The Titan Road Woes Never End

Want to get Cal State Fullerton football Coach Gene Murphy really steamed without even mentioning the words “budget” and “cut” in the same sentence?

Just mention this weekend’s trip to San Jose, where the Titans play the Spartans tonight in a Big West Conference game.

It marks the fourth consecutive season that Fullerton has played at San Jose State, a road streak that raises the ire of the Titan coach--and then some.

This was originally scheduled as a home game for Fullerton. But when Cal State Long Beach dropped football last winter, it triggered a chain of events that led to then-Big West Commissioner Jim Haney switching the site.

Fullerton was scheduled to play at Long Beach, and Long Beach was to play at San Jose this season, but without Long Beach, San Jose was left with only three home games, two in conference.

Haney, who last summer took a job as executive director of the National Assn. of Basketball Coaches, figured the Titans were on the road against Long Beach anyway, so he switched the schedule to make San Jose the host school for tonight’s game, giving the Spartans a third conference home game.

That left Fullerton as the only Big West school with only two conference home games.

“That ticks me off, and it shows a total disrespect for Cal State Fullerton,” Murphy said. “Poor San Jose State has to go all the way to Cal and Stanford for road games. Thank God we now have a real commissioner (Dennis Farrell) who is intelligent, compassionate . . . and an Irishman.”

Fullerton was also supposed to play host to San Jose in 1990, but then-Athletic Director Ed Carroll sold that game--and another home game against Fresno State--in order to generate about $110,000 to save the fencing and men’s gymnastics programs.

The Titans played nine road games during that 1-11 season. To Murphy, the selling of those home games was just another example of how the Titan athletic administration has sold out the football team to benefit the rest of the athletic program.

“If it sounds like I’m bitter, you’re damn right I am,” said Murphy, who announced Oct. 1 that he will retire after this season.

Of course, it’s not as if the Titans would have had much of an advantage at home tonight. The Spartans are favored to win the conference title, and Murphy says they’re much better than the Nevada team that defeated the Titans, 19-0, last week.

San Jose has the Big West’s most versatile quarterback in Jeff Garcia, who has completed 96 of 172 passes for 1,026 yards and five touchdowns and rushed for 181 yards in 50 carries.

Garcia will be throwing against a depleted Titan defense. Fullerton will be without inside linebacker Lorenzo Hailey, who injured his knee last week, and is thin at cornerback, where Darrius Watson and B.B. Hudson are expected to play, but not at full strength.

And the Titans may not be fully prepared. Murphy called off practice twice this week, on Sunday because so many players were injured during the Nevada game and on Wednesday because players were meeting with Athletic Director Bill Shumard to discuss the uncertain future of the program.

The players will meet Sunday to draw up proposals that team representatives will take to a meeting with university president Milton A. Gordon Monday.

“It’s going to be hard to concentrate with all this stuff going on,” said quarterback Trendell Williams, who won’t start tonight because of a shoulder injury. “Everyone’s mind is not on the game.”

Notes

With Trendell Williams suffering a rotator-cuff injury in his left shoulder, Quincy Guy will start at quarterback tonight for the Titans. . . . San Jose State is coming off a 26-24 victory over Wyoming in which Joe Nedney kicked a Big West-record 60-yard field goal as time ran out. . . . Spartan safety Troy Jensen is ranked fifth nationally in interceptions with four in five games. . . . No Fullerton running back reminds you of O.J. Simpson, but some of the Titans may look like the former NFL great running through the San Jose airport tonight. Fullerton has a 10:30 p.m. flight following a 6 p.m. game.