Titans Better Than No. 105 in Murphy’s Eyes

The not-quite-national, not-quite-daily National Sports Daily takes the time and effort each week to rank all 106 teams that play Division I-A football.

From the bottom, the current rankings read:

106. New Mexico State (0-6).

105. Cal State Fullerton (1-6).

In the eyes of Cal State Fullerton, the Big West Conference and Mike DiGiovanna, this is not a good read. DiGiovanna covers Fullerton football for this newspaper. Before that, he worked for the Virginian-Pilot/Ledger Star, where, this fall, he was going to cover University of Virginia football.

From No. 1 to 105, in the flash of a handshake.

As career moves go, this has to rank right there with McLean Stevenson leaving “M*A*S*H” for “Hello Larry.”

“Hey,” Mike says, looking on the bright side, “at least I don’t have to work on New Year’s Day.”

Gene Murphy, Fullerton’s football coach, also gropes for humor amid the rubble. When talking about his quarterback, the much-battered Paul Schulte, Murphy manages a smile and quips, “I think retardation is setting in, because Schulte says he wants to go into coaching. Maybe this season is going to change his mind.”

Yet the winks and the grins and the nudges into the ribs are merely camouflage for Murphy. It only hurts when he doesn’t laugh.

The 1-6 record embarrasses him.

The never-ending injury list confounds him.

And the 105-out-of-106 ranking just plain annoys him.

“Yeah, I’ve seen it,” Murphy grumbles. “Does it make me angry? You’re damn right.

“I’m in my 25th year of coaching. One week, it’s, ‘Boy, you sure played well against Auburn and Mississippi State,’ and now it’s this. When you stop being competitive and it doesn’t hurt anymore, it’s time to go back to selling Kirby vacuum cleaners or teaching senior social studies.”

Murphy senses he has already been swept up in a story line that gets better as every weekend gets uglier.

“The best thing, the most positive thing that could happen from the media’s point of view is for us to lose the rest of our games,” Murphy says. “If we lose them all, it’s a better story than if we win one or two more.

“Am I right?

“It’s always easier to write about extremes than to write about mediocrity.”

That is one man’s opinion, of course. One very war-weary, word-wary man. But let Murphy play sports editor if he wants to. It beats having to play Auburn.

If Murphy were laying out the front page, though, he’d make sure to include a few sidebars. If the big story is 1-6, there are a lot of little stories as to why.

According to Murphy, the real Titans would have never been 1-6 and 105. The real Titans were the ones with Deon Thomas at tailback, Shannon Illingworth at guard, Terry Tramble at safety, Clarence Siler at defensive end and Nuygen Pendleton at cornerback--before the injury wave hit. The real Titans were the ones who played Auburn surprisingly tough and had a chance to win at Mississippi State--before expectations and the rigors of five consecutive games on the road caved in on them.

And Murphy sees a real connection between the fallen Titans and too-long-a-life on the road.

“Most of our injuries have occurred at practice,” he says, “which is unusual, because when game time rolls around, you tend to pick it up one, two, three notches. Games are much more intense.

“We had very few injuries against Auburn and Mississippi State. But after being on the road so long, we’d get back to practice and our players would be tired and they’d get hurt. Fatigue has definitely been a factor.”

Fullerton originally had two more home games on its schedule, against Fresno State and San Jose State, the two strongest teams in the conference. But when Fullerton Athletic Director Ed Carroll sees a dollar, he goes for it, and Carroll traded away both dates for some handsome gate receipts at Bulldog and Spartan stadiums.

If Fullerton didn’t sell its soul when it sold those games, it certainly sold its health.

“We had to sell those games,” Murphy says. “We didn’t want to do it, but we had to--to help this program and all the others.”

It’s a tough life, serving as road kill so that gymnastics and fencing teams at Fullerton can survive. Carroll doesn’t force John Sneed to play at Duke for the money. Sneed only plays Nevada Las Vegas because he has to.

But Murphy shoulders the load and does his best to suffer in silence.

“I think about it all the time,” he admits. “I just don’t say anything. It’s something that’s just not said, except between Gene Murphy and Ed Carroll. You just suck it up and deal with it.”

Murphy also theorizes that the non-routs against Auburn and Mississippi State have emotionally backfired on the Titans, setting up the 48-17, 38-3 and 67-37 routs that followed.

“Our players had everybody and their brother telling them they played great,” Murphy says. “We played well in those two games, we played hard, but we still lost the damn games. Emotionally and mentally, it might have given our team a false sense of security.”

As a result, the Titans have no sense of security. How can they, when they don’t know where their next pregame meal is coming?

Will it be box lunches in Hawaii?

The Holiday Inn buffet in San Jose?

The road will end, finally, on Nov. 17, at, of all places, New Mexico State. There, No. 106 will meet No. 105, for none of the marbles, for the right to be last all alone.

The media will be there, of course. We know a good story when we see one.