Matadors Like Losing Before Big Crowds

The crowd of 20,120 at the Cal State Northridge football team’s season opener Saturday night at Utah State was the third-largest crowd to see the Matadors. The largest crowd was 40,872, at San Diego State in 1993, followed 23,802 for a game against West Texas State at the Rose Bowl in 1967.

Rank ranking: Big Sky Conference favorite Montana, which beat Oregon State, 35-14, on Saturday in Corvallis, has vaulted up to 36th in the latest Jeff Sagarin college football computer ratings. The next-highest I-AA team, Marshall, is 62nd. Northridge is ranked 191st.

Honored: Oswaldo Servin of Cal State Northridge has been named the Big Sky Conference male cross-country runner of the week.

Servin, a junior transfer from Cal State Stanislaus, timed 25 minutes 7 seconds over an 8,000-meter course at UC Santa Barbara on Saturday to win the meet between Northridge, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Westmont and the host Gauchos.