SDSU Is 4-Letter Word to Bowls : College football: Aztecs’ 45-41 loss to Fresno State ends hopes of a berth in the Holiday Bowl. Faulk is injured.

San Diego State entered Never Never Land with 14 seconds left Saturday, when Fresno State struck for a six-yard touchdown pass to give the Bulldogs a 45-41 victory.

It is a place the Aztecs habitually visit each off-season. It is full of tears and sobs and long faces, but no Holiday Bowl.

Never Never Land.

“Sometimes I wonder why you play this damn game,” Aztec quarterback David Lowery said as he choked back sobs.

Many of the 41,523 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium shared his sentiments. The Holiday Bowl berth was open for Hawaii, if the Rainbows beat Wyoming late Saturday, with Illinois claiming the Big Ten spot by beating Michigan State, 14-10.

By the end of the afternoon, the broken and dispirited Aztecs had only two places in mind: home and the hospital.

Marshall Faulk carried only twice, for 21 yards and one touchdown, before punching out for the afternoon with a bum knee. Various reports from school officials had Faulk hyper-extending the knee, spraining it and suffering ligament damage. He left for a magnetic resonance imaging test immediately after the game, the results of which will be known this morning.

And Wayne Pittman, Faulk’s backup, suffered a broken leg with 8:28 left to play. Aztec trainer Brian Barry said Pittman fractured both the tibia and fibula and was to undergo surgery Saturday night.

Nothing, though, can repair SDSU’s 1992 season. Not even a desperation drive covering the game’s final eight seconds during which the Aztecs came closer to winning than they probably should have.

“I’m a senior; this is my last go-around,” defensive back Robert Griffith said. “That’s it, you know? Five years of hard work and nothing really to show for it.”

So much for the Aztecs’ storybook season. Click off those San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium lights and make room for storage in the Aztec equipment room. There will be nearly 100 uniforms ready for mothballs after SDSU finishes with No. 1 Miami next weekend.

There will be no Holiday Bowl. There will be no Top 25 ranking.

There will not even be a Freedom Bowl this year, because most of the bowls already are locked up, and, besides, the NCAA mandates that a team have six victories over NCAA Division I teams before participating. With the Hurricanes ahead, SDSU--with maybe the most talented team in school history--checks in at 5-4-1, 5-3 in the WAC.

For the second consecutive November, all the Aztecs had to do to earn a $1.5 million Holiday Bowl berth was to win their final Western Athletic Conference game, at home.

And for the second consecutive November, the Aztecs frittered away a second-half lead.

Last season, they blew a four-touchdown lead over Brigham Young and tied. Saturday, they led early in the third quarter, 31-21, and late in the fourth quarter, 41-38.

Fresno State drove 80 yards for the winning touchdown, taking 13 plays and 4:18 off of the clock. When quarterback Trent Dilfer passed the six yards to Tydus Winans, who beat senior defensive back Gary Taylor with 14 seconds left, he might as well have flung a dagger through SDSU’s heart.

It capped an improbable drive during which SDSU’s defense served as a welcome-to-the-WAC mat. Two plays before the touchdown, Dilfer somehow passed 37 yards to Malcolm Seabron, to the SDSU eight, despite: Dilfer’s getting clobbered as he threw it, and, Seabron being covered by two Aztecs.

“God almighty, he threw it up for grabs,” SDSU Coach Al Luginbill said. “It was a duck. We had two guys there and neither could make the play.”

With eight seconds remaining, the Aztecs hurriedly lined up after the ensuing kickoff and Lowery banged out a 47-yard completion to Darnay Scott, taking the Aztecs to Fresno State’s 18.

“I know I was thinking that when Darnay caught the ball with one second left, there are only so many bad things that can happen to you in one season,” said Larry Maxey, who was called into duty as the third running back when Pittman was hurt. “And I thought we had used ours up.”

With one second left, Lowery’s pass into a crowd in the end zone fell incomplete when DeAndre Maxwell couldn’t grab the ball after tipping it.

“Me and Darnay were supposed to catch it if we can, and if we tipped it Keith (Williams) was supposed to catch it,” Maxwell said. “I thought I was coming down with it but a defensive back knocked it out.”

Fresno State Coach Jim Sweeney was simply shocked that one tick remained on the clock after the long pass to Scott.

“I thought it was awesome,” Sweeney said. “I thought it was a big play by the clock operator, that he could get it so well tuned after a (long) pass that it would stop with one second left.

“Isn’t that awesome? I thought Houdini was in the house.”

Something magical was around from the start. Fresno State’s Ron Rivers, who finished with a career-high 173 yards rushing, went 80 yards for a touchdown on the game’s second play from scrimmage.

The Aztecs came back immediately thanks to a 19-yard Faulk run and a 51-yard pass from Lowery to Scott, which set up a two-yard Faulk touchdown run.

Then, after a Fresno State punt four minutes later, Ray Peterson set an SDSU record by returning a punt 91 yards for a touchdown, putting the Aztecs ahead, 14-7.

From then on, it was a footrace. Charlie Jones took an SDSU punt and lateraled across the field to Michael Ross, who went 40 yards for a touchdown. . . . Williams hauled in a 73-yard touchdown pass from Lowery. . . . Rivers ran 31 yards for another touchdown. . . . Curtis Shearer caught a 39-yard touchdown pass delivered by Lowery. . . . On and on it went. SDSU finished with 530 total yards; Fresno State had 520.

SDSU led 31-24 at the half, but the turning point came in the third quarter. Fresno State scored on a one-yard Anthony Daigle run and again on a 17-yard pass from Dilfer to Seabron, giving the Bulldogs a 38-34 lead.

That touchdown came after Tommy Jones intercepted a Lowrey pass and returned it 20 yards to the SDSU 38.

“The interception by Tommy Jones was probably the biggest play of the game,” Sweeney said. “That was a big turnover.”

Although the Aztecs would take one more lead, 41-38, on Lowery’s 41-yard pass to Scott, the die had been cast. And for SDSU, it was not in the shape of a championship trophy.

“This team is so much better than what we’ve proven to be this year,” Maxey said. “I just hope the guys can go out next year with that mental toughness it is going to take.”

But, even Maxey acknowledged that this wait-till-next-year stuff is sounding hollow.

“You can only speak so many times about what you’re going to do,” Maxey said. “There is enough talent on this team, everybody knows that.

“Hey, we’ve just got to go out there and get it done.”

Aztec Notes

SDSU Athletic Director Fred Miller figured that, after the Aztecs’ split with other conference teams, a Holiday Bowl berth would have been worth $950,000 to SDSU, minus expenses. . . . Marshall Faulk has been named to the Kodak All-American team. . . . Darnay Scott had 204 yards receiving, the 11th best day in school history. Scott has 1,080 yards this season, the 10th-best SDSU season. . . . There was a bench-clearing brawl between the two teams when Fresno State nose tackle Zack Rix hit SDSU quarterback David Lowery at the end of the first half after Lowery had dropped to one knee to down the ball. “They attack our quarterback, they attack our team” said SDSU’s Michael Landry, who was seen swinging a Fresno State helmet at Bulldog players. “We live and die together. That’s what we’re taught.” . . . Linebacker Mark Roberts was knocked out of the game in the fourth quarter with a concussion.