AZTEC NOTEBOOK : Late Hit on SDSU’s McGwire Precipitates Fight, Ejections

Now, about that brawl . . .

It started when San Diego State quarterback Dan McGwire flipped a left-handed shovel pass to Jim Hanawalt for a two-point conversion with 2:40 left in the game. That pulled SDSU to within 30-28.

After Hanawalt was already in the end zone and the play over, Miami defensive end Shane Curry laid a textbook tackle on McGwire, chest-high. SDSU offensive tackle Nick Subis went after Curry, and both benches cleared.

“After the game, (Curry) came up and apologized,” McGwire said. “He said he didn’t know I had gotten rid of the ball.”

Curry: “I hit McGwire a little late. I thought he had the ball; he didn’t have the ball. Their players are going to stick up for them, my players are going to stick up for me.

“If you’re in a bar with your partner and he is getting his butt whupped, you wouldn’t let him get his butt whupped if you were a man.”

Subis: “I seen it happen. I just couldn’t believe that a guy could actually do something like that. Our No. 1 priority as linemen is to never let anyone touch our quarterback, especially after a play.

“Dan probably would have been able to handle it himself. I decided to help him out a little bit.”

The game was delayed nearly five minutes until order was restored.

This was just the second game in a 16-year agreement between SDSU and Miami. Between the nail-biting finish and the brawl, might this be the start of a rivalry?

“It will definitely be a rivalry, maybe,” Curry said.

Oh.

Who would have thought the 98th-rated Aztecs’ defense could hold fifth-rated offense in the country to just 345 total yards, 152 yards below their average?

Probably not anyone who had seen the Aztecs play this season, but the players said they weren’t too surprised by their effort.

“I think we were dealt some bad cards earlier in the year,” defensive back Robert Griffith said. “But we always knew we could play this well. There was a lot of uncertainty during the year, but we came together today. I’m proud of this whole team.”

Griffth, like many of the defense backs, were matched in single coverage with Miami wide receivers Wesley Carroll, Lamar Thomas and Randall Hill for the most of the game. The cornerbacks were left alone when safety Chris Johnson and nickle back Tracey Mao blitzed. Cornerbacks Marlon Andrews and Gary Taylor covered Miami’s speedy wide receivers pretty well for the most part, limiting the Hurricanes to 284 passing yards, 45 under their average.

But with 4:22 left in the first quarter, Griffith found Carroll a little too much to handle by himself. On an all-out blitz, Carroll got behind Griffith and Erickson hit hit Carroll in stride for a 55-yard touchdown for the first score of the game.

“I got turned around and (Erickson) threw an excellent pass,” Griffith said. “That ball was right in there. I just said, ‘Wow.’ ”

T.C. Wright carried for 118 yards against a Miami defense that had been allowing just 75 on the ground.

Wright said he ran better than he thought he would.

“Generally, in the past, nobody has run on Miami,” Wright said. “But our goal today was 150 team yards.”

SDSU got 125.

Aztec Notes

SDSU finished the season with a school-record 5,795 yards of total offense. The Aztecs surpassed the previous total--set last year--of 5,610. The impressive thing about that is that last year’s team took 12 games to set the record--this year’s record was set in 11 games. . . . Quarterback Dan McGwire is scheduled to appear on the Today Show at about 7:35 a.m. Monday. . . . Coach Al Luginbill and several assistants and trainers wore a yellow arm band with the initials RDG in tribute to Randy Donald Guliher, a student assistant equipment manager who is in the Marine Reserves and was deployed to the Persian Gulf Saturday. . . . McGwire set an NCAA record for lowet percentage of pass interceptions in a season, with 1.56%. Only seven of his 449 pass attempts were intercepted. Jim McMahon held the record of 1.65%, set in 1981.