Valley Colleges Notebook : Coach’s Son Loses the Shirt Off His Back in Northridge Game

No, it was not a scheme to impress his friends or help his son get drafted. The truth be told, Cal State Northridge football Coach Bob Burt had nothing to do with Jim Matthews wearing No. 56, instead of his usual No. 63, in the second half of Saturday’s game against Cal State Fullerton.

No. 56 belongs to Burt’s son, Kevin, a freshman who is third on the Matador depth chart at center. But Matthews, an All-Western Football Conference tackle, was wearing it after his own uniform ripped.

“Jim came running off the field and Kevin was the first player he thought of that he knew wouldn’t be playing,” Bob Burt said.

The switch went unnoticed by Joe Buttitta, who does the play- by-play for CSUN broadcasts on KGIL. He reportedly made several comments lauding the coach’s son for his blocking ability.

Passing fancy: Sherdrick Bonner, making only his second college start, on Saturday became the first Northridge quarterback to better the 300-yard mark in passing since Chris Parker did it against Cal State Sacramento on Nov. 16, 1985. Bonner completed 29 of 44 passes for 303 yards and a touchdown as the Matadors dropped a 27-20 decision to Fullerton. Four seasons ago Parker completed 29 of 46 attempts for 307 yards and a touchdown.

Bonner completed passes to nine receivers, but his favorite target was tight end Richard Ane, who pulled in a career-high eight catches for 109 yards.

Best foot forward: Glendale College gave him the boot three years in a row when he tried out for the Vaquero football team as a place-kicker, but Armando Toscano had the last laugh.

Though none were very pretty, Toscano converted a 34-yard field goal and three extra points for Pasadena City College as the Lancers defeated Glendale, 24-16.

“The three years he came out for our team, the kickers we had were just better,” Glendale Coach John Cicuto said. “He was barely making their kicks on Saturday, but he made the extra point that counted and the field goal that counted.”

Teeing off: The new NCAA rule forbidding the use of a kicking tee on field-goal and extra-point attempts did not affect the outcome of Occidental’s season-opening, 16-14, loss to Menlo College Saturday night, but Occidental Coach Dale Widolff expects it to play a big role sooner or later.

“I don’t think its a good rule for Division III but I understand that there needs to be uniformity,” Widolff said. “I think they (the NCAA) were looking strictly at the Division I level . . . where Astroturf and better grass fields were causing things to be unbalanced.

“At the Division II and III levels you’re going to find games played on fields used for soccer and football practice. So sometimes the attempts will be off dirt.”

Widolff also believes the new rule will force coaches to be more adventurous offensively.

“There will be a lot more times when you get to fourth down at the 25- or 30-yard line that you won’t go for a field goal,” Widolff said. “You’re going to see more teams go for it.”

Impressive debuts: Louis Vann, a former quarterback, and Jamie Grossman, a quarterback who didn’t play last season, led Pierce to a thrilling 40-39 victory over East Los Angeles in a nonconference opener Saturday night.

Vann, who played quarterback at Van Nuys High in 1987, rushed for 122 yards in 28 carries and scored three touchdowns against the Huskies. It was the first collegiate game at running back for Vann, who attended Valley but did not make the traveling squad last season.

Grossman, who did not attend college last season after throwing for 1,486 yards and 11 touchdowns as a Cleveland High senior in ‘87, completed seven of 11 passes for 104 yards and two touchdowns. His final score was a 13-yard strike to Shannon Culver with 4:55 left, giving the Brahmas their final margin of victory.

“The offense played extremely well,” Pierce Coach Bob Enger said. “They were in mid-season form. They played an error-free game. . . . Vann played extremely well in his first college game. He made no mental errors. And the same could be said of Grossman.”

The same could not be said for the Brahma defense, which gave up 554 yards.

“We couldn’t stop them,” Enger said. “But they couldn’t stop us either. It got to the point that every time a team started a drive, you thought they were going to score.”

Injury update: Northridge--Eric Treibatch, part-time starter at strong safety, is out for the season with ligament damage in his left knee. Scott Kain, starting right tackle, is doubtful for CSUN’s home opener Saturday against Sonoma State with a sprained ankle and Allan Chatman, reserve outside linebacker, is doubtful for Sonoma State with a strained knee.

Cal Lutheran--Defensive lineman Eric Bowman and center Pat Wolcott dressed for the Sonoma State game last Saturday but were held out because of injuries. Bowman has a sprained ankle and Wolcott a broken rib. Both should play against St. Mary’s this Saturday.

Roster check: Bill McDonald, a part-time starter for CSUN at free safety, and Russell Jenkins, a reserve wide receiver, have quit the team.

In addition, Reggie Williams, in his third season starting at cornerback, missed the Fullerton game for unspecified “personal reasons,” Burt said.

Receiving line: Three Glendale quarterbacks were a combined three for 17 for 75 yards against Pasadena. Cicuto said the Vaquero passing attack will be aided next week by the expected return of split ends David Nattoli and Cody McMahon.

Nattoli, a sophomore, is recovering from a hamstring injury. McMahon, a freshman, missed the Pasadena game because of a lacerated tendon in his thumb.

Rush hour: After netting only 527 rushing yards all last season, Cal Lutheran picked up 105 yards on the ground against Sonoma State.

It wasn’t quite an Oklahoma Sooner land rush, but in one drive Cal Lutheran did run the ball eight straight times. The Kingsmen have a veteran offensive line, which appeared to block better firing out on rushing plays than dropping back into pass protection.

Noel Chesnut led Cal Lutheran last year with a paltry 263 yards, and senior Dean Henderson (193 yards) is the leading returning rusher. Forget about 100-yard games, only three players had 100-yard seasons.

Saturday, though, Henderson ran for 48 yards on 16 carries, and sophomore Jeff Lapinski tallied 48 on eight.

Last season, the Kingsmen rushed for only three yards against Sonoma State and had only two games in which they netted more than 100 yards rushing as a team.

Thinking Big (West): Northridge’s strong outings against both Fullerton and Cal State Long Beach of the Division I Big West Conference inspires a question: Is there all that much difference between teams from the Big West and those from the Division II Western Football Conference?

Burt, a former defensive coordinator at Fullerton, thinks there is. “What people don’t take into consideration is that over 11 games, the scholarship difference would get more and more apparent. We lost two guys (to injuries) against Fullerton. Can you imagine if we lost two a week? We wouldn’t have anybody left.”

Both Fullerton and Long Beach offer roughly 70 full-ride scholarships for football. CSUN has less than 30. The Division II limit is 45, while 90 is the maximum in Division I.

Game plan: Quarterback Mike Dalley directed Antelope Valley to a surprising 10-3 first-quarter lead over El Camino on Saturday, but freshman Cole Speer replaced the sophomore starter in the second period when El Camino took a commanding 28-10 lead on its way to a 38-17 victory.

“With only two nonconference games we had to play as many people as we could against El Camino,” Marauder Coach Brent Carder explained. “That’s why Cole came in. I would have liked to keep the first team in there longer, but everyone who we might depend on later in the season has to get experience now, in the first two nonconference games.”

The season-opening defeat was Antelope Valley’s worst since 1967, when the Marauders lost to Mira Costa, 35-2.

Gary Klein and Times staff writers Mike Hiserman, John Ortega and Brendan Healey contributed to this notebook.