Luginbill Says Changes Ahead for His Defense : SDSU: Team yielding seven yards per play after BYU gained 641. But Air Force wishbone poses a different challenge.

Still recovering from watching the Brigham Young offense pile up 62 points and 641 yards against his team, San Diego State Coach Al Luginbill said Sunday he will make a couple of changes in the Aztec defense this week.

“I’m disappointed with certain individuals on defense, and we will take care of that with personnel changes,” Luginbill said after watching tapes of the Cougars’ 62-34 victory over SDSU Saturday.

He said he wouldn’t announce any of the changes before today.

BYU quarterback Ty Detmer completed 26 of 38 passes for 514 yards. Never before had an SDSU defense allowed a quarterback to throw for that many yards.

After three games, this defense still is expanding the opponents’ section in the SDSU record book. In the season opener, a 42-21 loss to Oregon, Bill Musgrave passed for 443 yards, which at the time was third-best against an Aztec defense.

In defense of the defense, Musgrave and Detmer are two of the finest quarterbacks in the country. Still, the Aztecs aren’t going to win many games unless they find a way to tighten their defense. In three games, they have allowed 1,529 total yards and an average of seven yards per play.

They are a better against the run (four yards per play) than against the pass (nine), which Luginbill says is encouraging. But seven yards per play is a lot.

“We improved from the Oregon game at cornerback and strong safety, but we didn’t improve at two other spots, and it really, really hurt us,” he said. “And that’s the problem with team defense. If you have two things going bad for you consistently through the game against good personnel, you’re going to have a difficult time.”

Marlon Andrews and Gary Taylor started at cornerback against BYU, and redshirt freshman Chris Johnson was the strong safety.

What hurt SDSU was the big play. One BYU scoring drive of 80 yards was completed in three plays and just 34 seconds. Another went 87 yards in three plays and took just 1:13.

That explains why the Aztecs dominated BYU in time of possession, 38:48 to 21:12, and in total plays, 101 to 62, and still lost.

“How many times are you going to run 101 plays and have no turnovers and lose the game?” Luginbill said. “It just doesn’t add up.

“Are we going to change things defensively? No. We’re going to change people.”

Last season, the Aztecs allowed opponents 65 plays that went 20 or more yards. Saturday, 13 of BYU’s 62 plays went for 20 or more.

It’s not going to get much easier. Miami and quarterback Craig Erickson and New Mexico and Jeremy Leach loom ahead on the SDSU schedule.

“We’re facing probably the four premier quarterbacks,” Luginbill said. “I don’t know how many football teams are going to get that opportunity. We’re going to play the next ones better than we played the last two.”

The Aztecs (1-2) get Air Force at home Saturday, and despite the Falcons’ 2-2 record (1-2 in the Western Athletic Conference), their wishbone offense is always hard to stop. Luginbill learned that in his first game at SDSU, when Air Force dismantled the Aztecs, 52-36, last season.

“Me, personally, I’ve never looked forward to a football game like I am this one. . . .” Luginbill said. “What happened a year ago, I’ll never get that out of my mind.

“We looked like we didn’t even know what we were doing. That was extremely disappointing. We had two guys on (former Air Force quarterback Dee) Dowis and didn’t make a play on him the whole day.”

Aztec Notes

Running back Tommy Booker, who missed the trip to Brigham Young so he could stay in San Diego and receive treatment on his sprained ankle, will test the ankle in practice tonight. SDSU Coach Al Luginbill said he wants Booker “completely healthy” before he returns to the lineup. . . . Running back Curtis Butts (sprained neck) and linebacker Jamal Duff (thigh) are out for Saturday. . . . For Air Force, wide receiver Darryl Woods (sprained shoulder) and quarterback Ron Gray (bruised knee) are expected to play. . . . For the Record: The 96 combined points scored by BYU and SDSU is an Aztec record for a single game.