Titan Loss Wrecks Best-Laid Plans

We know how Cal State Fullerton’s student-athletes misspent the second and third weekends of the new semester: Sadly attempting to mix it up with the big boys, at UCLA and at Georgia, back-pedaling between the Benzes and the hedges.

We know the final score: Big Boys 93, Titans 14.

Saturday, then, was supposed to be a return to reality. The Titans were coming home, parachuting to safer ground, which wasn’t so much a bailing-out as a scaling-back to competition of a reasonable and sensible kind.

The Titans were playing someone closer to their own size--actually smaller than their own size--and they were hosting them, in their brand new on-campus stadium, in front of thousands of true blue-and-orange bleeders . . . or at least dozens of lost Brea Mall shoppers.

This weekend, the Division I-A-Or-Be-Damned Titans were playing the Cal State Sacramento Hornets, from the lowlands of Division II.

About that final score:

Not-So-Big Boys 29, Titans 3.

Division III, anyone?

Actually, Sacramento and Fullerton are two teams headed in the same direction, although only one of them has gone on the record about it. Sacramento will move up to Division I-AA in 1993, joining a conference that will include the likes of UC Davis, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, St. Mary’s and Santa Clara.

Fullerton ought to be there, too, and very well could be, although no one even remotely involved with the current Titan fund-raising drive (Help Gene’s Kids Help Terry Donahue and Ray Goff On An Annual Basis) is willing to mention the step “down” for fear of scaring off potential donors.

“I don’t want to get into that,” Fullerton Coach Gene Murphy said. “That’s (Athletic Director Bill Shumard’s) decision. My own feelings about it, I’d rather keep that quiet. I’ll be told what’s going to happen.”

But wouldn’t a 26-point loss to a Division I-AA wannabe indicate that maybe Fullerton belongs on the same level?

As quickly as possible?

“After they beat you, I guess you can say that,” Murphy conceded. “I’m certainly not going to say that.”

The closest Murphy will nod in the direction of Division I-AA is to say he wants “a level playing field.” It wasn’t level in the Rose Bowl, it nearly capsized in Athens and Saturday, in spite of the labeling, it was an uphill incline from the first time the Titans touched the football.

The first time the Titans touched the football, they fumbled, the first of eight on the night, bringing Fullerton’s two-week total to 21 and season total to 33.

Yes, it truly is a triple-option offense.

Option 1: Run the ball.

Option 2: Pass the ball.

Option 3: (Cue Keith Jackson) “ FUM-BULL !!!

But the biggest turnover of the evening was losing to Sacramento, thus deep-sixing the best-laid plans of Shumard. Shumard had scheduled this game for a purpose, backing out of earlier bookings with Hawaii and Mississippi State in favor of Division II opponents Cal State Northridge and Sacramento--thus giving Fullerton a fighting chance of staggering out of September at 2-2.

“We knew from the start,” Shumard said, “that, somehow, we have to build a following. I was trying to schedule Eastern Washington as a fifth home game when Gene told me, ‘No, I’d rather play UCLA.’ He thought the money from that game would help the program more in the long run.

“I was trying to add as many winnable games early as I could. We have a legitimate fan base of about 1,500 and the only way to build on that is to let them taste success. They have to be able to identify with winning. That’s why it’s important that we win at home.”

Shumard was standing outside his private suite, located next to the sleek new press box atop the Titan Sports Complex. That’s right--a private suite. With chairs and everything.

Across the hall, there is a rest room. The toilets flush. Behind him is a elevator. It goes all the way to the top. And inside the stadium? The grass is green, the lights illuminate.

“I think we have a quality facility here,” Shumard said. “But today, the thing society identifies the most with is success . . .

“Look at what happened in Omaha. Our baseball team captured the imagination of the county and held the interest and the attention of Southern California for three weeks this spring. That shows how strong an asset an athletic program can be for this university.

“But tradition doesn’t happen overnight. You can only build tradition one way. One small step at a time.”

Sacramento was one such step, seemingly small enough. But the Hornets defy the standard Division II stereotype. Their quarterback is a transfer from Wyoming. Their top defensive lineman, a 330-pound terror named Jon Kirksey, took recruiting trips to USC, Tennessee, Arizona State and Virginia but wound up in Sacramento only for the lack of an A.A. degree.

Together, these Hornets are 12th-ranked in Division II, 3-0, adding their demolition of the Titans to last week’s 57-9 mauling of Abilene Christian.

So the final outcome was less than stunning for Murphy.

“Around here,” Murphy sighed, “nothing really stuns me anymore.”

It should also serve as a clue for university president Milton A. Gordon and Shumard and all the others who hold the future of Fullerton football in their hands.

Division I-AA is big enough for both of the teams on the field Saturday night. If you can’t beat the Cal State Sacramento Hornets, why not join them?

* GOING NOWHERE: Cal State Fullerton gained just 126 yards and lost four of eight fumbles in a 29-3 loss to Division II Cal State Sacramento. C7