BIG WEST ROUNDUP : San Jose Eases Up, Beats Fullerton, 49-3

Several Cal State Fullerton football players will meet with school President Milton A. Gordon on Monday to discuss the future of Titan football, and one of their objectives will be to persuade Gordon to keep the program at the Division I-A level.

It may not be easy after the sad display the Titans put on Saturday night in a 49-3 loss to San Jose State in a Big West Conference game played before 13,407 in San Jose’s Spartan Stadium.

Fullerton was simply blown away by San Jose State, which put 42 points on the board before the halftime homecoming show and took advantage of numerous Titan blunders that led to Spartan scoring drives--if you can call them drives--of 14, 25, 30 and 19 yards in the first half.

San Jose State, 4-2 overall and 1-0 in the Big West, pulled starting quarterback Jeff Garcia midway through the second quarter and had its second-string defense in before halftime. Garcia played one series in the second half just to get some work.

One Titan fumble was returned 24 yards for a touchdown by San Jose State’s Anthony Washington in the first quarter and another led directly to a two-yard touchdown run by Garcia in the second.

Two mishandled snaps by Fullerton punter Noel Prefontaine led directly to Spartan touchdowns, Nathan Dupree’s four-yard run in the first quarter and his 18-yard run in the second.

It got worse. On one kickoff return, Fullerton’s Jarrod Bible was tackled by his own teammate, Arthur Davis.

The Titans fumbled six times and lost five, bringing their season total for lost fumbles to 24, two shy of the school record of 26, set in 1978.

The Titans (1-5, 0-2) had zero yards passing. That’s a school record.

Titan Coach Gene Murphy’s first postgame comment was to thank San Jose State first-year Coach Ron Turner for not making it worse.

“He belongs in the highest level of class,” Murphy said. “He could have run it up and scored a bunch of touchdowns in the second half and he didn’t. His maturity belies his youth. We were atrocious tonight in every aspect, and he knew it. I appreciate that he didn’t take advantage of the situation.”