CAL STATE FULLERTON NOTEBOOK : Shumard Trying to Find Ways to Help Ailing Football Program

It’s not easy to depress Bill Shumard, Cal State Fullerton’s upbeat athletic director. But judging from his dour expression throughout Saturday night’s 35-7 loss to San Jose State, it appears the Titan football team has done just that.

It was the seventh lopsided loss for the 1-8 Titans, who are in so far over their heads that even perennially pitiful New Mexico State has whipped them in back-to-back seasons.

“What frustrates me the most is we’re so undermanned,” Shumard said. “No one has any fun in a situation like this. It’s very demoralizing. The kids’ effort has been tremendous, but we just keep coming up on the short side.”

Shumard’s job is to find solutions, and he believes changes in next year’s schedule--Cal State Northridge, Sacramento State and Idaho State have replaced Hawaii, Mississippi State and San Jose State--will help.

Another option is to downgrade the entire football program, from Division I-A to I-AA or nonscholarship I-AAA if it becomes available. The Big West Conference Council has renewed talks this week of establishing a lower-level football consortium to go along with its I-A consortium.

But with UC Santa Barbara, which plays Division III football, the only conference school interested in such a league, it’s doubtful the Big West would manage it at first.

“Our commitment is to the I-A consortium, and without any of our members potentially involved (in a lower level), it would be hard for us to make this a high priority,” Big West Commissioner Jim Haney said. “Down the road, if schools from our conference are playing in such a league and it needs to be managed, we’d be interested in doing it.”

Haney added that if Fullerton wanted to join a lower-level league with schools such as Northridge, St. Mary’s, Sacramento State and Santa Clara, which have shown interest in creating a limited-scholarship, I-AA conference, it would not jeopardize the Titans’ Big West standing in other sports.

It’s not as if it would be a major step down for Fullerton, which currently funds the equivalent of 47 full football scholarships. A fully funded I-A program has 95 scholarships, and I-AA schools can offer up to 75.

So, much of Fullerton’s future will hinge on the current $6.3 million fund-raising campaign, which will benefit the new stadium and the athletic department.

“We have until 1995 to prove ourselves as a Division I-A program,” Shumard said. “The challenge is before the community to keep us at that level. It’s a huge financial challenge to do that, but it’s also good that the conference is preparing us for other options.”

Sidelined: The brief but eventful career of Titan running back Reggie Yarbrough has come to a close. X-rays Monday revealed that Yarbrough tore a ligament in his left ankle against San Jose State and will miss Fullerton’s last two games.

Yarbrough, a senior who spent the second half of Saturday night’s game on crutches, finished with 1,919 yards in two seasons, good for fourth place on the Titans’ all-time rushing list.

The Denver native and former Bakersfield College standout ran for 1,014 yards and nine touchdowns in 1990 and 936 yards and three touchdowns this season. He has 10 100-yard rushing games in his 20-game career, but tasted victory only twice.

“This turned out to be a good situation--I’m not going to complain,” said Yarbrough, who signed with Arizona State last year but was not admitted because he hadn’t obtained his Associate of Arts degree. “I’m just disappointed I didn’t get my 1,000 yards this year. That bothered me.”

Rapid Routs: It has been a long season for Fullerton, which has been outscored, 302-94, but not nearly as long as last season’s 1-11 disaster.

The Titans play only 11 games this year, compared to 12 in 1990, and have been completing games at an amazingly fast pace.

Six of Fullerton’s nine games have lasted fewer than three hours, including four that went 2 hours 46 minutes or less. The season’s quickest was 2:37 against Utah State, and the season’s longest was 3:15 against the University of the Pacific.

Last year, seven games topped the three-hour mark, and two lasted longer than 3 1/2 hours. But the Titans have relied on an inside running game this season, which keeps the ball inbounds, the clock running and the time of depression to a minimum.

“Maybe subconsciously it helps (to play short games),” Titan Coach Gene Murphy said. “But outwardly, it doesn’t help.”

Quirky Stat: Titan punter Phil Nevin is also the team’s highest-rated passer. Nevin faked a punt and threw a 31-yard pass to Darrius Watson against San Jose State Saturday night, giving him two completions in three attempts for 59 yards and a 231.8 rating.

Starting quarterback Chad May has a 72.5 rating, and backup Terry Payne has a 124.7 rating.

Alumni Wanted: Former Fullerton baseball players interested in a Feb. 3 game against the 1992 Titan baseball team are asked to contact Coach Augie Garrido or baseball sports information director Tim Murphy at 773-3789.

The game, tentatively scheduled for 1 p.m., will be the first played in the new Titan Sports Complex. Fullerton opens the 1992 regular season Feb. 4 at home against UCLA.

Titan Notes

The only punishment levied against the Fullerton and Nevada Las Vegas soccer teams for participating in a bench-clearing brawl Oct. 31 was a public reprimand from Big West Conference Commissioner Jim Haney. A conference rule, punishable by a one-game suspension, restricts bench personnel and players from leaving the bench area if a fight breaks out. But because Haney didn’t have a visual record of the incident, he said it was too difficult for individuals to be singled out for offenses. . . . The soccer team, which lost to Fresno State, 2-0, Friday and to San Diego, 3-1, Sunday, closed the season with a 10-10 record, 6-4 in conference. Raul Haro finished with a team-leading 26 points (10 goals, six assists), and Dino Torres had 23 points (nine goals, five assists). . . . Cornerback Darrius Watson increased his Big West Conference-leading interception total to four Saturday when he picked off a San Jose State pass in the third quarter. . . . Wide receiver Frank Davis caught three passes for 70 yards Saturday night, the most yardage by a Titan receiver in a game in 1991.