Stocking Arms, Northridge Adds Quarterback

The quarterback surplus at Cal State Northridge grew by one this week with the arrival of J.T. Stone, a former All-Western State Conference pick at Santa Barbara City College.

Stone, 6 feet 3 and 215 pounds, is attending Northridge practices but is not eligible to play until next season because of NCAA transfer rules. He sat out last season, using a redshirt year, and briefly participated last spring in practices at West Texas A&M;, a Division II school in Canyon, Texas.

“He’s going to sit and learn the offense and try to compete for the position next season,” said Jeff Kieran, Northridge’s assistant head coach. “He’s coming in at a pretty deep position.”

The Matadors have four active quarterbacks and one using a redshirt year. None is a senior.

Stone passed for 5,723 yards at Santa Barbara in 1995-96.

Rivalry redux: College of the Canyons, playing its first season in 17 years, renews a long-lost rivalry when the Cougars play at Antelope Valley on Saturday.

The teams last met in 1980, with Canyons winning, 8-0, in the final game to even the series, 3-3. The most memorable matchup, perhaps, was in 1974, when Canyons handed the Marauders their only loss, 28-0.

Antelope Valley went on to win the state small-schools championship with an 18-14 victory over Redwoods.

Other Antelope Valley-Canyons games were decided by five, two, one and eight points.

Brent Carder, in his 29th season at Antelope Valley, welcomes the rivalry’s return.

“They were always a very strong football team and it was really quite a shock when they dropped football,” Carder said.

Snapshot: Brian Smith, a freshman walk-on at Hawaii from Thousand Oaks High, is the long snapper on punts and kicks.

Smith, 6 feet and 282 pounds, is a second-team guard behind 318-pound junior Dustin Owen.

Ratings game: Cal State Northridge (0-1) is No. 155 in the Sagarin ratings for Division I football teams, with 47.10 points.

Cal State Sacramento (2-0), at No. 171 with a 41.99 rating, is the only Big Sky Conference team ranked below the Matadors.

The rest of the Big Sky teams are No. 96 Montana, 61.50; No. 110 Northern Arizona, 57.06; No. 117 Montana State, 55.08; No. 123 Eastern Washington, 53.15; No. 126 Weber State, 52.65; No. 137 Portland State, 50.03 and No. 152 Idaho State, 47.38.

Montana is the third-highest I-AA team, behind No. 90 McNeese State (63.62) and No. 95 Villanova (61.51).

In the Sports Network I-AA poll, Montana (1-1) is No. 11 and Northern Arizona (2-0) is No. 13.