Dark Horse In Running for Heisman

Bits and pieces . . .

Garrison Hearst is the Ross Perot of the race for the Heisman Trophy.

Every year is “election year” in collegiate football, at least when it comes to the Heisman. Voters, be they seeking a president or a Heisman winner, like to have an expanded selection of candidates.

Perot provides that alternative in a presidential race that lacked luster with only the usual party animals.

Hearst, the Georgia running back, provides that in a Heisman race that so early was conceded to be Marshall Faulk’s private domain.

The argument is that Faulk’s numbers may be superior, but Hearst is playing in a tougher conference. This does not stand up to a closer examination, both of the Southeastern Conference and Georgia’s schedule.

First, the SEC vs. the Western Athletic Conference:

The SEC does have three, maybe four, teams superior to the WAC’s best, but Georgia does not play Alabama, the best of them. The middle- to lower-echelon SEC teams are comparable to similarly placed WAC teams, witness Colorado State’s 17-14 victory at Louisiana State.

Second, Georgia’s schedule:

San Diego State, and Faulk, plays a nonconference schedule of USC, UCLA and Miami. That is much tougher than Georgia’s nonconference schedule, which includes Cal State Fullerton, Georgia Southern and Georgia Tech.

As they say in Georgia’s neck of the woods, all this talk about Hearst doing a little less against a lot more is hogwash.

If the Kroc family still owned the Padres, would high-priced players be on the way out or on the way in?

It would be easy to make the blanket statement that Joan Kroc would not have turned the 1992-93 off-season into the fire sale it has become, but it would be an oversimplification.

During the Kroc regime, the Padres let both Dave Winfield and Ozzie Smith get away, albeit Smith went in a trade. Ray Kroc was still alive when those players departed, and both situations were aggravated by agents who drew his wrath.

That same scenario has forced Benito Santiago’s departure. There is no love affair between the agent, Scott Boras, and the Padre front office. Santiago would be gone in any era of Padre ownership.

However, Tony Fernandez and Randy Myers probably would still be around in 1993. And, I suspect, the Padres would be serious bidders for players such as Barry Bonds and David Cone.

That’s the difference between the Kroc regime and the current regime, and that is a very big difference.

Under the heading of cost-effective pinching of pennies, who would you rather see playing shortstop for the Padres?

Tony Fernandez at $2.3 million?

Or Kurt Stillwell at $1.75 million?

Ask any 6-year-old.

SDSU would have little likelihood of getting a “consolation” trip to the Aloha Bowl should it stumble on its way to the Holiday Bowl, according to the Honolulu bowl’s executive director.

Unfortunately, what he said makes sense.

If the Aztecs don’t go to the Holiday Bowl, it would be because they lose another WAC game. They would have to perpetrate a major, major upset against Miami in their season finale to avoid a so-so 6-4-1 record. They probably wouldn’t go anywhere with a record like that.

For all of the early season hype, spurred by the tie with USC and the victory over Brigham Young, the Aztecs could end up with a poorer regular season record than last year’s 8-3-1.

SDSU simply cannot overcome this propensity for losing games it should win. The flip side is that it cannot seem to win games it should lose.

Have Charger coaches suddenly become imaginative in their play-calling?

Unlikely.

They have had all these plays in their books all along, but they had to be patient and wait until they were comfortable that the players could execute them. Now that Stan Humphries has been around long enough to get to know the system and his teammates, the offense has suddenly taken on a different look.

It’s been there all along, waiting for the right time to emerge.

Given that the Chargers, in spite of their recent three-game winning streak, are hardly world-beaters, it’s probably ludicrous to look past Sunday’s game with Indianapolis in Mission Valley.

However, I’m going to do exactly that.

The real “Amen Corner” in the Charger schedule comes the next two Sundays, when they play at Kansas City and Cleveland. If they defeat Indianapolis and then get through that very dangerous bend in the road, they are suddenly serious playoff contenders.

Be warned that Indianapolis is likely thinking the same thing about its back-to-back trips to Miami and San Diego, and it cashed in on the front end of that parlay with the 31-20 victory last week against the Dolphins.

Is anyone else appalled that a restraining order has kept a high school kid from an affluent family from serving a mandatory one-game suspension for a flagrant penalty? Would a poor kid from a poor school in a poor neighborhood have had the luxury of the same reprieve?

Just wondering . . .