CAL STATE FULLERTON NOTEBOOK : After Playing UCLA, Titans Will Have Georgia on Their Minds

Cal State Fullerton’s football team has played at Georgia, Auburn, West Virginia, Florida and Louisiana State. The concept of traveling many miles to lose a game by many points in exchange for many dollars is nothing new to the Titans.

But Fullerton has never faced a more hellacious two-week stretch than this: Games at 16th-ranked UCLA on Saturday in the Rose Bowl and at 14th-ranked Georgia on Sept. 19. The Titans, who opened with a 28-7 victory over Cal State Northridge on Saturday, are one of only seven teams playing two of their first three games against Top 20 teams.

In past seasons, Fullerton has had success the weeks after playing large-guarantee games, or, as Coach Gene Murphy used to call them, “body bag games.”

In 1987, the Titans rebounded from a 56-12 loss at Louisiana State to defeat Long Beach, 31-12, and came back from a 65-0 loss at Florida to beat Nevada Las Vegas, 28-14. In 1988, after a 45-10 loss at West Virginia, they beat UNLV, 20-10.

Even after losing at Auburn, 38-17, in 1990, a very bad Fullerton team, one that went 1-11, played very well in a 27-13 loss at Mississippi State the next week.

But when the Titans finish at the Rose Bowl this weekend there will be no New Mexico State or UNLV or, rest its soul, Long Beach, awaiting. Only a hungry Georgia team bent on erasing the embarrassing memories of last year’s 27-14 victory over Fullerton, in which the Bulldogs needed a touchdown with 32 seconds left to pull away.

“That’s why the Georgia game concerns me more,” Murphy said. “I know we’ll be very emotionally aroused Saturday, because it’s a big thrill to play in the Rose Bowl, but I don’t know what will happen at Georgia.

“Though they beat us last year, it will be like payback for them. They won’t be practicing for Clemson this year, that’s for sure.”

Several Georgia players said they looked past the Titans and toward the next week’s Clemson game last season. Murphy said the Bulldogs used only two basic offensive and defensive schemes against them, proof to him that Georgia didn’t want to show Clemson scouts too much.

Georgia plays Tennessee on Saturday and Mississippi the week after Fullerton.

“I’m sure they’ll be looking past Tennessee to the Titans,” Murphy joked.

While Georgia is expecting a sellout crowd for the Fullerton game, many no-shows are expected Saturday in the Rose Bowl. There has been talk of Bruin boosters organizing a boycott of the game in protest of UCLA’s decision to schedule such a weak nonconference opponent when it had a chance to play Notre Dame.

Wonder if those Bruin boosters know that Fullerton turned down UCLA’s offer to play two more times?

“I hope we can get by the pickets for our pregame,” Murphy said. “But what they do is none of my business. I only care about what people who are important to me think, and they’re not important to me.”

On leave: Long-time Titan trainer Jerry Lloyd, who was awarded the game ball after Saturday night’s victory, is suffering from kidney disease and will spend this year on sick leave.

Lloyd, who has spent 23 of his 49 years at Fullerton, suffered kidney failure in July and also underwent gall bladder surgery. He has been in the hospital three of the past five weeks and receives dialysis treatments twice a week.

“I’ve had polycystic kidneys for eight or nine years and kept working until I couldn’t go anymore,” said Lloyd, who is on a donor’s list for a transplant. “I feel good now, but I have to pace myself.”

Lloyd, whose loss will be offset in part by the hiring of two graduate assistant trainers, said it has been difficult adjusting to life without his regular work routine.

“It’s like having a rug pulled out from under you,” he said. “You think about retirement and you look forward to it, but it’s a little different when you don’t have control over it.”

On the run: The Titan men’s and women’s cross-country teams open the season Saturday in the Cal State Fullerton Invitational at 9:30 a.m. in Carbon Canyon Park.

Steve Frisone and Tony Castellon, Fullerton’s top runners last season, have decided to spend this season as redshirts. Frisone is redshirting because he wanted to save his senior year for 1993 and Castellon is doing it because his wife recently gave birth to their first child.

But Coach John Elders still expects the Titans to improve on last season’s third-place finish in the Big West Conference. Junior Mike Tansley, who was a redshirt in 1991 because of an injury, returns in excellent shape, and senior Jose Serrano and junior Brian Johnson have improved.

The Titan women, who also finished third in the Big West last season, should be even stronger in 1992. Senior Kristen Peters, who finished fourth in the conference meet, sophomore Heather Killeen, who was 10th, and junior Ruth Viramontes, who was 21st, will lead Fullerton.

Rematch: Fullerton will have a chance to avenge its 3-2 loss to Pepperdine in the College World Series championship game when the Titans and Waves meet in a nonconference baseball game Feb. 23 at Pepperdine.

The Waves also will travel to Fullerton for a game March 10. The Pepperdine series highlights an extremely demanding 1993 nonconference schedule for the Titans, who will play three-game series against Stanford (home), Texas (away) and Arizona (away) and home-and-home, two-game series against UCLA, USC and Cal State Northridge.

Florida State will play in Fullerton’s Disney tournament, and the Titans will play in the Metrodome at the Minnesota tournament, which includes Arkansas, Georgia Tech and Minnesota.

Titan Notes

Football Coach Gene Murphy named guard Dan Garcia (offensive), lineman Joe Elizondo and cornerback B.B. Hudson (defensive) and Jason Stanley (special teams) as his players of the week after the Titans’ victory over Northridge. Garcia helped pave the way for Fullerton’s 293 rushing yards, Hudson had seven tackles, Elizondo had five tackles and one sack, and Stanley recovered two fumbles on punts. . . . Of the 17 Big West men’s basketball games that SportsChannel will televise during the 1992-93 season, only two involve Fullerton--the Titans’ game Jan. 16 at UC Irvine and their game Jan. 21 at Cal State Long Beach. . . . The Titan soccer team has a busy week, playing at San Diego tonight and traveling this weekend to the New Mexico Lobos Classic in Albuquerque, where they will play North Texas State Friday and Drake Sunday. . . . Former Costa Mesa High School standout Denisha Bendz, one of the Titans’ top cross-country and track recruits, is academically ineligible to compete this season.