Aztecs Hope to Grow Up to Be Like Hurricanes : Football: SDSU officials think they can learn something from the recent success of the University of Miami. But today, the student must play the No. 7-ranked teacher.
San Diego State, with the college football team that aspires to be known some day soon as the “The Miami of the West,” has traveled east to meet the master today.
The seventh-ranked Miami Hurricanes, model for what Athletic Director Fred Miller hopes will be a revival of the SDSU program, play host to the Aztecs at 1 p.m. PST in the Orange Bowl.
The game will be more than a test of the Aztecs’ five-game winning streak. It will be the first measure of how far Miller and his associates have come in following their Miami slogan and turning out a functioning West Coast copy.
It is time to see if the two football programs have more in common than sun and surf.
The game is the opener in 16-year home-and-home series that was set up after the Aztecs won the 1986 Western Athletic Conference championship in Miller’s first year as athletic director. The Hurricanes will make their first return appearance in San Diego Dec. 1.
But that’s getting ahead of the story.
To understand why the Aztecs would like to emulate Miami, it is necessary to look back 10 years to the last time the two schools met on the football field. The final score--SDSU 31, Miami 20--says more now than it did then.
SDSU was in its sixth season under Coach Claude Gilbert, handpicked by Don Coryell to continue the winning program he built on Montezuma Mesa. The Aztecs were on the way to their 19th winning season in 20 years under Coryell and Gilbert. During that span, they compiled a 161-36-3 record. A crowd of 40,126 attended the game at San Diego Stadium, typical for the Aztecs in those days.
In contrast, Miami was bleeding financially and in the midst of its ninth losing season in 11 years. Howard Schnellenberger, Miami’s seventh coach in 10 years, was in his first season. Back home in the Orange Bowl, the Hurricanes were drawing an average of 26,065 for a four-game schedule.
Few could have envisioned the fortunes of the two programs were about to reverse so dramatically and quickly.
Four years later, the Hurricanes had their first of two national championships and were drawing an average of 44,555 to the Orange Bowl; the Aztecs were compiling their worst record (2-9-1) since 1960 in front of an average of 17,949, their lowest since moving their games into San Diego Stadium in 1967.
Now it is the Hurricanes (8-1) who are on top, the Aztecs (6-3-1) the ones who are struggling financially and looking to recapture past glory.
“There is no reason we cannot be a ‘Miami of the West,’ ” Miller said. “People in San Diego don’t understand how good we can be. Our program was of that stature in the 1970s.”
The 1980s have been different. In the decade since SDSU and Miami last met, the Hurricanes have won 96 of 116 games, the Aztecs 50 of 116 with four ties.
The Hurricanes have appeared in seven bowl games and reportedly are headed to the Sugar Bowl to play fourth-ranked Alabama (9-0) in what would be their seventh consecutive New Year’s Day bowl. The Aztecs have reached one bowl in the decade.
The Hurricanes are on their third coach, Dennis Erickson, but his predecessors-- Schnellenberger and Jimmy Johnson--both left on their own. The Aztecs are on their fourth coach, Al Luginbill, and the three that came before him--Gilbert, Doug Scovil and Denny Stolz--were all fired.
Schnellenberger, now the coach at Louisville, says there is no secret to Miami’s success. Hard work was the answer, he said, but the proper support in key areas was the difference.
He said that if not for the work of his predecessor, Lou Saban, and the administrative support he received from John Green, university executive vice president, the revival never would have succeeded.
“It takes a commitment from the top,” Schnellenberger said. “You have to support the coach in the areas he needs support. You can’t burden him with red tape and with too many rules and regulations. And you have to have the give him the financial wherewithal to get the job done.”
In that respect, the Aztecs appear to have the type of support Schnellenberger said is necessary. SDSU President Thomas Day is a vocal advocate of the value of an athletic program, and Miller is the architect of Arizona State’s rise to athletic prominence in the 1970s.
“I don’t see any reason it can’t happen here,” Luginbill said. “We have everything in place.”
Some similarities between the programs are obvious.
Both schools are located in warm-weather, vacation-destination cities. Both are in populous states that consistently produce strong high school football talent. Both play in an off-campus, municipally owned stadium that plays host to a college bowl game. Both share their market with a National Football League team.
But there are differences, too. And it is how the Aztecs adapt to these differences that might determine their ultimate success.
* Miami is a private school, SDSU public, one of 19 members of the California State University and Colleges system. The value of a Miami athletic scholarship for one year is about $18,000, compared with about $5,000 for a California resident at SDSU. But SDSU’s athletic department is also subject to state scrutiny, and out-of-state scholarships are limited because they cost nearly twice as much.
* Miami is an independent, SDSU a member of the Western Athletic Conference. That means the Hurricanes are free to schedule the teams they please and keep their half of the revenue from bowl and television games, including lucrative meetings against Top 20 teams Florida State, Notre Dame and Pittsburgh. The Aztecs must play a minimum of seven WAC games each year, and home games against schools such as Colorado State, New Mexico and Texas El Paso don’t send San Diegans bursting through the turnstiles or merit national television.
