SDSU looking for a little respect in 2003

Steve Guiremand

Friday, Aug. 22, 2003 | 9:30 a.m.

Editor's note: Fifth in a series previewing MWC football.

SAN DIEGO STATE AT A GLANCE

San Diego State quarterback Adam Hall led the Mountain West Conference in passing, total offense and passing efficiency in 2002. He also engineered the Aztecs to a surprising third-place finish.

Normally, that would be enough to easily garner all-conference honors. But Hall, a strong-armed transfer from Texas, seems to have been lost in the quarterback shuffle behind Colorado State's Bradlee Van Pelt and Air Force's Chance Harridge.

He probably can serve as a 6-foot-3, 220-pound poster boy for San Diego State's football team this season. Simply put, the Aztecs, who return 15 starters from a squad that won at Air Force and Wyoming and also scored victories against Utah and UNLV, are pulling out the old Rodney Dangerfield "No respect"theme.

"We were picked seventh again after finishing third; I don't even want to talk about that stuff," all-Mountain West Conference linebacker Kirk Morrison said. "It's up to us to prove everybody wrong."

Second-year San Diego State head coach Tom Craft felt that Hall, who completed 60 percent of his passes while throwing for 3,253 yards, 17 touchdowns and just nine interceptions in 452 attempts last season, is also not getting the respect is deserves.

"Surprisingly, he wasn't all-conference," Craft said of the senior from Austin, Texas. "He guided us to a third-place finish, which is our best finish ever in the (MWC). He's on the Davey O'Brien quarterback watch list, he was a preseason All-American coming out of the spring by The Sporting News, and he's committed to the East-West Shrine game. So he's gotten more national attention than he's gotten from our league."

Hall's biggest problem is that he was overshadowed much of the time by a very talented receiving corps that included J.R. Tolver, who caught 128 passes and led the nation with a 137.3 receiving yards per game average, and Kassim Osgood, who caught 108 passes and was fourth in the nation with an average of 119.4 yards receiving per contest.

Hall won't have that problem this year. Tolver, Osgood and No. 3 wideout Ronnie Davenport have all graduated. The three accounted for almost 90 percent of San Diego State's passing offense, however, combining for 292 of the team's 352 receptions and 3,768 of the team's 4,302 passing yards.

The loss of that talented receiving trio might very well be the reason the Aztecs were picked in the preseason media poll to finish seventh ahead of only Wyoming. Five of the team's top eight receivers were not on the active squad last year and the top returnee, sophomore split end Robert Ortiz, caught just 13 passes.

The Aztecs are not void of receiving talent, however. Junior Devin Pitts caught 18 passes at USC in 2001 before deciding to transfer last season. And 6-foot-2 junior Lonnel Penman was a highly recruited player out of famed prep powerhouse Long Beach (Calif.) Poly High School.

"We're coming in with six, seven, eight guys that are going to step up," Hall said. "They have speed, they have size, they have athletic ability."

They also should benefit from an improved running game.

San Diego State averaged a dismal 72.9 yards rushing last season which ranked the Aztecs 114th out of 117 Division 1-A schools. But sophomore Frederick Collins came on toward the end of the 2002 campaign and the Aztecs pulled off a recruiting shocker in February when prep All-American Lynell Hamilton, regarded as one of the nation's top 10 running back recruits, choose SDSU over Oregon and several other Pac-10 schools.

The defense returns eight starters including Morrison, who had a team-high 96 tackles to go with three sacks and two interceptions.

The key will be how quickly seven offensive newcomers can pick up Craft's complicated passing attack. The good news is that the preseason schedule, outside of a Sept. 6 trip to defending national champion Ohio State, gives the new Aztecs some time to work out the kinks. Two of San Diego State's first four contests are home games against 1-AA schools Eastern Washington and Samford. The Aztecs also travel to WAC bottom-feeder UTEP which should also give Hall plenty of opportunity to pad his stats. There's an excellent chance that SDSU will be 3-1 out of the gate.

Whether the Aztecs earn the respect they so crave will likely be determined at the end of September and early October when they play a tough four-game stretch that begins at UCLA and ends up at home on Oct. 18 against New Mexico. Those games are sandwiched around a home game against BYU and a road game at Utah.

"We have a real opportunity," Craft said. "It's a matter of we're going to have to be real fortunate, and we don't have a lot of depth at certain areas still. Even though we've added some in other areas and we may make improvements in some areas, we're still keeping our nose above water in others."