Kevin Sweeney Hasn’t Had Time to Enjoy His NCAA Passing Mark : Santos Closing In on Friend’s Mark

Kevin Sweeney has the same problem most of the rest of the country has when it comes to keeping informed on the nocturnal performances of Todd Santos, San Diego State quarterback.

“The games are over too late,” Sweeney said last week in a telephone interview from the Dallas Cowboys’ training complex in Irving, Tex. “They never make the papers.”

Luckily for Sweeney, a friend of his attends SDSU and can keep him abreast of Santos’ progress on replacing him as the all-time leading passer in major college football.

“I call him up every week and he lets me know what Todd is doing,” Sweeney said.

This week that call told him Santos completed 29 of 40 passes for 373 yards in a 29-21 victory at Hawaii Saturday night. After this week there might not be a need for the call.

The Aztecs play Brigham Young Saturday afternoon in a Western Athletic Conference game at Provo, Utah. And if Santos continues his recent pace, almost everyone who follows college football will know of his accomplishments before the day is over. Santos has averaged 447.7 yards passing in the past three games. He has 10,413 yards, and needs to throw for 211 yards against the Cougars to pass Sweeney and become the most prolific passer in National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Division I-A football history.

It took Sweeney parts of five seasons at Fresno State to accumulate 10,623 yards, and to see it surpassed is sad.

“I worked a long time for that record,” Sweeney said. “I’ll be sorry to see it go.”

Sweeney said he understands that records are not expected to last forever, but he hardly had time to savor this one. He set it last Nov. 22 in the first half of the last game of his senior season.

“It would have been nice to enjoy it a little longer,” Sweeney said. “But if anyone has to break it, I’m glad it’s Todd.”

Such good wishes might seem less than sincere if it were not that Sweeney and Santos are friends.

Sweeney and Santos grew up only 15 miles apart in the San Joaquin Valley--Sweeney in Fresno and Santos in Selma, a farming community south of Fresno. They played against each other in a high school all-star game after their senior year. Sweeney had the better statistical game as his team of city players defeated Santos and his team of Fresno County players.

Sweeney’s father, Jim, coach at Fresno State, unsuccessfully recruited Santos to play for the Bulldogs and later briefly coached Santos’ younger brother, Rob. Sweeney and Santos used to workout together in the summer. Santos even attended Sweeney’s wedding last summer.

“I would have loved to have had Todd here, but I can see why he didn’t come here at the same time Kevin was here,” Jim Sweeney said Monday. “But they’ve kept in touch. Kevin and Todd must have worked out every day two summers ago.”

But the two have seen little of each other since Sweeney reported to the Cowboys’ training camp in Thousand Oaks last July.

Sweeney, a seventh-round draft choice, was cut when Dallas reduced its roster to meet the 45-man opening day limit. But he rejoined the Cowboys as part of their replacement team near the start of the 24-day strike by National Football League players. He started the first two games the Cowboys played with replacement players, completing 14 of 28 passes for 291 yards and 4 touchdowns with 1 interception. The Cowboys won both games. Since the regular players have returned, Sweeney has been kept on the expanded post-strike roster but has not been activated.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect when the regular players came back,” Sweeney said. “I was a little worried about their reaction. But they’ve treated me fine. Maybe knowing them all from training camp helped.”

Sweeney said his decision to cross the picket line and join the replacement team was difficult because his family has a heritage of union activism. Two of his grandfathers were hard-rock miners in Montana, and Jim Sweeney worked summers in the mines.

“A scab was the worst thing you be,” Jim Sweeney said. “If you were a scab, you had rocks thrown at your house; you had your garage knocked down. I know because I was one of the ones doing it.”

But it was Sweeney who eventually urged Kevin to play.

“This wasn’t a strike like the ones in the mines,” Jim Sweeney said. “I talked to some people around the NFL; they told me he was crazy not to play. He said he didn’t want to cross a picket line, I told him to go ahead.”

