMES REMAINING
TODAY Portland State at CSUN
CS Sacramento at UC Davis
NEXT SATURDAY CSUN at CS Sacramento
Montana at Portland State
