THE COLLEGES / MIKE HISERMAN : CSUN’s Forgotten Men Beg for Air Time

Have they no shame? No, they do not. Given an opening, they unabashedly plead.

When an opposing cornerback is “playing soft” or a linebacker is “short on his drop” it is dutifully reported on the sidelines.

“They always say, ‘Come talk to us. Come talk to us,’ ” Paul Peters says of his coaches. “But then when we do they look at us like, ‘Shut your mouth . . . ‘ “

Such is life as a receiver on the Cal State Northridge football team.

The most important route a Matador receiver runs is the one he follows when bringing in the call for a running play from the sideline. They are human carrier pigeons.

Peters and teammates Adam McKinney, Billy Nealy and Cornell Ward provide the Matadors with as talented a quartet of receivers as there is in NCAA Division II football.

But you will have to trust us on that one. The statistics don’t bear out the claim. The four have combined for 31 receptions--CSUN quarterbacks have completed 59 passes--in four games.

Even though the passing game averages 65 yards more per game than the running game (154.5 yards passing to 89.8), the play selection is decidely in favor of the latter: 59% of all plays are running plays.

Additionally, the running backs have caught only 11 fewer passes than the receivers.

What gives? Well, for one thing, the Northridge offensive line. In Northridge’s most recent game, a 9-7 victory over Central Oklahoma, Marty Fisher was sacked five times for 53 yards.

“We have a quality quarterback,” Northridge Coach Bob Burt said. “The question is, can we give him enough time to get our receivers the ball? When he’s been getting time, he connects.”

Unfortunately for the Matadors, it doesn’t happen often enough. Northridge’s best athletes are at the receiver position. Somehow, the Matadors have to get the ball to these guys.

Joe Rice, a graduate assistant who is serving as receivers coach this season, was among the forgotten wide receivers last season when the Northridge offense consisted of three plays: Albert Fann running left, right and up the middle.

“We’ve got height, we’ve got speed, we’ve got hands, we’ve got quickness,” Rice said of the receiving corps. “To me, it’s all there.”

All except the game plan. Fann’s eligibility has been exhausted and still the Matadors attempt to play ball control. This year, the team lacks two key ingredients to play ball-control football: a dominant offensive line and a dominant back.

Peters recalled that Rancho Santiago, his junior college team, would throw deep “five or six times a game just to get some respect.”

Against Northridge, opponents often get away with stacking eight defenders within five yards of the line of scrimmage.

“Everybody runs an eight-man front to stop the run because they don’t believe we can pass even though we have the receivers,” McKinney said. “They try to make us prove ourselves.”

The passes seem to come only as a last resort.

“We’ve just got to open things up,” Ward said. “It seems like we always want to do certain things but then get stuck in binds when we’re doing it two plays late.”

Nealy recalls a game against Cal State Sacramento two years ago in which Northridge came out throwing, catching the Hornets off guard. When Sacramento adjusted its defense accordingly, the Matadors went back to Fann, their All-American tailback, who rushed for a career-high 247 yards.

“If we open up with the pass it would throw every team in the conference off,” Nealy said. “They expect us to run the ball.”

So too does UC Davis, Northridge’s opponent tonight at Toomey Field in Davis, Calif.

But maybe, just maybe, the Aggies will be wrong.

In the past two weeks the football has been airborne more often than not around the Northridge practice field.

Even Burt is hinting that change is in the wind.

“If the philosophy has to change, so be it,” he said before a practice this week. “We are developing into a team that will throw the ball more and I think by doing that we will open up the running game.”

As for Northridge’s receivers, they’ll believe it when they see it.

Said McKinney: “That would be nice. But we hear the same thing every week.”