Aztecs Have Been Down This Road : College football: History says Saturday’s SDSU-BYU clash could go either way.

If history is the great teacher, and if someone were to look back at it for insight on Saturday’s San Diego State-Brigham Young game for the Western Athletic Conference championship, that person would find . . .

Not much of a trend.

SDSU and BYU have played twice for the WAC championship. Those situations were identical to the one this week. Both games were in San Diego. And both games were the last conference games of the season.

One was probably the most embarrassing moment in SDSU athletic history.

1979 . . . BYU 63, SDSU 14.

One was, maybe, the high point in Aztec football.

1986 . . . SDSU 10, BYU 3.

Reggie Blaylock, an assistant athletic director at SDSU, was a starting offensive guard for the 1986 SDSU team and Eric Huth was a starting offensive guard for the 1979 SDSU team. Blaylock answered his telephone one day earlier this week and heard Huth’s voice on the other end.

Huth, who works across campus, had actually called for business reasons. Of course, they had to talk football first.

“Hey, man, the situation coming up this week is identical to ours,” Huth said. “With one exception. We laid an egg.”

Said Blaylock: “Yeah, the situation is also identical to mine. But we played our butts off and won.”

Huth: “What do you think it will it be this week?”

Blaylock: “Similar to ‘86, but with a few more points scored.”

And Mario Mitchell, an SDSU defensive back from 1985 through 1988, called Blaylock the other day. Mitchell will be at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium Saturday night. The ties that bind . . . 1979, 1986, 1991.

Three years, three teams, three similar situations.

Three letters--BYU.

“I hope these guys (this year) understand the importance of this game,” Mitchell said. “BYU . . . “

NOV. 24, 1979: RED-FACED

“I hope you don’t mind. I hate talking about that ’79 game.”

--Ulima Afoa, SDSU defensive line coach, who started at strong guard for SDSU in 1979

The Hype: Some things in life, you don’t forget. Your first date. Your first car. Your baby’s first steps.

And few people with SDSU ties can forget this. It was one of SDSU’s first journeys into the big time. The Aztecs, whose program had gone Division I in 1969, had joined the WAC only one year earlier.

And this was their first national telecast. The men who broadcast the game on ABC that day were Al Michaels and former Notre Dame Coach Ara Parseghian.

SDSU was 8-2 going into the game--sound familiar?--and hadn’t allowed more than one touchdown pass in a game. And the Aztecs had 13 interceptions in the six games before BYU came to town.

The Cougars, though, had Marc Wilson. He led the nation in passing and needed only 23 yards against SDSU to break the NCAA record.

BYU was 10-0 and ranked 10th nationally.

The Happening: The Holiday Bowl had been created a year earlier, in conjunction with SDSU’s WAC entrance. You know, give the local heroes a bowl game of their own.

No such luck. BYU had won the WAC in 1978 and gone to the first Holiday Bowl. Now, in 1979 . . .

It was never close. BYU scored 21 points in the first 8:12 in front of a stunned crowd of 46,121.

“No, it was in the first three minutes, wasn’t it?” Afoa said.

It only seemed that way. Talk about taking the crowd out of the game early.

BYU scored on three of its first six plays on touchdown pass plays of 25, 42 and 57 yards.

“We kind of changed our game plan a bit,” said Mark Halda, SDSU quarterback in 1979 and who now broadcasts Aztec games on radio. “Defensively, we sold out. We tried to blitz Marc Wilson. We were real close to getting him a couple of times but we didn’t quite get him.

“If there was a mistake made, I think it was that we didn’t allow our talent to match up to their talent.

“They probably were the better team, but not 63-14.”

Wilson completed 13 of 21 passes for 278 yards and four touchdowns. It was the only time all season Wilson failed to surpass the 300-yard mark. Of course, he was taken out of the game with 5:28 left in the third quarter and the Cougars ahead, 56-7.

“There’s not much you can say after you get whipped like that,” then-SDSU Coach Claude Gilbert said afterward. “I thought they were a great team today and we certainly were not. We’re not proud of our team today, but we are certainly proud that they got this far.”

