VALLEY-AREA COLLEGE FOOTBALL : Leach Hooks Record, But Fails to Land Gators

Jeremy Leach had just reeled in an impressive record, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the big one that got away.

“That’s how the whole season has been going,” said the quarterback of New Mexico’s 1-7 Lobos. “It just hasn’t been bouncing our way.”

On Saturday, in only his 17th collegiate game, Leach completed 26 of 38 passes for 275 yards and three touchdowns to become the Lobos’ career leader in passing yardage.

However, it was not cause for celebration. New Mexico dropped a 27-21 decision to 20th-ranked Florida in Gainesville.

New Mexico, which has lost six in a row, trailed 21-0 before rallying behind Leach, a sophomore from Granada Hills High.

Leach hooked up with Terance Mathis for touchdown passes of 11 and 16 yards and hit Eric Morgan with a 59-yard scoring strike to cut Florida’s lead to six with 3:52 remaining.

The Lobos got the ball back with less than a minute left, but an interception by Florida’s Will White near midfield secured the Gators’ victory.

New Mexico gained 323 yards in offense, the most of any Florida opponent this season. The Gators had the nation’s top-ranked defense entering the game.

“It was nice to be in a game with a tough team,” Leach said. “We like to play in these kinds of games because we seem to rise against tougher teams. But being close hurts because we should have won the game.”

The record, it seemed, was little consolation. In 621 career attempts at New Mexico, Leach has completed a school-record 327 passes for 4,030 yards. Steve Myer, the Lobos’ quarterback from 1974-75, held the previous record for completions with 295. Billy Rucker, who called New Mexico’s signals from 1984-86, had the standard for yardage with 3,890.

Add passing fancy: With both arms aching from being pounded into the artificial turf by Cal State Northridge the previous week, Portland State quarterback Darren Del’Andrae managed to set a Western Football Conference record for single-game passing yardage in the Vikings’ 36-26 upset loss Saturday at Southern Utah State.

Del’Andrae, who had been listed as a questionable starter after missing half of last week’s practices with assorted arm injuries, completed 37 of 53 passes for 419 yards but threw three interceptions.

Portland combined with Southern Utah for 1,055 yards in total offense. The Vikings gained 615 yards but also had four turnovers.

Earthquake aftermath: Cal Lutheran football players were reportedly somewhat leery of staying in the earthquake-ravaged Bay Area for their Saturday night game at Santa Clara. An aftershock registering 4.8 on the Richter scale rumbled through the Peninsula Saturday afternoon, but the game itself was undisturbed by seismic activity.

A moment of silence for the victims of the earthquake was observed prior to the start of the game.

Passing phase: Claremont’s defensive game plan Saturday against Occidental was obviously slanted toward stopping tailback Gary Little, the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference’s leading rusher.

Occidental Coach Dale Widolff wasn’t surprised.

“Based on this year, you have to say, ‘Let’s make them throw the ball. They haven’t shown that they can throw it well,’ ” Widolff said.

They have now. Tiger quarterback Tony Werbelow completed 11 of 14 passes for 198 yards. He threw three touchdown passes to tight end David Grossklaus as Occidental defeated Claremont, 44-14.

“I think we actually were under our average for attempts,” Widolff said. “We threw it well. We didn’t throw it a lot.”

Ups and downs: He has been a starter for only two games, but Glendale College’s Ronnie Lopez already has experienced the peaks and valleys of junior college football.

In his debut as a starter two weeks ago, Lopez passed for 271 yards and two touchdowns in a win over Santa Monica. Then, on Saturday, he completed only nine of 22 passes for 96 yards with two interceptions in a loss to Los Angeles Southwest. In the first half, he completed only two of nine passes. Unfortunately for Lopez, one of those completions was to Southwest defensive back Lorenzo Dickson, who returned the interception 60 yards for a touchdown.

Glendale receivers didn’t help their beleaguered quarterback, either. By Coach John Cicuto’s count, seven passes were dropped.

“That was just indicative of what kind of game we played today,” Lopez said. “We dropped some balls that should have been caught, but I also overthrew some receivers and misread some coverages. We just didn’t have a good day.”

Battered and bowed: Cal State Northridge had the Western Football Conference’s top-rated defense going into Saturday’s nonconference game at UC Davis. The Matadors were allowing a total of 314.4 yards per game, and only 159.6 through the air.

Davis easily surpassed both averages, passing for 253 yards and totaling 402. But the Matador defense didn’t play that poorly considering the circumstances.

CSUN started the game without injured nose tackle Tom Gray and safety Dexter Byrd. Then, two more starters, corner back Reggie Williams and linebacker Ken Wallace, sustained injuries early in the game.

Slow motion: When college football adopted a rule last year giving defenses the opportunity to score on intercepted or fumbled conversions, it assured that such plays would be memorable.

Such was the case Saturday when West Los Angeles nose guard Demetrius Jennett intercepted Pierce holder Mike Knieriem’s pass and returned it 95 yards for two points.

“The snap was low, and I just followed the (holder) and watched his eyes,” Jennett said. “When I saw the ball coming, I caught it and ran. I thought I would get caught from behind, but after I got a couple of good blocks, I knew no one would catch me.”

Bob Enger, Pierce’s coach, was less than amused by the 5-foot-10, 230-pound freshman’s lumbering run.

“I was thinking that I’d like to go out and tackle him,” Enger said. “I’m faster than he is.”

Double duty: Few quarterbacks return kickoffs, but then not many of them have a linebacker’s mentality and ruggedness which Cal Lutheran freshman Eddie Hoffman seems to possess. Hoffman (6-1, 185), one of three quarterbacks Cal Lutheran rotates, is the Kingsmen’s designated runner and short-yardage man.

He frequently enters the game when Cal Lutheran moves inside the opponent’s 20-yard line, but Saturday night he also was one of the deep men on the kick return team. Hoffman returned one kick for 22 yards. He also ran for a touchdown and a two-point conversion and picked up 45 rushing yards in nine carries.

Gary Klein, Steven Herbert and staff writers Mike Hiserman, John Ortega and Brendan Healey contributed to this notebook.