Faulk Watch Allows Scott to Run

If opposing defenses keep stacking the line of scrimmage the way Texas El Paso attempted to stop Marshall Faulk on Saturday, San Diego State receiver Darnay Scott will soon be putting up Heisman-like numbers.

The Miners tried to smother Faulk and cover Scott one-on-one in the Aztecs’ 49-27 victory at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Faulk gained 156 yards on 30 carries, hardly a smother job, UTEP couldn’t cover Scott with one man. UTEP must have forgot to pull out last year’s SDSU-Brigham Young game film.

Scott caught 12 passes from quarterback David Lowery for 274 yards and three touchdowns. The damage could have been worse. Scott dropped two would-be touchdowns.

Scott was having so much fun, sometimes he lost is concentration.

“I kinda like got big-headed out there,” said Scott, the former three-sport standout at Kearny High. “ ‘It’s easy out here now,’ I said to myself. But once I dropped that ball I said, ‘Dang it.’

“I went to the sidelines and (receivers coach Curtis Johnson) said, ‘You gotta catch the ball, boy . . .’ ”

Scott’s hands were plenty good enough to satisfy Lowery, who looked to the 6-foot-3, 185-pound sophomore for 12 of his 19 completions. Lowery had his biggest passing game of the year: 19 for 32 for 372 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions.

Scott came into the game with 22 receptions for the season, averaging 82 yards a game. He showed flashes of the game-breaking receiver he was against BYU last Nov. 16, where he caught scoring passes of 75 and 79 yards. His 243 yards receiving was the fifth-highest single-game total in SDSU history, which he surpassed Saturday.

But for those who thought Scott was fading away, a victim of a sophomore jinx or the odd-man out in Faulk’s Heisman campaign . . . he’s baaack.

Scott burned UTEP for a 71-yard score on the Aztecs’ second play from scrimmage. In the second quarter, with SDSU facing third down and 15 at the 50, Lowery hit Scott on a crossing pattern in the middle of the field. Gone. The Aztecs led, 14-3.

The five-play, 56-yard drive was set up by Scott’s 36-yard kick return.

And after he dropped a couple in the third quarter, Scott iced the game with a brilliant 42-yard reception in which he dove headlong into the end zone, caught Lowery’s pass and somersaulted.

Scott came one yard short of the fourth-best receiving night in SDSU history. Tim Delaney had 275 yards on 16 receptions in 1969.

“He’s got big-time speed and if I can get the ball to him, he’ll catch it,” Lowery said. “He’s a great receiver. He’s got really good hands and a real good sense of the game. That’s what he can do.”

SDSU Coach Al Luginbill shrugged his shoulders when asked why UTEP let the Aztecs’ deadly receiver run wild.

“You just cannot play Darnay Scott one-on-one for a whole ballgame,” Luginbill said. “That’s just what they tried and it backfired.”