Old Flight Pattern is Right for This Squadron

I knew the Air Force Academy was not to be trusted.

These guys are clean-cut, intelligent and disciplined. They wear these nice suits and ties rather than sweats and cutoffs, like real college students. They make their beds and polish their shoes and they say “yes sir” and “no sir.”

Put all of these traits together in a football player, and a football team, and you have to know you’ll come up with something unorthodox.

The Air Force Falcons are particularly unorthodox. They have this soaring bird for both a mascot and a nickname. They come from what has to be the only campus in America with fighter jets and hangars. This is a space-age academy.

From this institution comes a football team from the Dark Ages.

It runs this little offense called the wishbone, which treats the pass like a gimmicky new fad that surely will go away. If the rest of the campus was run like the football team, they would be flying single-seated biplanes. The football team probably would go to war with swords.

In the Western Athletic Conference, wacky as it is with passing, Air Force comes to town like a dinosaur . . . and gives people fits.

San Diego State would have been unbeaten in the WAC in 1991, but for one detail. It would have been in the Holiday Bowl in 1991, but for one detail. It might even have been in the Top 25, but for one detail.

It lost to Air Force.

You know what happened Saturday night?

The dinosaur came to town and took a giant bite out of San Diego State’s dreams for 1992.

Air Force 20, SDSU 17.

That drops the Aztecs into a tie for first place in the WAC with Hawaii and likely also drops them off the list of “Others Receiving Votes” for the Associated Press Top 25.

Marshall Faulk had another very human night, carrying 29 times for 129 yards. Others have been allowed to creep into the WAC race, and now the Heisman Trophy “race” is getting more and more crowded, too.

If I told you Saturday morning that the longest run, and biggest play, of the game would be a 51-yard gain but it wouldn’t be by Marshall Faulk, you would have looked at me like I was crazy.

Now I’m telling you on Sunday morning that the longest run, and biggest play, of the game was a 51-yard gain by Air Force’s right guard .

No kidding.

This archaic offense even used the archaic fumblerooski, and it worked. Third and 12 from its own 45 midway through the third period, Air Force called upon right guard Jim Remsey to bail it out. Quarterback Jarvis Baker left the ball on the ground and headed right, with the SDSU defense in pursuit. Remsey, all 6 feet 4 and 280 pounds of him, picked it up and veritably rumbled for 51 yards down the left sideline. Not another team in the country would give the ball to its right guard on third and long.

It was the ultimate embarrassment for all of the Aztecs, not just the defense. The offense too had to be humiliated that it could not overcome the ball-toting heroics of a right guard.

This was a total defeat for the Aztecs.

The coaches, for example, seemed so determined to spread their offense around that they kept their most potent weapon in their holsters. Faulk carried the ball all of three times in the first period and, with Air Force ahead 20-14, started two crucial late drives with No. 28 standing on the sidelines. It was as though they were determined to win the war with squirt guns rather than their .357 Magnum.

The offensive line killed two drives with holding penalties resulting in 22- and 18-yard setbacks.

Special teams gave up a blocked punt, which was returned 33 yards for a touchdown.

Andy Trakas missed a potential game-tying field goal with 4:25 to play, albeit the distance, 49 yards, was hardly chip-shot range.

Faulk himself, while the coaches will probably argue that 129 yards are quite respectable, has not had his early-season flash and dash for the last couple of weeks. His longest gain in his last 73 carries was a 21-yarder last week against Texas El Paso and his longest gain Saturday night was 18 yards. You wonder if a combination of pounding and pressure are wearing him down.

The defense, of all things, perhaps played its best game of the year. It didn’t exactly break the wishbone, but it was holding its own. Its biggest problem wasn’t stopping Air Force’s backs and receivers. Its downfall was that it couldn’t tackle that right guard until he had carried the ball all the way to the SDSU four-yard line.

This relic of a football team has certainly cast gloom on what had been a bright SDSU season.

You know the Aztecs will be OK in the future. They won’t have any trouble with that. They just can’t beat yesterday’s team.

I’m just wondering if the Air Force football team goes back to Colorado Springs on a chartered flight . . . or in chartered stage coaches.