It was the latest example of the influence his father has had on Sweeney’s career. It was his father’s emphasis on the passing game that led Sweeney to attend Fresno State. Sweeney said he considered Washington and USC but rejected both.

“Washington wanted me to make a verbal commitment before the signing date,” Sweeney said, “and I didn’t feel like going to SC and handing the ball off every play.”

He decided to stay at home and play for his father. He played briefly as a freshman but received a hardship redshirt when an old knee injury from baseball sidelined him for most of the season. He did, however, complete one pass for a touchdown when he was inserted in a game as halfback.

He won the starting quarterback job the next season and never lost it. He had his most prolific season as redshirt sophomore when he completed 277 of 421 passes for 3,259 yards. His passing yardage decreased as the Bulldogs developed a more balanced attack in his junior and senior seasons. But he passed for 1,278 yards in the first four games of his senior season and drew within striking distance of the record of 10,579 yards then held by Doug Flutie of Boston College, who set it in 1984.

That all changed, however, when Sweeney, who is right handed, dislocated his left shoulder.

“The next four games I got something like 600 yards total,” Sweeney said. He played the rest of the season with the injury.

“It was so painful I could hardly move it at times,” he said. “It felt like it was falling off. It got so bad I couldn’t even hand off with my left hand.”

The injury kept Sweeney from passing with his usual effectiveness and frequency. He almost failed to get the record. By the time he reached the last game, his shoulder hurt so bad he began to wonder if he could finish the game.

“I knew I was getting close because I could hear the buzz in the stands,” Sweeney said. “A lot of people were listening to the radio broadcast, and they knew how many yards I needed.”

So did the coaches on the sideline. When Sweeney went out for the last series of the first half, he was told he needed one decent completion for the record. That play finally came on an 11-yard pass to wide receiver Stephen Baker, now a member of the New York Giants. It gave him 10,580 yards, one more than Flutie, who still is in second place.

The game was stopped, an announcement was made, but the celebration had to wait for Sweeney to pop his left arm back in its socket.

“I threw my shoulder out again,” Sweeney said. “There was all this commotion, and I was standing there trying to put my shoulder back together. The pain was pretty bad.”

Having given so much of himself to get the record, Sweeney said it will be difficult for him to let the record pass without feeling a few regrets.

“I worked hard for the record,” he said. “I thought for a while that it might be close, that Todd might not get it. But the way he has been going these past few weeks, it’s inevitable that he will break it.”

And when he does, it won’t take a phone call back to San Diego for Sweeney to hear the news.

Aztec Notes

Todd Santos, senior quarterback, watched practice Monday because of a bruised forearm on his right (throwing) arm. Santos was bruised when he struck his arm on a helmet against Hawaii Saturday, trainer Don Kaverman said. Kaverman said Santos might not throw in practice today but that he should be ready to play against Brigham Young Saturday. Kaverman said that several other Aztecs sustained minor injuries against Hawaii but that he expected all the players would be ready by Saturday. These include offensive tackle Dave DesRochers (bruised ribs, lower back spasm), linebacker Chuck Nixon (bruised thigh) and defensive end Craig Skaggs (bruised thigh). Kaverman said he is hopeful that tailback Tommy Booker (sprained ankle) and defensive end Mike Hooper (sprained toe) will be able to play against BYU. Booker has missed the past three games and Hooper sat out the Hawaii game. Wide receiver Randy Peterson, who has missed the past three games after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery, might be ready to play Saturday, Kaverman said. But Kaverman said it was more likely Peterson would return at home against Colorado State Nov. 14.

STILL TOPS

Kevin Sweeney

Yr. A C I PCT. YDS TD LG 82 2 1 0 50.0 38 1 38 83 334 166 19 49.7 2,359 16 73 84 421 277 13 65.8 3,259 20 80 85 295 177 7 160.0 2,604 14 95 86 284 60 9 56.3 2,363 15 84 Totals 1336 781 48 58.5 10,623 66 95