COLLEGE FOOTBALL ’87 : COACHES, PLAYERS, TEAMS AND TRENDS TO WATCH THIS SEASON : UCLA to Play San Diego State Very Seriously

Take a quick look at UCLA’s football schedule:

The Bruins open tonight in the Rose Bowl, on their home field, against San Diego State, a Western Athletic Conference team that has never beaten the Bruins.

Then next Saturday, they play at Nebraska in a game that will determine whether they really should be listed among the top teams in the country, a game against a traditional Big Eight power that humiliated them in their most recent meeting, 42-3, in 1984.

Which game would seem to be first in the hearts of the Bruins?

And so, therefore, the theme of the week in Bruin camp has been the one-game-at-a-time cliche. Still, cliches become cliches because they tend to be true. And every once in a while, such as this week in Westwood, they stand as warnings.

UCLA Coach Terry Donahue is getting so weary of sounding the warning as he prepares to meet this team for the fourth time in the current 10-year series that, finally this week, he said: “If our football team is stupid enough to look past San Diego State, we’ll get exactly what we deserve. . . . I don’t think we’ll do that.”

Donahue, of course, is downplaying his school’s 9-0-1 record against San Diego State and he’s not saying much about last season’s 45-14 victory.

He’s sticking with praise for the opposing coach and his first-year accomplishments, and for the Aztecs’ star players, of which there are several.

San Diego State Coach Denny Stolz was named Western Athletic Conference coach of the year last season after taking the team from sixth in 1985 to its first WAC title. That put the Aztecs into their first major bowl game, where they lost to Iowa, 39-38, finishing the season 8-4.

Todd Santos, the Aztecs’ senior quarterback, threw for 2,553 yards last season and is aiming for the all-time National Collegiate Athletic Assn. record.

Although they lost their top running backs from last season, the Aztecs have plenty left, including freshman Tommy Booker, characterized by Donahue as “probably the top running back prospect in the state last year.”

Booker, who rushed for 2,144 yards at Vista High School (near San Diego) last season, chose San Diego State over Oklahoma, Nebraska, USC, Arizona State and Washington.

But the strength of the Aztec team lies in its secondary, led by cornerbacks Clarence Nunn and Mario Mitchell of Compton. Donahue mentioned Nunn and Mitchell in calling the secondary “as skilled as we will face this season.” Stolz seconded that opinion, calling them “very, very gifted.”

They could present problems for Troy Aikman, who will start at quarterback for the Bruins for the first time and who might be rusty, having had no game experience since he played at Oklahoma in 1985.

UCLA has a recent history of getting off to slow starts, and Donahue admits that it could have something to do with always having a new quarterback.

Tom Ramsey won the job as a junior in 1981 and returned to start in ‘82, but since then the Bruins have opened with fifth-year seniors--Rick Neuheisel in ‘83, Steve Bono in ‘84, David Norrie in ’85 and Matt Stevens in ’86.

Stolz says that if you’re going to have one player back, it should be your quarterback. He has that, but he lost a lot of other key players to graduation. “We have a lot of new faces. We’re going to have to get three or four freshmen in the picture,” he said.

San Diego State lost eight offensive starters and five defensive starters from last year’s team. UCLA has 21 players who started at one time or another last season.

Still, Donahue can manage to make a scary stat out of that.

“San Diego State had more players drafted last year--and drafted higher--than UCLA,” he said. “That gives you an indication of their talent level.”

Bruin Notes Tonight’s opener at 6:30 will not be televised live locally but will be shown live in San Diego by Cox Cable, then will be televised by Prime Ticket Sunday at 7:30 p.m. It will be broadcast live on KRTH, instead of KMPC because of a conflict with a Ram game. . . . A free shuttle bus will leave every five minutes from the Parson’s Engineering parking lot in Pasadena, starting two hours before kickoff for all UCLA games at the Rose Bowl. The shuttle will return fans to the lot for up to an hour after the game. Parking at Parson’s is free.

Bruin split end Flipper Anderson may not start tonight’s game because he missed so much practice this week. He went home to New Jersey for his grandfather’s funeral. If he does not start, flanker Paco Craig will move to his position and redshirt freshman Reggie Moore will move up to start in Craig’s place. . . . Senior right guard John Kidder also has missed a lot of practice with a bad back and a pulled groin muscle, and may play sparingly. . . . Terry Donahue is going into his 12th year as Bruin coach with a record of 88-34-7. He is 3-0 against San Diego State. . . . Donahue is waiting until the last minute to decide who will return kickoffs. He will choose two from among Carnell Lake, Gaston Green, James Primus and Brian Brown. Green wants to do it because Notre Dame’s Heisman Trophy candidate, Tim Brown, does it. . . . UCLA is coming off an 8-3-1 season . . . Todd Santos needs to average 261 yards a game passing to break the NCAA passing record set by Fresno State’s Kevin Sweeney. . . .Clarence Nunn played with Gaston Green at Gardena High School.