CAL STATE FULLERTON NOTES : Having Beaten a Bullet, Siler Now Must Battle Back From Leg Injuries

Just last Thursday, Cal State Fullerton linebacker Clarence Siler was saying how healthy he felt despite playing this season with a bullet lodged near one of his ribs.

“I’m in tip-top shape,” the senior said. “I’ve never been in better shape.”

Saturday night, Siler was wondering if he would ever play football again. Midway through the third quarter of Fresno State’s 38-3 victory over the Titans, a Bulldog player blocked Siler from behind, injuring Siler’s right leg.

As Siler was being carried off the field, all sorts of thoughts raced through his mind.

My leg is broken.

I’m out for the season.

All the pro scouts at the game will question my health.

I’ll never play pro football.

“I was pretty upset,” Siler said. “It was very depressing.”

The injury, however, wasn’t as serious as Siler first thought. Siler suffered strained ligaments in his right knee and sprained his right ankle, but is only expected to miss three or four games.

That’s good news for Siler but bad news for the Titans, who are 1-4 entering Saturday’s game at Nevada Las Vegas and will face a high-powered Rebel offense without their best defensive player.

“We can’t replace him,” Fullerton Coach Gene Murphy said. “We’ll just try to fill in with other guys.”

Siler, who was shot twice by an off-duty police officer during an altercation outside a Fullerton nightclub last April, will be missed in practice as well as in games.

“He’s really a leader,” Murphy said. “The other guys see how hard he works in practice. He wants to win as bad as anyone I’ve been around. Losing and Clarence Siler are not compatible bedfellows.”

Siler, one of few Titan seniors with NFL potential, plans to spend the next few weeks in the weight room, working on his upper body strength. He says he won’t rush his rehabilitation or return to action unless he’s fully recovered.

“This is a career we’re talking about,” Siler said.

Still, Siler can’t help but wonder what the pro scouts are thinking. He knows several were at the game Saturday night, primarily to look at Bulldog players, but some scouts attended the Titans’ practice Friday afternoon in Fresno.

“When they see you get hurt, it leaves questions in their minds,” Siler said. “Now, I’m going to have to work twice as hard to come back, to show them that the injury won’t slow me down.”

Turnovers are bad enough, but Fullerton seems to compound its mistakes by turning the ball over at the most inopportune times.

Of the Titans’ 21 turnovers, including 16 in the last three games, five have come inside the opponent’s 20-yard line, thus killing legitimate scoring threats, and three have come inside Fullerton’s 25-yard line, giving the opponent easy scoring opportunities.

Ten times following a Titan turnover, the opponent has scored a touchdown. One turnover led to a field goal.

Typifying Fullerton’s frustration was Saturday night’s game. On a first-and-goal play from the Fresno State nine-yard line in the first quarter, Titan quarterback Paul Schulte fumbled a snap and the Bulldogs recovered.

On a third-and-goal play from the two-yard line in the second quarter, Schulte bobbled the snap and was sacked for a three-yard loss. Fullerton settled for a field goal.

In the third quarter, Schulte fumbled a snap from the Fresno State 12-yard line and the Bulldogs recovered.

“What amazes me is we went to Auburn and had just one turnover, but since then we’ve had a plethora of misadventures,” Murphy said. “The worst thing is to turn the ball over, but we do it at the worst extremes of the field. Most of the turnovers are created by us, and that really hurts.”

No one is confusing Nevada Las Vegas with Notre Dame, but Fullerton might have as much trouble stopping the Rebels’ offense Saturday as they would slowing the Irish.

First-year Coach Jim Strong, the former offensive coordinator at Notre Dame, has installed the option offense at Las Vegas, and the Rebels (2-3) have responded by scoring 25.6 points per game, the 37th highest average in the nation.

UNLV rolled up 628 yards in Saturday’s 37-28 victory over Pacific. The Rebels have two solid running threats in fullback Marvin Eastman and tailback Teddy James and an all-round threat in reserve quarterback/flanker Hunkie Cooper, who ranks seventh in the nation in all-purpose yards with 163.8 per game.

But what makes UNLV most difficult to defend is its quarterback, Derek Stott, who often passes out of the option alignment and utilizes play-action passes and fakes. Stott completed 21 of 28 passes for 280 yards against Pacific.

“They don’t have Tony Rice or Rocket (Raghib) Ismail, but they’re similar to Notre Dame,” Murphy said.

The UNLV offense is also similar to Akron’s offense, which dissected the Titans for 48 points and 443 yards two weeks ago. And Fullerton had Siler for that game.

But the Titans didn’t have defensive backs Terry Tramble and Michael Jones for the Akron game, and their speed could make a difference Saturday.

“Our preparation will be the same; it’s just a matter of execution,” Murphy said. “If we execute and contain and don’t break down, we’ll be OK.”

Titan Notes

Fullerton coaches are considering redshirting offensive lineman Shannon Illingworth, a senior who injured his knee in practice after the first game of the season and hasn’t played since. Illingworth’s recovery has been slower than expected, and the longer he stays out, the more likely he’ll declare this a hardship year and return in 1991. . . . Linebacker Teddy McMillan, the Titans’ second-leading tackler, sprained his ankle against Fresno State but is probable for the UNLV game. . . . J.J. Celestine, Fullerton’s leading receiver with 20 catches for 334 yards, is questionable for Saturday’s game because of a shoulder injury. . . . The Titans’ game at UNLV will conclude a grueling, five-game road trip that included three games east of the Mississippi River, but it is only the fourth-longest road trip in Fullerton history. The 1979 team, coached by Jim Colletto, played eight consecutive road games during a 3-8 season. Colletto’s 1978 team and Gene Murphy’s 1980 team each finished the year with six consecutive road games.

The Fullerton women’s basketball team will open the 1990-91 season by playing host to its own tournament, the Titan Gatorade Classic, on Nov. 23-24. Southwest Texas State, Cal State Northridge and Oregon State will visit Titan Gym for the tournament. . . . The Fullerton women’s volleyball team has struggled with a 3-13 record, but the Titans are receiving outstanding play from outside hitter Becky Howlett, who has led the team in kills in all but one match. The 6-foot-4 freshman from Aurora, Colo., has 217 kills, an average of 3.8 a game. . . . The Titan soccer team is 2-5-2 but showed improvement last weekend by defeating San Jose State, 2-0, and giving Big West Conference favorite Fresno State a tough game before losing, 2-1. Raul Haro leads Fullerton in scoring with four goals, and goalie Jay Nettekoven has recorded two shutouts and allowed an average of 1.4 goals a game.