Said Afoa: “Sometimes you’re trucking along, trucking along and then run into a barrier. The next barrier you overcome and now you collect the benefits of that.”

NOV. 29, 1986: RED JACKETS

“I remember everyone selling out on every play, giving their all , as if that play could make the difference in the game.”

--Reggie Blaylock, SDSU assistant athletic director, who started at guard for SDSU in 1986

The Hype: Seven years later, the Aztecs still had not beaten BYU. Not many WAC teams had. The Cougars had won 10 consecutive titles. Since the Aztecs joined the WAC in 1978, BYU was the only team they had not defeated.

“As you’re working out all spring and summer long, you know that if you work out a little harder, you might beat BYU this year,” guard Doug Aronson told The Times a few days before the game. “It’s always in the back of your mind that BYU is No. 1 in the WAC. You don’t want to look past the team you are playing each week, but you always know that BYU is up ahead.”

To make matters worse, BYU’s seniors, in an unenviable position, talked all week in the Utah papers about how they didn’t want to be the first senior class in all those years to not win a conference championship.

Since SDSU’s entry into the WAC, BYU had outscored the Aztecs, 313-58, had won by 50 points, 58-8, in 1982, had not allowed SDSU to come closer than 18 points, 21-3 in 1978, and had not allowed SDSU to score more than 14 points in any game.

For once, BYU didn’t have a superstar quarterback. Trivia experts may remember Steve Lindsley.

This game, too, was on national television.

Each team was 7-3.

The Happening: Mitchell said he vividly recalls the scene in the tunnel before the start of the game.

“The looks in players’ eyes . . . “ he said. “We were determined to do something no other San Diego State team had ever done.”

As the game started, SDSU’s offensive line knew it had to stop standout BYU defensive linemen Jason Buck--who was announced earlier in the day as the Outland Trophy winner--and Shawn Knight. Both would eventually be first-round NFL draft picks.

“Coach (Ed) Schmidt and Coach Afoa put the challenge to us all week,” Blaylock said. “Our job is to win the game for the team by protecting the quarterback. If we protect the quarterback, we win the game. That was our motto for the week.”

Quarterback Todd Santos was sacked eight times. He completed 13 of 28 passes for 168 yards and no touchdowns. He had one pass intercepted.

BYU quarterbacks, though, fared much worse. They too were sacked eight times and Lindsley and a fellow named Bob Jensen combined to complete only eight of 25 passes for 73 yards. Each had two passes intercepted.

In front of 45,062, Chris Hardy’s seven-yard sweep put the Aztecs ahead, 7-0, in the second quarter. Leonard Chitty’s 39-yard third-quarter field goal ensured BYU would not be shut out. Kevin Rahill’s 39-yard fourth quarter field goal finished the scoring.

It didn’t finish the drama though. BYU took its next possession to the SDSU 49 when, with about 4 1/2 minutes left, Steve Lauter intercepted Lindsley’s pass at the Aztec 15.

“We had a thing,” Mitchell said. “Cover them for three seconds and we’d get a sack.”

Or eight sacks.

“Man, oh, man, this is phenomenal,” said Denny Stolz, the first-year coach. “I don’t know how many great things have happened to this city and this school in college football, but this was a big-timer. A championship team needs a championship following and, until tonight, we didn’t have one. You have to have a show, and we were playing for a championship tonight, and the fans showed up. I heard every one of those fans tonight. They gave us a big lift in the fourth quarter.”

BYU has not been held without a touchdown in any game since.

For the first--and only--time, the red-jacketed Holiday Bowl officials extended SDSU an invitation. A few weeks later, the Aztecs lost to Iowa, 39-38.

But because of the success of the 1986 team and the money earned from the Holiday Bowl, the Aztecs were finally able to build a football operations center. Today, that $3.5-million building--which includes a plush locker room, weight training facilities, coaches’ offices, an athletic medicine complex, classrooms and a players’ lounge--is one of SDSU’s prime recruiting attractions.

The Aztecs and their followers, meanwhile, are still waiting for the program’s next step.

Another opportunity is ahead. As usual, it is BYU.