National Audience to See Santos, SDSU Meet Colorado St.

The team goals of preseason mean little now. The dreams of a second Western Athletic Conference championship vanished long ago for the San Diego State football team. So did the readjusted target of a .500 season.

Even non-contending teams’ traditional role of late-season spoiler has been denied the Aztecs. When your final two games are against Colorado State tonight and New Mexico next Saturday, there is little left to prove.

All that remains is to finish strongly, add some more real estate to Todd Santos’ career passing yardage record and get on with the business of preparing for next season. That is all these last two weeks have come to mean.

Few figured it would be this way, especially ESPN, which before the season contracted to televise tonight’s game as part of its six-game college football package designed for late-night viewing in the East and prime-time exposure in the West.

“San Diego State was coming off a great year, and they had one of the best quarterbacks in the country returning,” said Mike Soltys, an ESPN spokesman. “Before the season, it looked like it could be an interesting game.”

Left with a matchup between the 3-7 Aztecs and the 1-8 Rams, the best ESPN can hope for--to avoid a ratings disaster--is for viewers to tune in to see Santos try to extend his National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Division I-A record of 10,661 career passing yards.

“The exposure the record received last week could help,” Soltys said.

But while ESPN frets out its ratings, SDSU Coach Denny Stolz has a different interest. The game will give his team prime-time exposure in the West, just when the recruiting period is begining to warm up. It should provide him an opportunity to spotlight his potent offense and display his recruiting needs on defense.

“We’ve got an opportunity to get into the first division (of the WAC) and build up some momentum for the recruiting season,” Stolz said this week.

All of this is predicated, of course, on the Aztecs beating Colorado State and New Mexico.

On the surface, that does not seem such a difficult task. The teams have one victory between them. And they have that one only because they played each other three weeks ago, with Colorado State winning, 35-13.

But Colorado State’s Rams might not be quite the soft touch their record indicates. Only two of their losses have come by more than 13 points and both came in the first three weeks of the season--at Tennessee, 49-3, and at home to Texas El Paso, 45-6. Their past three defeats have come by a combined seven points, including a 39-38 loss at Hawaii last Saturday.

Colorado State struggled early offensively, but the Rams broke out against Hawaii, gaining 564 yards in total offense against a defense that entered the game ranked first in the conference. Junior quarterback Scooter Molander, a community college transfer from Phoenix, passed for a school-record 449 yards and halfback Scott Whitehouse rushed for a school-record four touchdowns.

It is no coincidence that the Rams started slowly on offense after losing quarterback Kelly Stouffer, the unsigned first-round draft choice of the St. Louis Cardinals, and Steve Bartalo, the WAC’s career rushing leader. Colorado State is probably the youngest team in the conference. Its two-deep roster includes 10 redshirt freshmen and nine freshmen. Eight of them start, including the kicker and punter.

“Everyone can see that we’ve got a young football team that is improving each week,” said Colorado State Coach Leon Fuller. “The enthusiasm is high for us to get on the right track and start winning.”

Fuller has maintained his humor through what has been the Rams’ worst season since an 0-12 record in 1981 led to his hiring.

“We only have 12 seniors and something like 24 freshmen (traveling) and, we make sure every time we get off the bus, we require a senior to have a freshman in each hand to get him into the dressing room to play his game,” said Fuller.

“Hopefully, they’ll start shaving, and we’ll start playing more consistently.”

Fuller said he sees similarities between his team’s youth and the problems facing the Aztecs.

“Both teams had so many seniors last year that are no longer playing that they’re almost new football teams,” Fuller said. “The players are just getting used to playing with each other.

“I expected San Diego State to be strong this year. They did lose more seniors than anybody (in the WAC), but they did return some key players. You know Todd Santos is going to give you some stability offensively and they did recruit good players. But everyone has to play together, and everybody has to learn the offensive system and defensive system and that takes time. Some people develop sooner than others.

“Look at last year’s San Diego State team. They won three or four very close ballgames to come up with an excellent record.”

One of those was against the Rams, when Santos drove his team 80 yards for a touchdown with only 1:04 left and no timeouts. Seven of the Aztecs’ victories last season came by seven points or less. This season, San Diego State played three games decided by seven points or less--and lost them all.

Said Fuller: “Having not as many experienced players this year, you can lose some of those very close ballgames. And your record can turn around very quickly in this conference.”

Aztec Notes San Diego State quarterback Todd Santos is in range of two more NCAA career passing records. He needs 15 attempts and 43 completions to break the records of 1,427 attempts and 900 completions held by Brian McClure of Bowling Green. McClure also was coached by Denny Stolz. In his previous three seasons, Santos has passed for more yards against Colorado State and New Mexico than any of the Aztecs’ opponents. He has thrown for 1,017 yards against the Rams and 1,075 against the Lobos. That was 27.9% of the 7,493 career yards he started the season. Nov. 30 will be Todd Santos Day in his hometown of Selma, Calif.