SDSU Gets in a Holiday Mood, 10-3 : Aztecs Beat BYU to Clinch Conference Title, Bowl Berth

SAN DIEGO —  Flushed with victory, Denny Stolz reached out to fill his cup from a soft drink dispenser. He tried five nozzles and came up dry each time.

Keeping his composure, the San Diego State coach raised his arms and tugged off his nylon parka. In so doing, his glasses and pen fell out of his shirt pocket and a candy bar dropped to the floor.

Life’s little frustrations meant nothing, however, in the aftermath of a 10-3 victory over BYU Saturday night in front of 45,062 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

“Man, oh, man, this is phenomenal,” Stolz said after his team ended BYU’s 10-year dominance of the Western Athletic Conference and earned a berth opposite Iowa in the Holiday Bowl.

“I don’t know how many great things have happened to this city and this school in college football, but this was a big-timer. . . . A championship team needs a championship following, and until tonight we didn’t have one. You have to have a show, and we were playing for a championship tonight, and the fans showed up. I heard every one of those fans tonight. They gave us a big lift in the fourth quarter.”

Stolz, in his first season at SDSU, had no trouble analyzing the impact of this game on a football program that aspires to Top 20 recognition.

Along with broader fan support, Stolz cited increased revenue from TV and a bowl appearance, plus improved recruiting as the fruits of this night.

“Fans and cash flow,” he said, smiling.

His counterpart, BYU Coach LaVell Edwards, was gracious in defeat.

“All good things come to an end,” Edwards said. “It’s been an incredible run, a great thing. We came close, and we’ll be back.”

Good things come to teams with a sound defense, Stolz argued, and his players delivered.

“It would have been suicide to say (before the game) they couldn’t move on us, but we didn’t think they could,” Stolz said.

The Aztecs had eight sacks and forced Edwards to alternate quarterbacks--something he rarely did when he had the likes of Steve Young, Jim McMahon and Robbie Bosco.

Edwards yanked starter Steve Lindsley in the second quarter and went with Bob Jensen until the final period, when Lindsley returned.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been in that situation,” Edwards said. “I didn’t like doing it, but we had to try to get something going. “

They couldn’t. BYU quarterbacks, in addition to the eight sacks, had four passes intercepted.

“I said the first thing we’d do is improve our defense, and it has arrived,” Stolz said after the Aztecs shut down BYU with 94 yards rushing and 73 passing.

He expected his own team would have trouble advancing against a BYU defensive front featuring Outland Trophy winner Jason Buck and Shawn Knight, a likely first-round pick in the NFL draft next spring.

“We figured 17 points would have to do it,” he said. “We only got 10, but that was more than they made.”

This was a game that matched two teams with an historical penchant for passing, a game reminiscent of an era when running, kicking and field position were predominant in college football. The Aztecs had approached the game as a springboard for a return to the school’s heady days of 20 years ago under Don Coryell, who was honored at halftime.

The football program, which once featured the innovative passing scheme of Coryell, had declined sharply in the 1980s, a period when BYU was on the ascendancy with quarterbacks such as Young and McMahon. But quarterback sacks were a more important element than forward passes as the Aztecs ended a streak of nine straight losses to BYU. Ironically, the last SDSU team that beat BYU was the 1970 team under Coryell.

The Aztecs were confident they would dethrone BYU.

“Every team we had played that had also played BYU told us we were for real and we would beat them,” defensive back Harold Hicks said. “The key to it was they had nobody like Bosco, McMahon or Young. Their quarterbacks are just average guys. When Lindsley came back in the fourth quarter, we could see he didn’t have as much confidence and composure.”

Defensive heroes included lineman Levi Esene, who had 3 1/2 sacks and 8 tackles, and safety Steve Lauter, whose two interceptions bracketed BYU’s frustration at the game’s start and end.

The Aztec offense, which had nearly as many problems as BYU’s, was forced to punt a dozen times and also endured eight sacks.

After a nearly endless exchange of punts (10, to be exact), the Aztecs grabbed a 7-0 second-quarter lead on a seven-yard sweep by Chris Hardy.

A 43-yard pass from Todd Santos to Alfred Jackson was the key play in the 85-yard drive.

Falling behind prompted Edwards to bench Lindsley. Following a 36-yard kickoff return that put BYU at the Aztec 46, Jensen took over at quarterback.

Jensen moved the Cougars to the SDSU 24 before a 14-yard sack by Chris Kilby, the fifth of the half by the Aztecs.

Hicks then picked off a Jensen pass and returned it 33 yards, but two sacks by the BYU defense snuffed the Aztecs without further trouble.

The Cougars, with only 36 yards passing in the first half, geared up their rushing attack in the third quarter.

They went 74 yards in 10 plays--all of them on the ground--before settling for a 39-yard field goal by Leonard Chitty.

Kevin Rahill closed out the scoring with a 39-yard field goal in the fourth quarter.

Esene, the leader of the SDSU defensive front, played much of the game on a sprained ankle. “I wasn’t saving anything for tomorrow,” he said. “We knew it would come down to defense.”

He said he didn’t know if the Aztecs were that much better this year, or if BYU had slipped.

And he seemed uncertain as to what to expect in the Holiday Bowl. “I don’t know nothing about Iowa,” he said. “We’ll find out later about them.”

Stolz and the Aztecs had provided their fans enough to think about for one night.

Aztec Notes

Don Coryell, described as “the greatest Aztec of them all,” was honored at halftime Saturday. Coryell, former coach of the Chargers and Aztecs and the only person to win 100 or more games in both college and pro football, resigned last month as Chargers coach. Coryell and his wife, Aliisa, entered the field in a stretch limousine driven through a “tunnel of honor” formed by members of the 1972 team, his last as coach at the school.