No Stay of Execution for Titans at Auburn

The Auburn University football team, practicing restraint, didn’t send a scout to Saturday afternoon’s Cal State Fullerton game.

No sense pouring it on.

Auburn is going to do mean, terrible things to the Titans next weekend. You know it. I know it. The American public knows it.

Fullerton Coach Gene Murphy knows it.

“No, I won’t enjoy playing next week’s game,” Murphy says. “Or the week after (at Mississippi State). This is my profession; I enjoy winning football games. And the next two weeks, it doesn’t matter who we play or what we do--it’s going to be very unrealistic for us to win.

“I can’t stand here and tell you, ‘If we play hard from start to whistle and don’t turn the ball over, we have a chance,’ because that’s a lie. An outright lie. It’ll take a miracle for us to win and that’s a miracle with a capital M. The low lifes meet the high lifes.”

For Murphy, it’s a tough life. He had just watched his team struggle to a 38-24 victory over Sonoma State, a school that plays Division II football and plays no Auburns. Sonoma has a hard enough time with the Chico States and the Cal Poly San Luis Obispos, going 4-6 last season.

But the Cossacks--talk about a missed opportunity; they could’ve been the Sonoma Vineyards--had the Titans on the run. The game was tied, 17-17, in the third quarter. With six minutes to play, Sonoma was still within a touchdown.

Fullerton escaped--undefeated, temporarily, but not unscathed. Lost in the line of duty were tailback Deon Thomas, the man attempting to replace Mike Pringle, and guard Shannon Illingworth, the Titans’ only returning offensive lineman.

Thomas blew out a knee and is gone for the season.

Illingworth suffered a hyperextended elbow and will miss three to four weeks.

Maybe Auburn can be talked into just sending the check. Fullerton gets its money, Auburn gets its forfeit, everybody’s happy.

“I see nothing good going into next week,” Murphy said. “With our lack of depth and our injuries . . .”

Murphy couldn’t go on. The vision overwhelmed.

“It’s going to be tough, definitely tough,” said Titan kicker Phil Nevin. “I don’t know what to say. But it is their first game. If they make a lot of mistakes, I think we’ll be able to play with them.”

Cal State Long Beach preceded Fullerton to the sacrificial altar. Saturday, Long Beach played its murder-for-hire game at Clemson and lost, 59-0.

“Our score won’t be that bad,” Nevin insisted.

It might be tough drumming up support, though. Auburn is ranked No. 1 in some polls, No. 3 in most. The Tigers return 14 starters from a 1989 that finished 10-2, losing only to Tennessee by a touchdown and to Florida State by eight points.

Fullerton, as Murphy notes, “had 56 players on the sidelines today and 36 of them had never played for us before. Only 20 of our players had ever appeared in a college game.”

The inexperience showed and glowed on Saturday. Fullerton’s new quarterback, Paul Schulte, a fifth-year senior with three previous varsity passes to his credit, fired seven consecutive incompletions in the first half and, during one nervous stretch, went five consecutive possessions without producing a first down.

Schulte eventually recovered to finish the day 20 of 41 for 224 yards, but was still outpassed by three Sonoma quarterbacks, who combined to complete 24 of 49 attempts for 283 yards and two touchdowns.

Sonoma also forced five Fullerton turnovers and had the game in doubt until Schulte found Richard Harrison open in the Cossack secondary for a 49-yard scoring pass with 5:12 to play.

“I read where we were going to walk all over them,” Murphy said. “I said that’s not going to happen. People were saying that them playing us was like us playing Auburn. I don’t agree with that at all.

“I used to coach Division II football. I know what happens. Any time a Division II school gets a chance to step up, they play their butts off. Sonoma lined up right with us. They didn’t give up.”

Fullerton steps up next week, but the climb is not the same. In Fullerton, Sonoma found a fair-to-middling member of a fair-to-middling Division I conference playing in front of 2,000 rather ambivalent fans. In Auburn, Fullerton catches a national championship contender playing its season opener surrounded by 85,000 maniacs, screaming for Titan blood.

“It should be fun,” Schulte said with complete seriousness.

Yes, this is a very young Fullerton team.

The Titans will be a lot older this time next week.