Three weeks before San Diego State's football team was to appear in the 1998 Las Vegas Bowl, its opponent still unknown, then-Athletic Director Rick Bay was asked by members of the bowl's committee if he would be opposed to facing fellow Western Athletic Conference member Utah.
“I told them it certainly wouldn't be our first preference,” said Bay, “but that we'd play the Chicago Bears in order get the chance at (a bowl) opportunity.”
SEAN M. HAFFEY / Union-Tribune
Quarterback Brian Russell scrambles in the 1998 Las Vegas Bowl, SDSU's most recent postseason appearance.
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At this point, the Aztecs not only would be happy to play the Bears, they would likely be amenable to playing Attila's Huns, Ali Baba's 40 Thieves or a game of Three Card Monte on the rooftop of a burning building.
Ten years. A decade in terms of time, a lifetime in terms of futility. Ten years. One-hundred and five games. No reward, no honor, no end.
Never mind that the Aztecs remain the only team from the Mountain West Conference never to have participated in a bowl game since the league's inception in 1999. From a national perspective, SDSU is one of just 18 Bowl Subdivision teams (formerly Division I) not to have enjoyed a winning season from 2000 to 2007 and one of just 20 programs not to have won a bowl game in the past 30 years.
And it leaves more than a few members of that 1998 team wondering why, wondering if the program is on the road to respectability or racing headlong toward ruin.
“It's really tough for me,” said Mike Malano, a center on the Aztecs' 1998 team who became a first-team All-American and now resides in Pagosa Springs, Colo. “To continually see the type of players that come out of (SDSU) and go on to have successful careers at the next level, for that program not to be winning championships and going to bowl games on a consistent basis is hard to believe.”
So is this: Since the inaugural season of the MWC, every team in the league save SDSU not only has appeared in a bowl game, but also won, with six of the other eight schools winning multiple times. TCU, a member of the conference for just three seasons, already has appeared in more bowl games as an MWC school than the Aztecs have in the past 17 years. Utah, meanwhile, has won as many bowl games in the past decade (seven) as SDSU has regular-season games in the past two years.
SDSU, which fell to North Carolina in the '98 Las Vegas Bowl, hasn't won a postseason game since besting Boston University in the now-defunct Pasadena Bowl in 1969.
Yet with only one Bowl Championship Series team (Notre Dame) on the Aztecs' nonconference schedule in 2008, and 68 of 119 Bowl Subdivision teams eligible for postseason bids, perhaps SDSU's bowl drought is nearing an end. Then again, the Hundred Years' War lasted 116 years.
“It's ridiculously hard to believe,” said Rico Curtis, a safety on SDSU's '98 team who works as an assistant high school coach at the San Diego Jewish Academy. “Honestly, they have had so much talent there, I just don't understand it. Before the '98 season, we had two teams (in 1995 and '96) that won eight games and we weren't even invited to a bowl game.
“When we came out of that game (in '98), I really thought (the program) was headed in the right direction. We were where we wanted to be. We had a lot of guys coming back the next year, and I thought our next season would be similar if not better. We just couldn't get it together as a whole.”
That was 1999, and the Aztecs haven't gotten it together since. While much has been said of the comings and goings of athletic directors and coaches, as well as academic attrition among players, it hardly softens the blow to know that Wyoming, recruiting to a city (Laramie) hardly renowned for its climate and cutting-edge culture, has appeared in one more bowl game than SDSU in the past decade. Even UNLV, which has lost more games (71) than any other MWC team since the league's inception, has reveled in the postseason, beating Arkansas in the 2000 Las Vegas Bowl.
“It's shocking, and a little frustrating,” said Brian Russell, who quarterbacked SDSU's '98 team and has spent seven years as a safety in the NFL, the past two with the Seattle Seahawks. “My brother (Shane, who played at SDSU in 2005) was there after I was, so I stayed in touch with what was going on, and it's hard to understand why they haven't been able to put it together.
“After our ('98 season), we thought we had all the pieces of the puzzle together and that everything would just start rolling. We believed in (former Aztecs coach) Ted Tollner and his philosophies, so it was really disappointing the next year when we weren't able to keep it going.”
The question is whether the Aztecs can ever get it started again.
“I really believe that with (current SDSU coach) Chuck Long's leadership that they'll get back to a bowl game,” said Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila, a member of the Aztec Big 50 booster group who played at SDSU from 1996 to 1999 and is in his ninth season as a defensive end with the Green Bay Packers.
“I believe in what they're doing. It's challenging, but they're getting their schedule to a point now where they can compete with the teams they're playing,” Gbaja-Biamila said. “And once you start winning, players who might never have considered San Diego State are going to start thinking about going there. I really think they're headed in the right direction.”
Mick McGrane: (619) 293-1850; mick.mcgrane@uniontrib.com
