AZTEC UPDATE : NOTEBOOK : It Might Not Have Mattered, but Rowe Receives Bigger Pads

Receiver Patrick Rowe and SDSU equipment manager Steve Bartel swear there is no correlation. But Rowe, still bothered by two sore shoulders, was wearing new pads when he injured the shoulders.

The pair of shoulder pads Rowe wore during his first four years at SDSU was rejected when Bartel took them to be serviced before the season.

So Rowe was fitted for a new pair, and the pair he picked were a bit smaller than Bartel would have liked. They were the pair Rowe was wearing in the Cal State Long Beach game (when he bruised his right shoulder) and in the Air Force game (when he bruised his left shoulder).

“They felt real good, but I shouldn’t have gone that small,” Rowe said. “Steve told me not to go that small, but they felt real good.”

After injuring his left shoulder against Air Force, Rowe switched to a different, bigger pair.

Bartel takes Aztec helmets and shoulder pads to be cleaned, checked and repaired each summer, and Rowe’s old shoulder pads had cracks in the plastic shields on top of the shoulders.

They were judged unsafe, and Rowe went for smallness as a replacement.

“We learned our lesson,” Bartel said.

But he said he doesn’t think it would have mattered.

“To be honest, I don’t think it was the pads,” Bartel said. “He just got hit.”

Fullback Jamal Farmer, Hawaii’s second-leading rusher at 95 yards a game, quit the team Tuesday after a disagreement with coaches. Farmer was unhappy that Travis Sims played most of the second half last Saturday at Colorado State, and coaches said Farmer made some disparaging remarks about Sims. Farmer denied making them.

Farmer, though, has had his share of problems at Hawaii. He has been suspended in each of the past two seasons.

“They’ll be better off without him,” SDSU Coach Al Luginbill said. “You get a guy with a bad attitude on your team and you’re better off without him.”

Although Brian Barry, SDSU trainer, said defensive end Ramondo Stallings (ankle) will be able to make the trip to Hawaii, Luginbill said he doubts if Stallings will go. Stallings practiced Wednesday but “wasn’t even close” to where he should be, according to Luginbill. Tight end Judd Rachow (right knee sprain) returned to practice Wednesday. Also, freshman running back Joe Abdullah, who is redshirting, will undergo surgery Tuesday for a right shoulder subluxation--close to but not quite a separation--and will not return until spring football.