To Be Another Miami, Aztecs Must Prove Parallels Cross

San Diego State would like to think it will be looking in a mirror when it looks across the line of scrimmage at Miami this afternoon.

That, however, would be wishful thinking.

In reality, SDSU will be looking at what it hopes is a crystal ball. It would like to see Miami and know that is what it will be like somewhere not very far down the road.

Who wouldn’t?

Of the 106 universities playing Division I football, at least 80 would like to have the program Miami has. Maybe a few more, maybe a few less.

Notre Dame, for example, is probably quite pleased being itself. The same undoubtedly can be said for institutions such as Colorado, Texas, USC, Brigham Young and Penn State and probably not very many others.

There’s something about being ranked first or second in the nation at the end of the last five years.

San Diego State has this Miami obsession for a slightly different reason than the others. It has more to do with where Miami was than where Miami is . And it has to do with geographic and demographic parallels as well, although these universities are a continent apart.

Miami, you see, has not always been like this. The Hurricanes went through years when they struggled with .500 and frequently settled for worse. They went through years when it did not seem the community cared whether or not they bothered playing football.

Do records such as 2-8, 3-8, 3-8, 6-5 and 5-6 look familiar? How about attendance averages such as 23,476, 17,236, 20,978 and 24,001?

Little more than a decade ago, to be sure, Miami was losing to the likes of Tulane, Texas Christian, Navy and . . . San Diego State. Howard Schnellenberger’s only losing season at Miami, 1979, would have been a winning season but for a 31-20 loss to the Aztecs.

Miami, first under the direction of Schnellenberger and later Jimmy Johnson and Dennis Erickson, obviously turned it around. Four years after that loss to SDSU, the Hurricanes won a national championship.

What San Diego State has noted is that nothing in Miami’s history suggested it was entering the 1980s on the precipice of becoming a national player. As the clock struck midnight on Jan. 1, 1980, anyone suggesting Miami would win three national championships in the decade would have had his car keys taken away.

Thus, Miami stands as an example to the Aztecs, like an older brother who went out into the real world and made good.

How realistic, then, is this dream? Or is that all it is, a dream?

Consider that San Diego State’s reputation at the onset of the ‘90s is no better or worse than Miami’s at the onset of the ‘80s. In either case, we’re talking ambition without a historical basis of success.

This very series with Miami is indicative of San Diego State’s ambition. You don’t schedule a 16-year series such as this unless you expect to be competitive. SDSU will measure its progress against its alter ago.

It is also ambitious to be negotiating a 1992 game against USC, but these are the kinds of games which get people’s attention.

The trick is to become more and more competitive in defeat and ultimately turn it around and . . . win. The Aztecs have been struggling in this regard in their series with UCLA. There have been a couple of close calls, three-point losses in 1984 and 1989, but never a victory.

There have been a couple of breakthroughs against Brigham Young, the most nationally prominent of SDSU’s Western Athletic Conference brethren. The Aztecs were victorious in both 1986 and 1988.

What they are doing, in essence, is making progress in little nibbles.

That’s the way it figures to be, because this program has made great strides in the quality of its schedule. There are no Mexico Polytechnics or Los Angeles States or Cal Poly San Luis Obispos or Montana States to be found. This team could go for years and never lose to teams of that caliber.

Schedule quality has been part of San Diego State’s problem in terms of community perception. The Aztecs are heavyweights who keep finding themselves being measured against predecessors who feasted on flyweights.

So here they are again, stepping into the ring against the beast they would like to become. To be Miami, there will have to come a time when SDSU beats Miami.

It won’t happen this time around. Miami is still much too much. It’s still a matter of narrowing the gap, rather than closing it altogether.

Of course, there isn’t any guarantee that San Diego State football will get where it wants to go and become what it wants to become. It will get that look today into the crystal ball, but the darned thing doesn’t come with a map or instructions.