COLLEGE FOOTBALL REPORT / WEEKDAY UPDATE : SAN DIEGO STATE : McGwire Won’t See His Big Brother Play

Quarterback Dan McGwire hoped to be in Oakland this weekend to watch his brother, Mark, 27, in the World Series, but things haven’t worked out.

Games 3, 4 and 5 are set for tonight, Saturday and Sunday, but the Aztecs are scheduled to practice Saturday afternoon. McGwire figures he would not be able to fly out of San Diego until sometime Saturday night, and then, since Sunday’s World Series game is at night, he wouldn’t return to San Diego until very late Sunday or Monday morning.

“I’d love to go Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” McGwire said. “But since we have practice Saturday, I have to be with the team.”

He said he talked to Coach Al Luginbill about the practice schedule but didn’t ask for Saturday off.

“I didn’t want to push the issue,” said McGwire, who has been to the World Series in each of the past two years. “A lot of people (on the team) would like the weekend off. You can’t pinpoint one person. It’s not fair to everyone else.”

CBS, the network televising the Series, called SDSU’s sports information department earlier this week to inquire whether McGwire would be attending this weekend’s games. They wanted to interview him in the stands during a game.

Colorado won a game earlier this year with a touchdown on fifth down. Michigan State defeated then-No. 1 Michigan when the Wolverines failed on a two-point conversion attempt with six seconds left. Michigan believed there was pass interference on the play, and a couple of days later Coach Gary Moeller received a telephone call from Dave Parry, Big Ten supervisor of officials, who apologized for the officials’ apparent error.

It has been a bad year for officials, and Luginbill says college football should institute an instant replay system.

“Too much goes into these games to allow human error,” he said.

Luginbill said he would even be willing to waste one of his own timeouts in a crucial game to have a key play reviewed.

“We can’t get enough competent officials in one area to service a game,” he said.

Luginbill wondered how it is that people who work at something once a week--officials--are given power in a game over people who do it every day--coaches and players.

“I’ll never understand how they can do that,” he said. “But you know what? I don’t have a thing to say about it.”