CAL STATE FULLERTON NOTEBOOK : Murphy to Make a Shift in Recruiting Strategy

Cal State Fullerton’s worst-ever football season is history, and so is Coach Gene Murphy’s latest recruiting philosophy, which emphasized high school players over community college players.

Almost every year since Murphy arrived in 1980, Fullerton has signed more community college athletes, sort of the quick-fix approach to recruiting.

You identify needs, find the community college players who meet them and play them for two seasons. It keeps coaches scrambling, but if you recruit the right players, it keeps you competitive.

But last winter, Murphy deviated from that approach because he figured--and boy, was he ever right--the Titans wouldn’t contend for the Big West Conference championship this season.

Murphy, intent on rebuilding over the long haul, signed 18 high school players out of 25 recruits. A two- or three-year emphasis on high school recruits--who usually redshirt a year and play four--would build depth and continuity in the program, Murphy believed.

Ideally, Murphy could have a senior or junior starting at most positions, sophomores and freshmen backing them up and redshirt players learning the system in practice.

This is the way most big-time college football programs are run. It’s even how one Big West program (Fresno State) is run.

But a 1-11 season, which reached a new low in Saturday’s 43-9 loss to previously winless New Mexico State, has Murphy shifting recruiting gears.

“Of the 25 kids we bring in, probably 18 will be from community colleges,” Murphy said. “If things had gone better this season, we would have continued to lean toward high school recruits. But the future is now. Some of our redshirts will help next year, but we have some definite needs.

As in the defensive backfield, defensive line, outside linebacker, offensive line, receiver . . .

“Just about everywhere,” Murphy said.

Sometimes, an infiltration of community college players can cause dissension, especially when one takes a starting job away from a junior or senior who has been in the program for three or four years.

But Murphy doesn’t care about the possible ramifications.

“That’s the way it is,” he said. “The idea is to find someone who is better than the people you have. The name of the game is competition.”

In a fitting conclusion to a season filled with frustration, long road trips and airport delays, 12 members of the Titan football contingent, including nine assistant coaches and sports information director Mel Franks, were bumped from a return flight Saturday night.

The team flew from El Paso, Tex., to Phoenix, but the Southwest Airlines flight from Phoenix to Ontario was overbooked, and the airline requested that 12 from the Fullerton group make way for other passengers.

There is a happy ending, though. An America West flight, which was supposed to have departed before the team arrived in Phoenix, was an hour and a half late. The 12 boarded that flight and arrived at Ontario 45 minutes after the team.

Things took a turn for the better when the displaced dozen discovered that America West offers free beverage service on their flights.

“And one or two of us did take advantage of the free-drink option,” Franks said.

One Titan who couldn’t be too disappointed with the season was senior Mike Simmons, a 6-foot-7, 320-pound offensive tackle. Simmons began his college career at Arizona State but suffered what appeared to be a career-ending spinal cord injury in 1988.

Doctors advised Simmons to quit the sport, and he sat out the 1988 and ’89 seasons because he wasn’t granted medical clearance. Simmons transferred to Fullerton last August, received medical clearance and played 10 of 12 games.

“I don’t feel so bad,” Simmons said after Saturday’s game. “They said I played my last game a long time ago, but they gave me another chance here, and it was worth it. This is a great group of guys and coaches here. I appreciate them taking the risk with me.”

Some bright spots from a Season on the Blink:

Senior J.J. Celestine, who injured his ankle late in Saturday’s game, had the second-best season ever by a Titan receiver, catching 58 passes for 880 yards.

Junior Reggie Yarbrough, who replaced injured starting running back Deon Thomas in the season opener, rushed for 1,014 yards to become only the fifth Titan runner to surpass the 1,000-yard mark.

Senior quarterback Paul Schulte, who hadn’t started a game since high school, had the third-best passing season in Fullerton history, with 173 completions and 2,316 yards.

Junior inside linebacker Lorenzo Hailey, a summer transfer from College of the Sequoias, led Titan defenders with 99 tackles.

Though Murphy praised his players for staying motivated, senior safety Terry Tramble admitted that as the losses continued to mount, a sense of fatalism permeated the team.

“We just had the feeling that good things weren’t going to happen,” Tramble said. “No matter how much we talked about it, they didn’t happen. But one good thing was the guys never quit all season, no matter how bad we were getting beat.”

Titan Notes

The Fullerton football team’s average attendance for 12 games was 19,587, just short of the 20,000 figure that would have helped the Big West Conference meet its Division I-A attendance requirements. To remain Division I-A, the NCAA states that 60% of the conference’s schools (five in the Big West) must either have a 30,000-seat stadium and average 17,000 fans at home or average 20,000 fans for all games once every four seasons. The Titans averaged 2,738 in three home games. . . . The starting time for the Fullerton-Colorado State men’s basketball game in Titan Gym on Dec. 29 has been changed to 1 p.m. so it doesn’t interfere with Colorado State’s Freedom Bowl football game against Oregon that day. The Freedom Bowl begins at 5 p.m. in Anaheim Stadium, so Colorado State fans in town for the game will be able to attend the Rams-Titans basketball game too. . . . Eric Spooner, a two-time state champion from Eldorado High School in Las Vegas, has signed a letter of intent to wrestle at Fullerton next year. Spooner, a senior with a 116-13 career record, won Nevada state titles at 140 pounds as a sophomore and 145 pounds as a junior. He placed eighth in the nation in the 154-pound division of the U.S. Junior Nationals last summer. . . . Senior forward Ron Caldwell, who is expected to start for the Titan basketball team, sat out Saturday night’s exhibition game against the Illiwabra (Australia) Hawks because of disciplinary reasons. Fullerton Coach John Sneed said Caldwell missed a few classes last week.