Heads-Up Plays Putting Lewis Ahead of Rest : San Diego State: Coaches are glad they made room for the safety in the secondary.

The ball was spiraling downfield, through the air and directly toward Darrell Lewis.

The San Diego State free safety zeroed in and grabbed his team-leading third interception, but what happened next was what caused a gasp in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

The Air Force receiver had wrapped his arms around Lewis’ legs at the Aztec 16, so Lewis did something that seemed as natural as Marshall Faulk cutting to the outside.

He handed the ball off to cornerback Damon Pieri.

Pieri made 10 yards to the Air Force 26. And the Aztecs ended up punting a few plays later.

But Lewis’ second-quarter play did not go unnoticed, evoking comments such as these:

“He’s just a football player ,” senior dimeback Robert Griffith said.

Said defensive backs coach Ron Mims: “To me, Darrell Lewis is a football player’s football player.”

Lewis, a junior from Morse High who transferred to SDSU from Ohio State, leads the team in interceptions and ranks right up there in heads-up plays.

“He has a tremendous knowledge of the game and he exhibits tremendous leadership in the secondary,” Mims said. “He’s been a lot of fun to coach. You like to coach players who are coaches’ players, and he is. He understands the scheme, the defense, and he can make adjustments.”

He can adjust on the fly perhaps better than anybody else on the SDSU defense.

“That play was smart football,” Coach Al Luginbill said. “Normally, you wouldn’t want kids to do that, but he knew it was safe.”

Lewis had never before handed off an interception in a game, and he said he hadn’t even thought about it while he was mentally going over his duties before a game.

“It just happens,” he said. “I just intercepted the ball and the dude grabbed me. I couldn’t get rid of him. I made sure I had control of the ball and I saw Damon.

“I called out his name and told him, ‘Here, take it’ and gave it to him.”

Said Mims: “Those kinds of plays he can make because of his awareness on the field. The average guy is not totally aware of everything going on around him.”

Lewis’ on-field moves aren’t just pure athletic reflex, either.

“He can come out of a game and tell you that a certain man is doing a certain thing at a certain time, you can tell him what to do and he does it,” Mims said.

Take another moment early in the Air Force game.

Falcon quarterback Jarvis Baker was checking plays at the line of scrimmage, calling them to run to the opposite side of the field from where Lewis was positioned.

It didn’t take Lewis long to notice. He quickly alerted Mims, they made an adjustment by which Lewis lined up on one side but quickly moved to the other and, before long, the Falcons were running plays into the heart of the SDSU defense.

“With his intelligence, it’s like having another coach on the field,” Griffith said.

Aside from a 51-yard fumblerooski play, Air Force managed only 41 yards of total offense in the second half thanks in large part to Lewis’ acumen. Luginbill called it the finest defensive game SDSU has played against Air Force in four years.

Defensive back-poor SDSU has needed someone with Lewis’ ability. Their defensive backs have been toasted in the past few years more often than marshmallows at a scout camp. Two years ago, the Aztecs were the last Division I team in the nation to intercept a pass.

Lewis sat out that year, practicing with the Aztecs after transferring from Ohio State. Last year, Lewis played often in a backup role at strong safety.

Then, desperate for help at cornerback, Aztec coaches moved All-Western Athletic Conference free safety Damon Pieri to that position and inserted Lewis at free safety. Now, many think Lewis might be All-WAC at season’s end.

“We had an All-WAC free safety coming back,” Mims said. “The only reason we moved him was because we had a guy who could play free safety without us missing a beat.”

So far, Lewis is happy with his season. One of his three interceptions came against Brigham Young, and he returned it for a 57-yard, first-quarter touchdown. The other came against Texas El Paso.

For a guy who had never played free safety, Lewis is looking as comfortable as a pool on a hot day.

“When I first started, it was slow,” Lewis said. “The first couple of games, against USC and BYU, I had to get used to some angles on tackles. Against UCLA, I started feeling more comfortable.

“This week is rough because of the scheme we’re running against (a two-back Colorado State set).”

Lewis’ quick adjustment did not surprise the SDSU coaching staff. This is a guy who is more mature at 21 than some coaches. Lewis married his wife, Dawn, on March 11, 1990 and has a daughter, Dejzenelle, who will be 1 on Dec. 2.

He does not eat at the post-practice training table with the team, instead going home each night to eat with his family. He receives a cash equivalent for the food he does not eat with the team.

“My wife enjoys cooking for me and my daughter is getting to the point where she eats with us,” Lewis said. “I like to watch her eat, and she likes to take food from my plate.

“Football takes a lot of my time away from them. I miss my daughter every weekend for one or two days.”

Lewis says family life helps him see things in a different light, and his coaches agree.

“It helps a great deal,” Lewis said. “When you’re not responsible or mature, you look at things like, ‘The coach is just telling you this because he’s the coach and you’re the player.’ The older you get, you realize they want to win and you see there’s a reason for the things they tell you.

“It’s like parents. You figure they’re just being mean but when you get older, you realize they know best.”

Lewis has discovered that, too. His father made him sit out during his ninth-grade year of football because he had failed a science class he didn’t like. So he carried a grade-point average between 3.8 and 4.0 throughout high school and now, majoring in public administration, checks in between 3.25 and 3.3 at SDSU.

“My dad has always made it clear to me that (academics) had to come come first,” Lewis said. “He always tells me too many players get hurt.

“As I got older, you realize that the closer you get to your senior year, you see how many people do make it and how many don’t.”

Some people have the ability to adjust on the fly, and some do not. Others see the overall picture, think about it and are prepared when the time comes.

Lewis’ success this fall didn’t begin when he first moved to free safety last spring. It started many years ago.

“I feel I have a lot of knowledge to offer our team,” Lewis said. “Certain situations come up and I usually catch them. At free safety, I’m behind everybody else and I can see everybody else. I can make sure that people see things and line up right.

“One goal our defense has is to be more students of the game. It helps to know everybody else’s position--not just our own.

“One of the amazing things about Marshall is that when he came in here his first year, he sat in on the offensive line’s meetings--not just his own. He wanted to see what they were doing. It helps to know everything that’s going on--the total scheme.

“On defense, if defensive backs know where the defensive linemen are, we know where the ball might pop free, and we’ll be more aware of making plays.”

And if the free safety knows where the cornerback is, a surprise handoff isn’t out of the question, either.