SDSU, Utah Face Must-Win Contest

SALT LAKE CITY —  This is an important football game. So what else is new?

San Diego State needs to win to keep alive hopes of a Western Athletic Conference title and a Holiday Bowl appearance. Hence, SDSU Coach Al Luginbill’s weekly pronouncement: “Our backs are against the wall. We have no margin for error.”

Utah has the same goals, with the added incentive of its first bowl bid since 1964. “They’ll have bowl scouts (at today’s game) for the first time since the days of Custer,” said John Robinson, sports editor of the Deseret News here. “So each game is (Utah’s) biggest in 10 years. Everything is ‘huge’ now--as long as they keep winning.”

The Aztecs (5-2 overall, 3-1 in the WAC) play their third consecutive game on the road. A second conference loss probably would dash any chance of winning the title. This is considered a survival week for SDSU, which plays its next three games at home.

“This gets us back home, after the long road hump, and the rest of the conference still has that to face,” Luginbill said.

Utah, meanwhile, has more than simply home-field advantage in today’s matchup (12:30 p.m., Channel 10).

Under second-year Coach Ron McBride, the Utes (5-2, 2-1) are making a big turnaround from last year’s 4-7 showing, with essentially the same cast.

Stressing defense, the Utes lead the WAC in sacks and have several of the best defensive players in the West--lineman Jimmy Bellamy, the WAC’s sack leader; linebacker Anthony Davis, one of the leading tacklers in the WAC and perhaps the team’s best pro prospect; and linebacker Reggie Alston, a junior college transfer who leads the WAC with 91 tackles.

The Utes were ranked sixth nationally in defense until their 57-42 victory over Wyoming. They’ve held all other opponents to three touchdowns or less.

“They’re impressive football players,” Luginbill said. “The defense isn’t real big but they play with cohesiveness, they play extremely hard and they play with confidence.”

The Utes have two new faces on offense who have made an essential difference: quarterback Frank Dolce, a junior college transfer, and sophomore running back Keith Williams, who has collected three 100-yard games, the last two in a row. He’s the first Ute to accomplish the back-to-back feat in five years, and with 536 yards he already has surpassed last year’s team leader.

Williams, coming off serious knee surgery, hadn’t played in two years.

Dolce, who only lost one game in two years as quarterback at El Camino College in Los Angeles, has established himself as a quality passer at Utah, but Luginbill said it would not shock him “for them to come out and see if they can put the hammer to us, then if they can’t, go to the pass. They really want to run the football.”

However, Luginbill said, the Utes may be more dangerous when their ground game stalls. “That’s when they really hurt teams, the quarterback starts scrambling around and all hell breaks loose,” he said.

And then there is last year, when the Aztecs won, 66-14.

Although the Utes’ season motto has been, “It’s payback time,” McBride has downplayed the revenge factor this week. But he hasn’t forgotten.

“I’ll tell you what, the day after the game was over, it was over,” McBride said. “They beat the hell out of us and deserved to win. Was I stung? Maybe the word is (bleeped) off . . . mad as hell . . . embarrassed. It was the most embarrassing game in my 24 years of coaching. Yeah, I remember the game last year. The kids know what this game means.”

Luginbill said he didn’t know if there was animosity lingering from last year, but noted his team has seemed noticeably more fiery the last two weeks in practice. “I’ve never seen them as worried and concerned as they were at UTEP, and the kids seem really concerned about this game,” he said.

“The kids want to play this game, this team, for whatever reason. I think you’re going to see two teams flat get after it. There won’t be a lot of screaming and talking, at least not from our side, but it will be very intense.”

Aztec quarterback David Lowery said the competitive nature of the WAC race has more to do with that than last year’s blowout. “We haven’t watched any of last year’s films,” he said. “We’ve just seen them (from games filmed) this year. We’ve got a lot of respect for Utah, they’re probably the best opponent we’ve played so far.

“Revenge? You always want to beat somebody who beat you bad last year, but they just want to win ‘cause they’ve got a good season going, and we just want to win ‘cause we’ve got a good season going. We realize how good a season we could have so we just want to win. I don’t think it matters who we play.”

It matters here, where the eighth game of the season means something, for a change. “We’ve got a football game Saturday. It’s another important game,” McBride said. “But it’s not life or death. It’s a big game.”

Aztec Notes

Aztec Coach Al Luginbill said he’ll wait until pregame warmups to see how running back T.C. Wright feels before he decides who will start at running back. Wright, a senior, has had ankle and thigh injuries. Freshman Wayne Pittman rushed for 149 yards in his first start last week. Wright’s health was listed at nearly 100% Thursday for the first time this season. . . . Utah Coach Ron McBride said he is a big fan of Aztec linebacker Lou Foster, whom he tried to recruit out of DeAnza College. “I recruited him at JC but he had already committed to State,” McBride said. “I used to go out to practice just to watch him. When Lou Foster is on the field, emotionally he does a lot for a football team.” . . . More McBride: “I’m not sure what the keys to the game are except San Diego State has more weapons and talent than anybody in the conference. We have to play as well as we can and hope for the best.” . . . The weather is expected to be partly cloudy and in the mid-50s at game time. It snowed here Wednesday night but it didn’t stick.