Northridge Football Notebook

Paul Bubb, Cal State Northridge’s athletic director, said talk of the Matadors playing home football games permanently off-campus in future seasons is not definite, just a possibility being explored by a school committee.

“It’s one of the options being looked at,” Bubb said. “I wasn’t at the [committee] meeting Thursday night but it’s not, to my knowledge, the final proposal that’s going to go forward.”

The Matadors won’t play at North Campus Stadium after the 1999 or 2000 season because the area will be turned into a biotechnical facility. Bubb said the Athletic Facility Siting Advisory Committee is considering Birmingham High, Pierce College, Valley College and College of the Canyons as home fields for Northridge.

The Committee is charged with identifying the best off-campus site by Dec. 1.

“From my perspective, I want to be open-minded, but my preference would be to have a stadium on campus,” Bubb said.

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The last time Ron Foster, analyst for Northridge games on KCSN-FM (88.5), was in Boise, he was the defensive backs coach for the Matadors.

It was Sept. 10, 1994, and Northridge lost, 40-19. The Matadors were in their second season in Division I-AA and the Broncos were on their way to the national runner-up spot in the division.

“That was a good, fundamentally sound team,” Foster said of the Broncos. “Once we got behind, we could never catch up.”

The Matadors last year fell behind Boise State, 16-0, before rallying for a 63-23 victory they later forfeited because of an ineligible player.

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Northridge players missing from Saturday included starting left guard Taffe Aina, a 6-foot-5, 320-pound senior from Channel Islands High and Ventura College.

Aina did not make the trip because of concerns over his academic eligibility.

Left tackle David San Vicente, a senior from Birmingham, started in place of Aina and tight end Ryan Schatz replaced San Vicente at tackle.

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The crowd of 25,127 was the fourth-largest for a Northridge game.

In fact, the four Matador appearances at Bronco Stadium rate among the top 10 crowds to watch Northridge play. The Matadors and Boise State last year played in front of 26,824, third-largest in Northridge history.

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James Cleary, former Northridge president who lives in Boise, watched the game with Blenda Wilson, the school’s president.

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Punter John Gonzalez, a freshman from Simi Valley High, is back with the Broncos. He received a medical hardship last year after appearing in one game and making one punt for 25 yards.