Aztecs Just Hoping to Get Over the Hump

SAN DIEGO â€”  Stop me if you’ve heard this before. San Diego State has another one of those “hump gamesâ€� dead ahead. Never mind. Don’t stop me.

Not only do the Aztecs have a hump game , they have a hump month.

In case you have not been tuned in to AztecSpeak for the last few years, a hump game is an encounter with a nationally prominent opponent. The idea is to win one of these hump games and therefore graduate from being an aspiring football power to being a football power.

One of SDSU Coach Al Luginbill’s oft-repeated goals is to be ranked in the Top 25 nationally, that along with winning the Western Athletic Conference title and winning a bowl game.

To gain national recognition, you have to beat nationally recognized opponents.

Enter the month of September, 1992.

Whew.

Fred Miller, the athletic director, has put together a schedule that is an opportunity of a lifetime for both the football program and the entire athletic department at SDSU.

* USC, at home Saturday.

* Brigham Young, at Provo next Thursday.

* UCLA, at the Rose Bowl on Sept. 26.

This could represent a dream come true . . . or a nightmare.

With the possible exception of George Bush, I cannot imagine anyone in the nation having a tougher September than the kids out on Montezuma Mesa. It’s like they are starting the football semester with final exams. I presume they get a bye on Sept. 19 only because the Washington Redskins were already occupied.

A football coach should look at a schedule like this and wonder if maybe he should get his house on the market. You have to know the athletic director is out to get him. The only guy you’d wish a month like this on is Saddam Hussein.

The first six days of this season, USC on Saturday to BYU on Thursday, are probably the most important six days in the history of the SDSU athletic department.

You think maybe nerves are a little tingly in that athletic department?

Opportunity, after all, comes with considerable risk attached.

Lose those two games, particularly lose those two games in an embarrassing way, and interest in the 1992 season will fizzle before it even had a chance to sizzle. Ticket sales for the remainder of the season will come to a screeching halt and television will find another direction to aim its cameras.

However, win those two games and . . .

Voila!

These guys would have their Top 25 ranking. In fact, they’d probably be in the top half of the Top 25. They would be in the driver’s seat for the WAC title and a berth in the Holiday Bowl. They would be the darlings of a community aching for someone to love.

But these hump games have not been kind to the Aztecs. They are what they are because they are tough to win. Thus far, to be sure, the Aztecs are winless in such affairs against non-conference opponents. And they are winless in Provo against BYU.

There have been close calls, 18-15 in 1984 and 28-25 in 1989 against UCLA and 30-28 in 1990 against Miami.

Close calls don’t hurdle humps, however.

Therein lie the perils on this path through September. It can be a glory road or a gory road.

They are, in reality, probably getting all three of these opponents at the most vulnerable times. All three are in transition in terms of their quarterbacks. Maybe the Aztecs can catch them before they get into gear.

Don’t count on it.

USC, for example, has never before deigned to soil its schedule with the likes of the state school down south. It might be looking upon the Aztecs as a mere appetizer except for some nastiness a year ago, when it opened with a loss at home to Memphis State en route to a 3-8 season.

What the Aztecs are doing is catching the Trojans in the most surly and most cautious of moods. These guys come to San Diego knowing they may as well keep on trucking south if they don’t come away with a victory.

You have a better shot if the game is more important to you than it is to the other guys, but that won’t be the case.

So much for catching USC off guard. It won’t happen.

And there is nothing safe or sane about this rivalry with BYU. A 45-17 lead was not safe in that insane 52-52 tie last year. SDSU beat the Cougars in both 1986 and 1988, but both those games--like that wild tie--were in San Diego.

Thus, winning at Provo represents another hump the Aztecs are yet to hurdle.

Those first two games are absolute monsters . . . and UCLA is not exactly Little Bo Peep.

We’re not talking a hump game here and a hump game there. We’re talking Himalayas.

For San Diego State football, September isn’t a month. It’s a mountain range.