Air Force Gets Last Laugh and Rips SDSU

Someone played a little joke on the U.S. Air Force Academy Friday night. Vandals sneaked into Falcon Stadium and painted BEAT in front of the AIR FORCE emblem at midfield.

A hasty pregame repair job Saturday helped fade the graffiti in the grass. Then the Air Force football team did some damage of its own, romping past San Diego State, 49-7. The defeat dropped the Aztecs out of first place in the Western Athletic Conference.

“We deserved everything we got,” SDSU Coach Denny Stolz said. “They played a great ballgame, and we didn’t play very well. We got beat everywhere, offensively and defensively.”

The Falcons jumped on SDSU early, scoring touchdowns on their first three possessions. SDSU managed minus-one net yard on its first three.

The Aztecs, who already were ranked among the worst three defensive teams in Division I-A, did nothing to improve their standing. They yielded a season-high 571 yards, including 492 rushing, the most allowed since Air Force rushed for 513 in a 38-7 victory in 1983.

It was the most one-sided defeat of the 15-game Stolz regime and the Aztecs’ worst beating since a 58-8 loss to Brigham Young in 1982.

The Aztecs tried everything they could to stop Air Force. They changed personnel, changed assignments, made the usual adjustments at halftime. Nothing worked.

“We didn’t have the answer to anything,” Stolz said.

Particularly how to contain sophomore quarterback Dee Dowis. Dowis rushed for 188 yards, the most ever by an Air Force quarterback. Eight of his 18 carries were for 11 yards or more.

It was quite a performance for Dowis, who last spring considered transfering to Georgia Tech or Vanderbilt. A native of Royston, Ga., Dowis was homesick for the South and unsure about continuing with the rigid academy life.

“I was really down last year,” Dowis said. “Freshman year is really hard. It kind of depresses you.”

Dowis felt no better when he found himself on the bench for the opener against Wyoming. But he since has become the starter and team’s leading rusher. He’s listed at 5-feet 10-inches and 160 pounds, but standing in bare feet after the game, he appeared closer to 5-8 and admitted to weighing less than 160.

“I like to coach him because I can look down on him,” said Air Force Coach Fisher DeBerry, who is 5-9. “I’ll tell you this, though, I’ve got a pound or two on him.”

The Falcons were especially good at springing Dowis wide by blocking the cornerback downfield and leaving Dowis to outmaneuver the outside linebacker, who was caught between taking him on or guarding against the pitch.

“You’re tying to get out of the block and make the play,” cornerback Mario Mitchell said. “But it slows you down. By that time, he’s got five or six yards.

“Everything they did worked against our defense. They got the first two touchdowns, got the momentum, got the crowd (of 35,035) behind them and kept going from there.”

Dowis was hardly alone. While his running set up most of the touchdowns, he left it to others to do the scoring.

Right halfback Albert Booker had touchdown runs of 1, 24 and 3 yards. Left halfback Anthony Roberson scored on runs of 10 yards and 1 yard and reserve fullback Greg Johnson had the final touchdown on a 47-yard run.

But the one that probably hurt the Aztecs’ pride the most was a 23-yard halfback option pass from Len Blanchard to wide receiver Tyler Barth that gave the Falcons a 21-0 first-quarter lead. Blanchard added to the Aztecs’ embarrassment 10 minutes later when he completed a 42-yard pass to wide receiver Steve Senn to set up Roberson’s first touchdown.

Getting beat once on a halfback pass is bad enough, but twice in the first half was something even the Aztecs’ beleaguered defense had trouble accepting.

“We knew they had that play,” Stolz said. “The worst thing is when they get you down, they get the upper hand and those things start to work.”

The Aztecs had little opportunity to get back in the game, but when they did, they found a way to cause themselves even more problems. Trailing, 21-0, in the second quarter, SDSU had first-and-goal at the Air Force six. The next four plays typified the Aztecs’ frustration.

On first down, quarterback Todd Santos fumbled the snap. Junior tailback Paul Hewitt dropped a screen pass on second down. Alfred Jackson got bumped at the line and couldn’t get to Santos’ third-down pass. And the series ended with Santos underthrowing Kerry Reed-Martin at the goal line.

The Aztecs’ next drive ended at the Air Force 13 when Hewitt fumbled on first down and linebacker Rip Burgwald recovered for Air Force. Their only score came on a 34-yard pass play from Santos to Jackson with 1:05 left in the half.

That score was quickly countered after the Falcons recovered an onside kick at the SDSU 49. With the help of a 15-yard personal foul penalty and five-yard facemask penalty, the Falcons needed only four plays to take a 35-7 halftime lead on Roberson’s 1-yard run.

“We blew it,” Santos said. “We should have had 21 points in the first half. I kept thinking we’d start to move the ball in the third quarter but we didn’t.”

Santos, however, did manage to keep pace in his chase of Fresno State’s Kevin Sweeney as the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. all-time passing yardage leader.

He completed 20 of 40 passes for 258 yards and a touchdown. His 8,399 career yards moved him past Jack Trudeau of Illinois (8,146) and into 11th place on the all-time list. Santos must average 247.3 yards in the last nine games to pass Sweeney, who finished last season with 10,623 yards.

“We had just as much trouble offensively as we did defensively,” Stolz said. “Our offense was bad. We didn’t have a first down the first three times we had the ball. If we got a couple of first downs, we might have taken the pressure off.”

Stolz, who was reasonably upbeat after a 47-14 season-opening loss to UCLA, did not hide his disappointment Saturday. And neither did his team.

“This is worse than the loss to UCLA because of what it means, and how we played,” Santo said. “We didn’t do much of anything right.”