AZTEC NOTEBOOK / SCOTT MILLER : Rowe Finally Breaks 100-Yard Mark

Not many people thought it would take until the season’s seventh game for Patrick Rowe to reach this milestone: his first game of 100 or more yards receiving.

Rowe caught seven passes for 102 yards during SDSU’s 28-21 victory over Texas El Paso Saturday night and was smiling in the locker room afterward.

“I knew I’d get it this game,” he said. “They play a lot of man-to-man. I thought I’d have plenty of opportunities for the ball to be put in my hands.”

Now for Rowe’s next goal--his first touchdown reception of the year.

Merle Miller, executive director of the Copper Bowl, was a no show Saturday. He had said Friday that he would be in El Paso to scout the Aztecs. Eddie Mullins, UTEP sports information director, said Miller had requested passes, but Mullins said he didn’t know why Miller didn’t arrive.

Miller said Friday that SDSU is one of the teams the Copper Bowl is interested in, and he said that Copper Bowl scouts would also watch the Aztecs at Utah Saturday.

Supposedly.

SDSU linebacker Lou Foster on the Aztec fourth-quarter defense Saturday: “We knew our backs were against the wall. We told each other we had to make big plays. ‘Hey, who’s going to make the next big play?’ we were saying. And we did it.”

Weird Statistic of the Night: Texas El Paso’s Kenny Brown was credited with a 38-yard touchdown run and quarterback Mike Perez was credited with a 12-yard run--on the same play.

It happened in the second quarter and it enabled UTEP to pull within seven points of SDSU. The ball was at midfield, and Perez started running through a wide-open hole and went for 12 yards. But, before he could be tackled, he pitched to Brown, who went the rest of the way for a touchdown to make the score 14-7.

On a play such as that, each player gets the yardage added to his total but only Perez, who started the play, gets a carry added to his statistics.

So theoretically, if that would have been Brown’s only carry, his statistics would have read: 0 carries, 38 yards, 1 touchdown.