Luginbill Says His Team Might Be Worth Watching

Al Luginbill is like a couple who can’t wait to show off a new house to relatives or a person who can’t wait to show off a new car to colleagues or a youngster who can’t wait to show off a new skateboard to playmates.

This is all nice and fine, except that Luginbill is excited about showing off his San Diego State football team . . .

. . . on national television.

. . . Saturday.

. . . at Brigham Young University.

. . . against Ty Detmer.

Luginbill’s enthusiasm for this occasion is not at all what I expected. When CBS announced that this telecast would be beamed to 80% of the nation, I thought Luginbill would be pulling for history’s largest power outage or maybe suggesting it be scrambled everywhere but Hoogle, N.D., and Mary’s Igloo, Alaska.

Does Luginbill really want this game in 80% of America’s living rooms, dens and saloons?

Does he know what happened the last time SDSU was on national television? The year was 1979, the opponent was, ahem, BYU, and the score was 63-14. No, SDSU did not win.

Who knows what impact that humiliation had on a program that went rapidly downhill thereafter.

But Luginbill isn’t looking or thinking downhill. He is looking uphill, because he sincerely believes that is the direction SDSU’s program is headed.

“One hundred million people think San Diego State will not play well against BYU,” Luginbill said. “I know better.”

If he knows better, he must know something the 100 million unenlightened don’t know. Assuming 100 million folks know or care about this little encounter, maybe 99,999,999 expect BYU to do a rather large number on San Diego State.

Luginbill, of course, is the holdout.

“We have an opportunity to execute and play well,” he said, “and we have an opportunity to win this football game by doing so.”

This man seemed earnest. He talked matter-of-factly, with an intensity that discouraged suggestions that what he was saying sounded just a bit far-fetched. You would have thought he was talking about a game against someone such as Cal State Long Beach rather than the No. 4 team in the nation.

“We feel we match up extremely well with BYU,” Luginbill was saying. “If we go in there and don’t execute, we’ll have some problems. If we go in there and execute, they’re going to have some problems.”

Can you imagine what Lou Holtz would be saying if he was the San Diego State coach this week?

“I feel sorry for these boys I’m taking up there to the mountains,” he would say. “Gosh, it’ll be a good game for us if we can keep ‘em in double figures and get out without getting anyone hurt.”

Al Luginbill has no Lou Holtz in him. Not a bit. You don’t find him hiding his feelings behind one-liners. You don’t find him using humor to cover excuses.

When he talks of this game being an opportunity, you find his tongue nowhere in the vicinity of his cheek.

“I’m still in the foundation stage,” he said, “with 65 underclassmen out of 79 kids. But if we go into Provo and play extremely well and come out with a win, it hurries the maturation process. It’s a hump game. You win this one, and it elevates you to where you want to be a little quicker.”

This is indeed the kind of game SDSU has to win to establish itself as more than a mere bit player to be chewed up by stars such as BYU, UCLA and Miami, three heavies on this and future schedules.

“If we play well and don’t get a win, does that mean it’s the end of the world at San Diego State?” Luginbill asked. “No. Our university needs a game like this to go our way but, if this isn’t the one, it’s going to come.”

And Al Luginbill just would not confront the notion that it could get ugly Saturday.

He pointed out, for example, that the Aztecs actually led at one point last year, 14-7, and played 22 minutes of the first half without starting quarterback Dan McGwire. What’s more, the game was reasonably close, 35-24, in the third quarter before BYU pulled away to a 48-27 victory.

A loss by that score would hardly be an embarrassment to the Aztec football program, but it would not represent any sort of progress either. It would merely reaffirm the status quo, that being that SDSU cannot yet handle a team the caliber of BYU.

Al Luginbill wants more than that and, in truth, expects more than that.

The nation will be watching what it expects will be a private party for BYU and Detmer, who may be the first guy to have the Heisman Trophy cinched in September.

If San Diego State really can crash this party, it will be pleased that 80% of the nation was tuned in. However, if the Aztecs crash at this party, they will need an assistant coach in charge of damage control.