Kansas State Kicks Them While Down

Ah, the thrill of 66-point victories and the glory of running it up--actually, kicking it up--against downtrodden football teams.

Shouldn’t an elite program be above scheduling cupcake after cupcake, scoring mercilessly, and, to top it off, setting up 65-yard field-goal tries while protecting fragile, 49-point leads?

Isn’t Kansas State better than this? Well, no.

Maybe Kansas State, already famous for its soft nonconference schedule and hard heart during blowouts, is getting worse.

Bill Snyder, coach of the No. 5-ranked Wildcats, hit a new high Saturday by calling a timeout with two seconds left in the first half to set up a field-goal try while leading Northern Illinois, 53-7.

Must’ve been about those complicated playoff tie-breaking procedures. Oops, that’s the NFL. Must’ve been about Northern Illinois’ great comeback ability. Oops, the Huskies have lost 20 in a row, the longest losing streak in major college football.

Kicker Martin Gramatica had a chance to make Big 12 history, Snyder gave him the opportunity, and Gramatica boomed in the kick--long enough by least seven or eight yards--the longest in conference history and the longest in NCAA history without benefit of a tee.

Joe Williams of Wichita State (1978), Steve Little of Arkansas (1977) and Russell Erxleben of Texas (1977) share the NCAA record of a 67-yard field goal.

The field goal set off a wild celebration in Manhattan, Kan., and Gramatica, one of the best kickers in the nation, jumped in the air.

“Now I’m going to be mad if I miss anything under that, because I know I can make it,” said Gramatica, whose previous best was 55 yards.

Said Snyder: “That was an opportunity for a young man to do something very special. He had an opportunity to put his name in the record book, and in the first half of a ballgame--no matter what the score--you ought to let him have that opportunity.”

UNSUNG RUNNERS

With all those fancy quarterbacks piling up silly numbers and with high-profile backs like Texas’ Ricky Williams and Wisconsin’s Ron Dayne already halfway to the Heisman Trophy award ceremony, here’s a quick tip of the hat to some lesser-known runners who probably will never see the Downtown Athletic Club:

* Missouri’s Devin West rushed for a school-record 319 yards in 33 carries and scored two touchdowns to lead Missouri over Kansas, 41-23. The previous Missouri rushing record-holder? Harry Ice, who gained 240 yards in eight carries against Kansas in 1941.

* Iowa State’s Darren Davis, the younger brother of Cyclone legend Troy Davis, gained 244 yards and scored two touchdowns as Iowa State shocked Iowa, 27-9.

Although Troy is the only back in NCAA history to rush for two 2,000-yard seasons, his highest single-game output against Iowa was 186 yards.

* Alabama’s Shaun Alexander rushed for 206 yards and three touchdowns in the Crimson Tide’s 32-7 victory over Vanderbilt.

In two games this season, Alexander, who had a school-record five touchdowns last week, has scored eight of the Crimson Tide’s nine touchdowns and rushed for 321 yards.

An extra bonus trivia note: Did you know that out of the last nine Heisman winners, only two--Eddie George in 1995 and Rashaan Salaam in 1994--have been running backs?

MICROSOFT OPPOSITION

Coincidence or strategic planning? Conspiracy theory, anybody?

Just as Duke was getting ready to play Northwestern in Evanston, Ill., Duke announced that Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife had donated $20 million to the school, one of the largest financial gifts in Duke history.

The grant from Gates and his wife, Melinda French Gates, a Duke alumna, will endow a program to expand interdisciplinary teaching and research beginning next autumn.

So, what happened in the football game?

The two-touchdown underdog Blue Devils out-gained Northwestern, 575-202, and trounced the Wildcats, 44-10.

Aside from last year’s 43-point loss to Ohio State, it was the worst loss for Northwestern since 1994.

HEISMAN HANDICAP

1. Quarterback Tim Couch, Kentucky: 372 yards, five touchdown passes in romp over Division I-AA Eastern Kentucky.

2. Running back Ricky Williams, Texas: 160 yards, 29 carries, three touchdowns in loss to UCLA.

3. QB Daunte Culpepper, Central Florida: Three rushing touchdowns, three passing touchdowns, 406 yards passing in victory over Eastern Illinois.

4. QB Cade McNown, UCLA: 339 yards, three touchdown passes in season-opening victory over Texas.

5. QB Donovan McNabb, Syracuse: three touchdown passes, ran for a touchdown, leading Orangemen over Michigan.

6. RB Ron Dayne, Wisconsin: 111 rushing yards, three touchdowns in 45-0 defeat of Ohio University after missing first game because of an ankle sprain.

7. QB Michael Bishop, Kansas State: Ran for two touchdowns, threw for two more.

8. QB Brock Huard, Washington: Did not play.

9. QB Chris Weinke, Florida State: Will get solid support from North Carolina State after six-interception performance.

10. Martin Gramatica, Kansas State: Just for kicks.

PRAIRIE VIEW LEADS! PRAIRIE VIEW LOSES

They had a lead. All they had to do was hold on against a Division II school, and the Prairie View Panthers would’ve ended the longest losing streak in NCAA history.

They couldn’t.

Squandering an eight-point halftime lead, Prairie View lost to Howard Payne, 22-14, at Brownwood, Texas, and lengthened its losing streak to 79 games.

Prairie View (0-2), a Division I-AA school, hasn’t won since Oct. 28, 1989.

“It was a situation we’ve never been in before and the kids didn’t really know how to respond,” Panther Coach Glen Johnson said of the halftime lead.

NOTABLES

Brigham Young Coach LaVell Edwards got his 235th victory as the Cougars defeated No. 14 Arizona State. He moved past Bo Schembechler into eighth place on the Division I-A coaches list.

Rice quarterback Jeremy Bates tore an anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in the team’s loss to Purdue. . . . Stanford receiver Troy Walters suffered a sprained ankle a loss to Arizona.