Columnist Steve Guiremand: Colorado State could move up polls quickly

STEVE GUIREMAND is a Las Vegas Sun sportswriter. His college football column runs Fridays.

With most of the attention on the WAC these days being focused on the so-called "breakaway eight" and the crumbling of the 16-team conference, one positive tends to be overlooked.

Colorado State.

Sonny Lubick's Rams, who have won three WAC titles in four years, have a legitimate chance of working their way into the Bowl Championship Series format (and a $11.5 million payday), especially if they can win their first two games of 1998.

CSU begins the year ranked No. 15 in the nation by the Associated Press. And the Rams could move up quickly with a win Saturday at Michigan State in the Black Coaches Assn. Classic and a victory over in-state rival Colorado at Mile High Stadium on Sept. 5.

Get past those two games and the Rams have a very real chance of going 13-0. The only real tough games left on their schedule are an ESPN Thursday night date with Air Force in Fort Collins on Sept. 17, a Halloween road contest at Rice and a Nov. 7 home date with Wyoming. Then they'd have to get past probably either BYU or Utah in the WAC Championship game.

For all the new fancy formulas that will go into selecting the Bowl Championship Series teams this year, the one stat that would be very hard to overlook is 13-0.

Saturday's game in East Lansing may be the biggest obstacle for the Rams. Not only will they be breaking in a new quarterback in fifth-year senior Ryan Eslinger on the road, but Colorado State must guard against looking ahead to next week's much-talked about showdown with the Buffaloes.

Over 5,000 students at CSU lined up overnight last week for the chance to buy tickets for the Colorado contest. Many we're chanting, "Beat CU, Beat CU."

Quipped Lubick: "We have to beat Michigan State first."

If they do, the Rams and the WAC could go out with a real bang this year.

Can Paul Hackett?

It hasn't been easy being a USC football fan the past two years.

Not only have the Trojans continued to get whacked by crosstown rival UCLA --- the streak is now seven --- they were fortunate to escape with a 35-21 win over UNLV. And the whole concept of "Trojan Family" was blown to bits by the ugly mishandling of John Robinson's firing.

Instead of just handing Robinson his pink slip after the annual loss to UCLA, school president Dr. Steven Sample and athletic director Mike Garrett left Robinson and his staff in an embarrassing state of limbo for three weeks while they courted Lou Holtz, among others.

Enter one-time Trojan assistant Paul Hackett, another tie to the good old days of the 70's, when the Trojans produced national titles and Heisman Trophy winners like clockwork.

Because USC is adding much-needed practice field space on campus, Hackett and company have spent the last three weeks at UC Irvine preparing for Sunday's Kickoff Classic opener with Purdue. A win over the Boilermakers would no doubt go a long way toward taking away the bad taste left in a lot of Trojan alums mouths.

But six straight USC head coaches have failed to win their debut games, including Robinson twice (1976, 1993). Ted Tollner did manage to tie Florida, 19-19, in 1983 but the last USC coach to win his first game was Jess Hill in 1951.

Once around the WAC

* AIR FORCE: Starting quarterback Blane Morgan has returned to fall practice and is expected to start the Falcons' Sept. 5 opener with Wake Forest despite having an emergency appendectomy recently. All-WAC guard Frank Mindrup underwent arthroscopic knee surgery but also is expected to play in the opener.

* BYU: Explosive running back Ronney Jenkins, who gained 723 yards and scored 18 touchdowns as a true freshman in 1996, said he had offers from schools like USC, Arizona State, Colorado and Colorado State after he was suspended for the 1997 season for violating the school's conduct code. But after meeting with his family and BYU coaches, Jenkins decided to return to Provo. "I would have been running away," Jenkins said. "Rules are rules, and I screwed up."

* COLORADO STATE: The Rams take a nine-game winning streak into Saturday's Michigan State game. It will be interesting to see if CSU can come close to duplicating it's nation-leading plus-28 turnover ratio this year.

* FRESNO STATE: Former UCLA wide receiver Ahmad Herbert has joined the Bulldogs, but has been slowed by a tender hamstring.

* HAWAII: Veteran defensive coordinator Don Lindsey has switched to offensive coordinator to try to help revive a Rainbows offense that has averaged less than two touchdowns per games the last two years.

* NEW MEXICO: UNM players will wear throwback jerseys for their Oct. 10 Homecoming game against UTEP. New head coach Rocky Long had his players vote on their favorite jersey from the past. Ironically, they picked the 1964 uniform. That also was the last time New Mexico won the WAC title.

* RICE: Fewer than than 18,000 tickets remain for the Owls' Sept. 5 season-opener with SMU. Rice's marketing department devised an "Operation Sellout" with Houston area businesses and organizations with the goal to sell all 70,000 seats for the WAC opener with the Mustangs.

