USD Football 1988

Football As It Should Be By Wayne Lockwood The San Diego Union Sunday, November 15, 1987

Back there near the dawn of time - before television, in other words - maybe it was all like this. If it wasn't, maybe it should have been. Maybe what college football should be is what it was yesterday when the University ' of San Diego played host to Menlo College in a game promising the winner entry into Maybe it should be bleachers so close to the field you can recognize the players by their faces, not their program numbers. Maybe it should be admission prices of $4 and $2. Maybe it should be seniors hugging their parents at midfield as they are introduced before the final game of their careers. Maybe it should be games that start five minutes early because, hey, everybody's ready, so why not? Maybe it should be business economic majors and English majors knocking the heck out of each other for 60 minutes and then milling around together on the field for a half-hour afterward, along with family, friends and classmates who actually know these people. Maybe those Division Ill folks remember something about college football that the rest of us have forgotten, or never knew. This was college football, make no mistake about that. There was hitting and intensity and a lot of people who wanted to win very badly. the NCAA's Division 111 playoffs. Maybe it should be, well, fun.

There was elation on a Menlo team that did, 17-15, and was probably just that much better. There was dismay on a Toreros club that kept hanging on and hanging on and might have snatched the game away if it could have gotten its hands on the ball one more time. Maybe the players weren't as big or as fast as those at Oklahoma and Miami. But none of them backed off, either, and every one knew his way to the library. " Maybe the people in the stands or in the press might see a difference,'' said USD wide receiver Jeff Mansukhani. " But to the players who are out here playing, it's football, just like the football they play everywhere else. This is like the Super Bowl to us. We play because we love the game." Toreros safety Bryan Day has a world view befitting a business economics major with a 3.9 grade-point average. But that doesn't mean he enjoys losing any more than the next guy. " I'll probably remember this game all my life,'' Day said. " It was a big game for us, a chance to go to the playoffs, and we didn't win. That hurts." Mansukhani and Day are worth studying for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that they were their team's best players, offensively and defensively, in this game. Mansukhani, a senior wide receiver, caught passes of 15 and 26 yards to set up USD's first touchdown and caught consecutive throws of 31 and 21 yards to account for all the yardage on the Toreros' second scoring drive. " He's just a fierce competitor,'' said USD coach Brian Fogarty. "When you need the big catch, he's there." Unfortunately, this year the ball often has not been. Mansukhani, who caught 49 passes for 811 yards and seven touchdowns last year, had only 13 catches for 245 yards and two touchdowns in 1987 before breaking loose yesterday. " For three years, he was the man because we threw the ball a lot,'' Fogarty said. "This year, we just weren't capable of doing that, and he had to take a back seat. But he handled it well." He handled it as well as he handles the books, in other words. Mansukhani, an English major with a business minor, was a second-team Academic All-American last season. " I've thought about what it might have been like to go to a Division I school,'' he said. "There were several bigger schools who offered me a chance to walk on and maybe earn a scholarship." But Mansukhani opted for USD, a $3,290-per-semester decision, not including room, board and books. "This just seemed like a place where I might play and get a good education,'' he said. "It seemed appealing. I've never regretted the decision." Day, a junior safety, was everywhere for the Toreros on defense yesterday, as he has been most of the season. The team's leading tackler also intercepted a pass (his sixth), forced a fumble (his third) and blocked a field-goal attempt. Most impressive, however, is the fact that Day seems likely to join Mansukhani as an Academic All-American. "Some bigger schools were interested in me, but they came and saw my size and decided I wasn't big enough,'' said Day, who is 5-foot-11 and 185 pounds. " I wanted to go on playing, so here I am. I'm glad." After all, there are trade-offs for paying your own way. "You don't have as much pressure to perform,'' Day said. "You're not on scholarship. You know everyone out here wants to play, because there's no other reason to be here. " I think that makes it better. These guys want to play football." They want to win, too, which is why the Toreros were no happier than any other losing team in America yesterday. But the pain will pass, eventually. A good education and good friends will not. 19