Major Powers Tapping Minors for Passers

Attention college football recruiters: When traversing the nation in search of quarterback prospects that can lead your team into the top 20, forsake the high school and junior college gridiron and head straight to the nearest--or farthest--minor league baseball outpost.

Former minor league farmhands are taking the snaps at 25% of the top 20 schools in last week’s Associated Press poll.

No. 7 Georgia’s Quincy Carter, No. 8 Florida State’s Chris Weinke, No. 10 Arizona’s Keith Smith, No. 14 Colorado’s Mike Moschetti and No. 15 Oregon’s Akili Smith all had their sights set on playing in baseball’s Fall Classic before they left baseball and refocused on the Fiesta Bowl.

Carter, the first freshman to start at quarterback for Georgia since 1945, played two years in the Chicago Cub organization. He was the nation’s third-rated Division I-A passer after four games.

Carter totaled 385 yards in a 28-27 victory over Louisiana State last week, but completed only 14 of 37 passes for 195 yards with two interceptions in a 22-3 loss to No. 4 Tennessee on Saturday.

Weinke played six years in the Toronto Blue Jay organization before joining the Seminoles. On Saturday, Weinke became only the second Florida State quarterback in 14 years to beat Miami in the Orange Bowl, throwing for 316 yards and two touchdowns.

Keith Smith was a shortstop in the Detroit Tiger system for a year before heading to Tucson, Ariz. Last week, during the Wildcats’ game-winning drive against Washington, Smith scooped up a low snap and completed a crucial pass on a gimmick play to Ortege Jenkins. Arizona Coach Dick Tomey said only a former shortstop could have caught and thrown the ball in one motion like Smith.

Moschetti played three years in the Oakland Athletic organization before playing football at Mt. San Antonio College and transferring to Colorado. Moschetti completed 15 of 34 passes for 225 yards in a loss to No. 5 Kansas State on Saturday.

Akili Smith, the nation’s leading passer, spent three years in the Pittsburgh Pirate chain before he quit and became the nation’s top JC football recruit after two seasons at Grossmont College. Smith split time with Jason Maas last season, but there is no quarterback controversy this year. Smith completed 15 of 22 passes for 280 yards and three touchdowns Saturday in a 51-29 victory over Washington State.

DETECTIVE STORY

Ivy League sleuths are hot on the case in Princeton, N.J., where vandals spray-painted “Go RU” at midfield in Princeton Stadium only hours before the Tigers took the field and defeated Brown, 31-17.

Gary Walters, Princeton’s athletic director, said work crews were able to wash out some of the slogan that was written on the grass field in red paint.

The suspects?

Rutgers and Rider are two universities in the Princeton area.

TEMPLE OF DOOM

Temple fell to 0-6 following a 37-7 Big East loss to West Virginia.

The Owls showed signs of improvement under new coach Bobby Wallace, who won three consecutive Division II national titles at North Alabama. But Temple made the kind of mistakes that have become a trademark of a program that has had only one winning season in 13 years.

The most crushing was quarterback Greg Muckerson’s decision to throw a desperate pass right into the hands of West Virginia’s Scooter Davis just before running out of bounds in the second quarter.

“I wanted to grab him when I saw he was fixing to throw it,” said Wallace, who was standing right in front of Muckerson on the sideline. “I wanted to knock it down. I don’t know whether that’s a penalty or not.”

PULL THE PLUG

It was eerily quiet Saturday at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Ariz., where Notre Dame was en route to a 28-9 victory over Arizona State.

A transformer blew up in the stadium late in the halftime break, cutting power for 45 minutes.

The public address system went out. Television cameras were not working, forcing ABC to switch to the Nebraska-Texas A&M; game.

The Irish had to shower in cold water because of the outage, and occupants of the three-tiered press box who left before power was restored to the elevators had to walk down or climb up the equivalent of a seven-story building.

Not an easy feat in Tempe, where it was so hot concessionaires were selling cups of ice for $3.50--a 50-cent increase over soft drinks with ice.

HEISMAN HANDICAP

1. Ricky Williams, Texas: Gained 139 yards, scored twice and moved into third place on NCAA career rushing list in win over Oklahoma.

2. Cade McNown, UCLA: Completed 10 of 24 passes for 171 yards and two touchdowns in win over Arizona.

3. Ron Dayne, Wisconsin: Rushed for 127 yards in 33 carries and scored a touchdown in victory over Purdue.

4. Michael Bishop, Kansas State: Completed nine of 25 passes for 148 yards with one interception in victory over Colorado.

5. Ricky Williams, Texas Tech: Gained only 97 yards in Red Raiders’ victory over Oklahoma State.

6. Akili Smith, Oregon: Passed for 280 yards and three touchdowns in a win over Washington State.

7. Tim Couch, Kentucky: Completed 29 of 42 passes for 315 yards and three touchdowns in victory over South Carolina.

8. Troy Edwards, Louisiana Tech: Caught touchdown passes of 55, 29 and 16 yards from Tim Rattay, who passed for 385 yards and four touchdowns against Northeast Louisiana.

9. Daunte Culpepper, Central Florida: Completed 28 of 33 passes for 327 yards, rushed for 38 yards and scored a touchdown in victory over Northern Illinois.

10. Champ Bailey, Georgia: Caught three passes for 21 yards, had one pass intercepted in loss to Tennessee.

NOTABLE

Nevada quarterback David Neill passed for a Big West Conference-record 611 yards in a 48-45 loss to New Mexico State.

Neill, a freshman, completed 30 of 57 passes. He threw for five touchdowns, had four passes intercepted and broke the Big West record of 564 yards set by Pacific’s Troy Kopp in 1990. The Division I-A record for passing yards is 716 by Houston’s David Klingler in 1990.

New Mexico State running back Denvis Manns rushed for 146 yards and became the Big West’s career rushing leader. Manns has 3,969 yards, eclipsing the record of 3,933 by Utah State’s Abu Wilson from 1992-96.

Kevin Faulk of Louisiana State had 191 all-purpose yards against Florida and broke Herschel Walker’s SEC record with 5,756 in his career.

Todd Husak of Stanford completed 26 of 48 passes for 450 yards to break the school record of 430 passing yards set by Steve Dils in 1978. Oregon State won at Stanford for the first time since 1968.

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Saturday’s Leaders

PASSING

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Player, Team Att Cmp Yds TD DAVID NEILL, Nevada 57 30 611 5 MIKE BREES, Purdue 83 55 494 2 TODD HUSAK, Stanford 48 26 450 2 TIM RATTAY, La. Tech 38 32 385 4 D. KENNER, Cincinnati 37 21 348 2 GREG ROBERTSON, Idaho 40 25 345 6 C. PENNINGTON, Marshall 43 29 329 3 BILL BURKE, Michigan St. 37 24 324 2 KEVIN FETERIK, BYU 28 17 319 2 TIM COUCH, Kentucky 42 29 315 3 JOE GERMAINE, Ohio St. 28 17 307 3 JASON McKINLEY, Houston 50 29 302 4

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RUSHING

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Player, Team No Yds TD DEVIN WEST, Missouri 40 252 2 ERIC FLOWERS, C. Michigan 49 239 2 REUBEN DROUGHNS, Oregon 39 217 4 KEN SIMONTON, Oregon St. 35 207 2

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RECEIVING

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Player, Team No Yds TD RANDALL LANE, Purdue 18 178 0 GEOFF NOISY, Nevada 14 283 1 JERRIAN JAMES, Houston 11 121 2 TREVOR INSLEY, Nevada 8 162 3 TROY EDWARDS, Louisiana Tech 8 162 3

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--Compiled by Gary Klein