This could be uglier than a blind date in prison.
No matter. Waken the echoes, Aztecs football fans. Send the volley cheer on high. Shake down the thunder from the sky.
For Notre Dame, at long last, is upon you. Cheer! Cheer! Just what you always wanted, you saber-rattlers, those of you couldn't wait for this moment in time and now no doubt wish it weren't here.
Outlined against a blue-gray loss to Cal Poly, San Diego State on Saturday visits the island that is South Bend, Ind., home of Rockne, Leahy, Parseghian, The Four Horsemen, The Gipper, six Heisman Trophy winners and Touchdown Jesus.
From the fateful day The Rock left the chemistry lab to devote his life and gift of gab to the game (do you honestly believe ol' Knute didn't make up that “Win one for The Gipper” peroration?), Notre Dame has been college football's Louvre.
It may not be what it was before the wise guys caught up and kept speed and a whole lot of the talent out of South Bend, but it's still Notre Dame. And, if you haven't been there on a Saturday afternoon for a game, if you're a college football fan, no matter what you think of the university, you owe it to yourself to make it a place to visit before taking that final cab ride.
I can't say what the furthest thing from being a Notre Dame fan really is, but count me among the crowd on Orion. Don't like its arrogance. Don't like its independence. But I've been there on a Saturday afternoon, and it was the greatest of football experiences. Even better than Aztec Bowl.
OK. Back in the late 1960s, when Don Coryell was making the faces of a man who'd just washed down two dozen bad oysters with spoiled milk, I was a student. State was doing things through the air with a football that made Dorias-to-Rockne more Cro-to-Magnon.
Still, it was a “college” and played small-school ball – you know, kind of like Cal Poly – but the Aztecs beat up on so many teams, their legions of fans that now have eroded to a platoon wanted more.
They wanted Notre Dame. They wanted USC. They wanted Oklahoma. They wanted Alabama. They wanted Texas. They wanted Michigan. They wanted Penn State. They wanted UCLA. Bring 'em on. They'd had it with San Fernando Valley State. With Mexico Poly. With Montana State. With North Dakota State.
Truth be known, SDSU could sneak up on a few of the bigger schools back then, but a steady diet would have left it in an eternal emergency room. Still, I could see where the enthusiasm was coming from.
State was light, but very good – better later on in the 1970s, when Claude Gilbert coached there – and would have caused offensive problems for many. I started there in 1966 and, during my four years on campus, the Aztecs lost once, to Utah State in 1967. They were 41-1-1, the tie coming in 1968 to a Tennessee State team that included future NFL stars Claude Humphrey (Falcons) and James Marsalis (Chiefs).
During my matriculation, the Aztecs outscored their opponents 1,505-569. In 1969, in going 11-0, they scored 492 points, allowing 174. In 1968, when they went 9-0-1, they had just one road game. Ken Karr, then athletic director, used to buy out opponents to visit the San Diego Slaughterhouse. Imagine that.
So now, it has come to this. SDSU has played at Ohio State. At Michigan. Against UCLA, home and away. USC and Miami, here and there. Hasn't worked. The last time State beat a BCS conference team was at Kansas in 1999. I don't have to look up how many big-time programs State has lost to since Gilbert's Aztecs smashed Florida State 41-16 in 1977, the last and only time they finished nationally ranked. It's a bad number.
That they are about to play at Notre Dame the week after they suffered another humiliation at the hands of Cal Poly only means they have another big name on their schedule.
Maybe Notre Dame isn't very good. The Irish, under savior Charlie Weis, last year won just three games (including Duke and Stanford), one fewer than SDSU. Just a hunch, but I'd wager they're better – and twice the size – of Cal Poly.
Weis, trying to build up the Aztecs to his subway constituents, yesterday said the game was lost to Cal Poly because of State's five turnovers. “The most impressive stat,” he said, “was that they held Cal Poly to 2-of-13 on third downs.”
Great. Who won? It was Cal Poly, Charlie.
Weis, I'm almost certain, called it Cal Poly Obismo, but it was a conference call, so I can't be positive.
“It's a map game,” said upbeat Aztecs coach Chuck Long, who Saturday basically will be playing without a defensive line (injuries) and visiting a shrine he's never visited as a player or coach. “It puts us on the map nationally. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Let's make the most of it.”
Forty years later, here “it” is.
I can hear the echoes. They're awake.
Nick Canepa: (619) 293-1397; nick.canepa@uniontrib.com