The Aztecs almost must share bowl and television revenue with other WAC schools. When the program is down, that works to their advantage because they benefit from the success of other conference schools. But if they were to reach a point where they were regularly playing on television or in bowl games, the revenue sharing might not should like such a good idea to a program starved for cash.
With the series against Miami under way, and teams such as Illinois and Oklahoma joining the schedule in the 1990s, the potential is there for a rising Aztec program to cash in on television revenue. “You have to have your schedule ahead of your program,” Schnellenberger said. “If you tell kids you want to be the best, you have to play the best.”
* Miami has an alumni base that is spread out nationally but is smaller than SDSU’s. Of Miami’s 95,000 alumni, about a third live in Miami and the surrounding counties. Figures for SDSU are less exact, but university officials say that of the estimated 300,000 who have attended classes at SDSU, the majority are believed to reside in San Diego County. That gives SDSU a much larger base from which to draw fans.
* Miami is one of only three Florida universities that play major college football, and its nearest competitor, Florida, is located 335 miles away in Gainesville. SDSU is one of nine California universities that play National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Division I-A football. Four--Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Long Beach, UCLA and USC--are located within 120 miles of SDSU. And UCLA and USC regularly are among the nation’s top 20 teams.
That means more local recruiting competition and a greater division of fan loyalty. While Miami, under Schnellenberger, eventually carved out most of South Florida (from Orlando south, an area with about 250 high school football teams) for recruiting dominance, the Aztecs have a more limited geographic area of primary influence. Luginbill said the plan is to eventually rule in San Diego County, with its 57 high school football teams. But that isn’t a big enough area on its own to fulfill the SDSU’s needs on a yearly basis.
* Despite the similarities of the two cities, Miami and San Diego have differences, especially when it comes to television markets. Miami, with its 1.26 million television households, is the largest television market in Florida and 14th in the country. San Diego, with 836,000 TV households, is 24th and only the fourth largest in California behind No. 2 Los Angeles, No. 5 San Francisco-San Jose and No. 21 Sacramento-Stockton.
The Aztecs do share Miami’s attractiveness as warm-weather site from which to telecast late-season games.
“I know from my time at ESPN that late in the season inventory (of good games to televise) is low,” said Miller, who worked as consultant for ESPN before joining SDSU. “A game like this (between SDSU and Miami) is a perfect fit.”
But to foresee the day when SDSU-Miami is a regular on the college football television schedule, one must first look at what Miami has accomplished and how it relates to SDSU.
In the late 1970s, the Miami athletic department was in a desperate financial time. The program was offering near the NCAA minimum of sports for Division I. The Hurricanes already had dropped basketball, and football could have been next.
If Green had not succeeded with Schnellenberger, those involved say, that might have been the end.
But instead of giving up, the Hurricanes attacked and overcame some of the same obstacles facing SDSU.
They increased crowds in the face of their marginal alumni base and competition from the Dolphins by building stronger community ties. Season-ticket sales, which hovered around 10,000 10 years ago, have reached 54,000.
The Hurricanes found a Saturday kickoff time (4 p.m.) that seemed to strike a middle ground between the daytime and nighttime attractions a warm-weather resort city such as Miami. It was late enough to give fans time to enjoy the beach, golf or water but early enough to allow for a full night on the town afterward.
Miami gained control of its natural recruiting territory by taking on and beating Florida, Florida State and the many out-of-state schools that used to raid their back yard. Of the 87 players on the 1983 national championship team, 55 were from Florida. Of the 96 on this year’s team, 59 are from Florida and 21 are from Dade County, which includes Miami.
All is not perfect. The market remains a tough sell. While games against Notre Dame fill the 75,500-capacity Orange Bowl, a game such as today’s against the Aztecs is expected to draw about 45,000.
How Miami has attacked these problems provides a case study for the Aztecs, but some conditions that facilitated Miami’s rise have changed.
New limits have been placed on awarding athletic scholarships. The value of a network television appearance has been devalued. Recruiting rules have been tightened. And Day has been clear in his public statements that SDSU will not try to compensate for these changes by breaking NCAA rules.
But for all the comparisons and analyses, those familiar with the Miami experience agree the formula for the success of college football in an urban market such as San Diego includes victories.
“You have to develop a love affair between the community and the team,” Schnellenberger said. “But in a sophisticated market like San Diego, what people want is to see a winner.”
Aztec Notes
San Diego State quarterback Dan McGwire’s lower abdominal strain has improved, and he will start today, trainer Brian Barry said. Reserve inside linebacker Eric Thompson (sinus infection) did not make the trip. Offensive tackle Tony Nichols (ankle) is available but is expected to be replaced in the starting lineup for a second consecutive week by Judd Rachow, a sophomore from Hilltop High School.
MIAMI OF THE WEST?
Category Miami SDSU Enrollment 13,500 35,000 School founded 1926 1897 Affiliation Private Public Conference Independent WAC U.S. TV market 14th 24th Stadium Municipal Municipal Capacity 75,500 60,409 1979 Attendance Avg. 26,065 39,496 1989 Attendance Avg. 46,452 19,395 ‘70s record 42-67-0 82-26-2 ‘80s record 96-20-0 50-62-4 1989 record 8-1-0 6-3-1