Titans Misread Signals and Lose

He spent much of the last week cautioning his players not to let emotion get in the way of beating arch-rival Nevada Las Vegas, but with the game on the line Saturday at Santa Ana Stadium, it was Cal State Fullerton Coach Gene Murphy who lost his head.

It certainly wasn’t the only mistake the Titans made in disappointing a homecoming crowd of 8,110 and dropping their first Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. game of the season, 10-6.

But it was, in Murphy’s opinion anyway, one that was inexcusable.

With 40 seconds remaining and Fullerton trailing by four, the Titans had a fourth-and-four play from their own 41-yard line. Quarterback Kevin Jan looked to the sideline for backup quarterbacks Carlos Siragusa and Tony Dill--who signal in the plays during the two-minute drill--but Murphy jumped in front of them and animatedly called the play himself.

Jan misread it and handed off to fullback Mark Hood, who lost a yard.

End of game.

“We had a pass called, of course, but you can’t blame Kevin. I over-accentuated the signal,” Murphy said. “Any chance we had of winning the game came to a screeching halt right there. I should have kept my butt back where it belonged. There’s no excuse.”

The Titans still had a considerable distance to cover in less than a minute, but the reminder of the Titans’ game-winning, 54-yard drive in the final 1:34 last week at Utah State made Murphy’s lapse all that much more painful.

“Seven days ago, we ran the two-minute drill perfectly and Siragusa and Dill signaled in all the plays then,” he said.

Fullerton has not beaten Las Vegas since 1972 and the Titans suffered their only loss last year at the hands of the Rebels, which also cost them a postseason appearance in the California Bowl. The teams’ mutual dislike erupted into a bench-clearing riot in 1983, but Saturday it was reduced to a few shoving matches and a number of personal fouls on both sides.

Las Vegas, which went to the California Bowl at Fresno last year before having to forfeit all of its wins because of the use of seven ineligible players, is 3-2 in conference and has now defeated two teams that previously had unbeaten PCAA records. University of the Pacific was also 2-0 before losing to the Rebels last week.

“I’m expecting a letter from (Fresno State Coach) Jim Sweeney any day now, thanking me for putting him in the Cal Bowl,” Las Vegas Coach Harvey Hyde said. (Fresno State is 3-0 in conference.)

The Titan offense could have kept their coach out of the spotlight, though. They had more total yards than the Rebels (297-265), more first downs (16-12) and moved inside the Rebel 20-yard line four times but had just two field goals to show for it.

Len Strandley, who missed field goals of 49 and 21 yards, connected on a 41-yarder early in the first quarter as Fullerton went ahead, 3-0. Las Vegas’ Joey DiGiovanna tied the game with a 37-yarder early in the second quarter.

Then three of the biggest plays of the game happened in less than a minute.

First, Titan safety Mike Romero intercepted a Steve Stallworth pass on the Fullerton 29. But running back Burness Scott, who had 99 yards rushing, fumbled on the first play from scrimmage, and UNLV’s Adrian Harris recovered. Then, on Las Vegas’ first play, Stallworth and Chris Bridges’ hooked up on a 41-yard pass play that put Las Vegas ahead, 10-3.

The game was an uneventful midfield punting contest much of the third quarter until Fullerton drove to the Rebel 16 late in the game. But, two sacks later, the Titans were faced with a fourth-and-20 from the 26-yard line and Murphy decided to go for the field goal.

“We thought there was enough time and our defense could hold them . . . which they did,” Murphy explained.

Fullerton got the ball back with 1:30 left to play, and who knows what might have happened if Murphy hadn’t decided to intervene in the play-calling process.