Wallace Has Toledo Blasting Off

Toledo broke into the Top 25 last week and quarterback Chris Wallace could have the Rockets climbing even higher in the polls after his performance in a 35-20 Mid-American Conference victory over Bowling Green on Saturday.

Wallace set a Toledo record by passing for five touchdowns in a victory that improved the No. 24 Rockets’ record to 6-0 overall and 5-0 in the MAC.

“Toledo is a team with a lot of weapons. They can come at you in a lot of different ways,” Bowling Green Coach Gary Blackney said.

Mostly, they come at you with Wallace, who has Toledo off to its best start since going 12-0 in 1971.

“We struggled a bit on offense, but [Wallace] makes plays,” Toledo Coach Gary Pinkel said.

With Toledo trailing Bowling Green, 20-14, late in the third quarter, Wallace connected with Dwayne Harris on a 49-yard touchdown pass play that gave Toledo its first lead.

Wallace threw a short pass to Harris, who ran 40 yards down the sideline for the score.

“I was going to run. But I saw Dwayne and I thought, ‘Who’s better at running the ball, me or Dwayne?’ ” said Wallace, who broke the school-record of four touchdown passes in a game, shared by Chuck Ealey and Tim Kubiak.

SNOWED OUT

Colorado State’s game against Tulsa was postponed until today because of a severe winter storm that gripped most of Colorado.

Hughes Stadium in Fort Collins was blanketed with snow several feet deep in some places, Colorado State officials said.

It was the first time the Rams postponed a game since Hughes Stadium opened in 1968.

IT WILL COME IN HANDY

Who said the NCAA was an unfeeling, bureaucratic organization out of touch with reality and the welfare of student-athletes?

Not Jeff Wisnicky.

Not after the NCAA allowed the third-string linebacker for Wisconsin Stevens Point to keep the $10,000 he won in a halftime field-goal kicking contest at last Saturday’s game against Wisconsin Oshkosh.

Wisnicky gets to keep the money because he was a spectator at the game that day, and not a part of the traveling team. Wisnicky was one of 10 fans chosen to participate in the contest and he booted a 45-yard field goal to win it. NCAA rules say that as long as a student athlete was selected randomly to compete in such a contest, then that person may receive a prize.

“It was a just great experience,” Wisnicky said, “to go on the field and the crowd went crazy. It hasn’t really hit me yet.”

Neither, apparently, has a check.

Wisnicky said he’s still awaiting word from the contest insurer.

BAD MONTH

Iowa’s 62-0 victory over Indiana not only dropped the Hoosiers to 0-5 in the Big Ten Conference, it also made Indiana 0-for-October in terms of scoring touchdowns.

Indiana, which has 20 of its last 21 Big Ten games, has not scored a touchdown since the second quarter of its 27-26 loss to Wisconsin on Sept. 27.

KODAK MOMENT

Brigham Young beat Texas Christian, 31-10, but it might have been a different story if TCU had been credited with a second-quarter touchdown with the score tied, 3-3.

TCU’s LaDainian Tomlinson fumbled on a dive into the end zone from the one and the Cougars’ Jason Walker recovered. An Associated Press photograph showed that Tomlinson had crossed the goal line before the fumble, but officials ruled he had not.

“I most definitely got in,” said Tomlinson. “When I jumped over, I looked at the goal line and saw the ball over the plane. But I looked at the ref and there was no signal. So I guess he didn’t see it.”

STILL KICKING

Liz Heaston went from college football’s first woman kicker to part of her team’s special teams problem.

Heaston, who kicked two extra points in Willamette’s 27-0 victory over Linfield, Ore., last week, was pressed into action Saturday after regular kicker Gordon Thomson missed two extra-point attempts.

But Heaston fared no better, missing her two tries in a 41-27 victory over Southern Oregon.

After becoming college football’s first woman player, Heaston had said she’d rather concentrate on soccer and her studies. But she was on the sideline after helping the women’s soccer team to a victory.

“Since she was there, and had a smile on her face, and we’d missed two, I threw her into the ring,” Coach Dan Hawkins said.

BUYING TIME

Earlier this week, Texas Coach John Mackovic acknowledged that Longhorn fans were not thrilled with his team’s performance.

“I know a lot of people are unhappy that we’re not undefeated and in the driver’s seat, but this team still belongs to the school and to the fans,” Mackovic said.

It may not, however, belong to Mackovic for much longer following a 47-30 loss to Colorado. Reports have circulated that Texas boosters are pitching in $1 million to buy out Mackovic’s contract.

NOTEWORTHY

Notre Dame’s Allan Rossum tied the NCAA record of eight returns for touchdowns with an 80-yard kickoff return early in the fourth quarter of Notre Dame’s 52-20 victory over Boston College. Rossum, a senior, has returned three punts, three kickoffs and two interceptions for touchdowns, tying the record set by Utah’s Erroll Tucker in 1984-85. Tucker still holds the NCAA record for return touchdowns in a single season with seven . . . . Wilkie Perez of Glenville State passed for 642 yards and threw nine touchdown passes, one short of the NCAA Division II record, in a 71-26 victory over Concord at Glenville, W. Va. Bruce Swanson of North Park, Ill., set the record of 10 in 1968.

--Compiled by Gary Klein