* SAN DIEGO STATE: Running back Tyrone Evans is no longer with the team after he was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading no-contest to 13 misdemeanors. Evans could be in for even more jail time if he is convicted on a pending domestic-violence case, in which he is accused of assualting his then seven-month pregnant girlfriend.

* SAN JOSE STATE: Incumbent quarterback Brian Vye is trying to stave off a challenge from 6-5 newcomer Bobby Sabelhaus, a 1994 Parade All-American from Owings Mill, Md., who originally signed with Florida out of high school and also has had stints at junior college and West Virginia before coming west. Head coach Dave Baldwin won't announce his starter until just prior to next week's season-opener at Stanford.

* SMU: Nose guard Alex Pahulu (6-0, 285), one of the top true freshmen in the WAC last year when he had 42 tackles and three sacks, decided to postpone a planned Mormon mission and instead will play with the Mustangs this year.

* TCU: The career of senior safety Eric Anderson came to an end after he sustained hairline fractures to numerous vertebrae after landing on his neck while trying to sack a quarterback in practice. Anderson, who had 81 tackles last season, had surgery to fuse bones and stabilize the condition. He suffered no paralysis.

* UNLV: The Rebels, who play three of their first four games on the road, have lost 20 straight road contests dating to an Oct. 1, 1994 win (31-27) at New Mexico State.

* UTEP: For the first time in school history, the Miners held two-a-days off campus ... kinda. UTEP still worked out in the Sun Bowl, but the players were housed and ate in the barracks at Biggs Army Airfield near Fort Bliss.

* TULSA: Hoping to change their luck following a 2-9 season, a dozen Hurricanes have dyed their hair. Improving the nation's worst rushing defense might help a little more, fellas.

* UTAH: Linebacker Phil Glover, a Clark High grad, is one of 68 candidates listed for this year's Butkus Award. The watch list will be cut down to 10 semifinalists on Oct. 15.

* WYOMING: Offensive coordinator Todd Whitten resigned unexpectedly earlier this month to enter private business in Texas. Head coach Dana Dimel will assume offensive coordinator and play-calling duties.

Once around the nation

* ACC: Florida State, which faces Texas A&M in the Kickoff Classic on Monday night and is picked by some to win the national championship, only has 10 seniors on its roster. Surprisingly, of the 15 players who signed with the Seminoles following their 1994 national championship season, only five remain and just one, linebacker Lamont Green, has been a regular starter. Another, cornerback Samari Rolle, is now with the Tennessee Oilers.

* BIG TEN: The Big House just got a whole lot bigger. The University of Michigan has added another 5,500 seats to its stadium to leapfrog Tennessee's Neyland Stadium (102,544) as the nation's largest college-owned stadium. New capacity will be over 107,000. Two huge video screens also have been added at both ends of the stadium.

* BIG 12: In a gutty move, Colorado coach Rick Neuheisal named JC transfer Mike Moschetti his starting quarterback. Moschetti, listed at 6-0 and 195 pounds but closer to 5-10, quarterbacked Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif., to the mythical JC national title last year and played defensive back in spring drills. Fourth-year junior Jeremy Weisinger, once touted as the next Kordell Stewart in Boulder and the favorite for the job, immediately announced he would transfer to Texas A&M.

* BIG EAST: Syracuse, which rebounded from a 1-3 start last season to finish 9-3 and win the Big East, could be slow out of the gate again this year. The Orangemen open at home against Tennessee, then travel to defending national champion Michigan. "To not play well in September and then to add Tennessee and Michigan is like slitting your own throat," admitted head coach Paul Pasqualoni.

* BIG WEST: Utah State will be trying for back-to-back bowl appearances for the first time since 1960-61 when Merlin Olsen played for the Aggies.

* CONFERENCE USA: Army joins the conference following an injury-plagued 4-7 campaign in 1997.

* MID-AMERICAN: Last year it was Randy Moss. This year Marshall is touting quarterback Chad Pennington as a Heisman Trophy candidate. Pennington has his own website at www.herdqb.com.

* PAC-10: With this year's national title game at Sun Devil Stadium, Arizona State players have their sights set on spending New Year's in Tempe, not Pasadena. "That's in the back of our mind, the national championship," ASU center Grey Ruegamer, a Bishop Gorman grad, said. "The Fiesta Bowl is our goal," added fullback Jeff Paulk.

* SEC: Arkansas and Texas are expected to renew their famed Southwest Conference rivalry beginning in the year 2002. The series was discontinued in 1991 when the Hogs moved to the SEC.

* WAC: According to the Gold Sheet, Colorado State has been the nation's hottest point spread team recently, going 15-1 vs. the spread in their last 16 games against major foes.

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