Spartan Football - Season & Single-Game Comebacks

            An originally-planned feature on the similarities of 1920 and 2020 for San José State football was shelved.
 
There was no Spartan football in 1920 as the country dealt with the end of the Spanish Flu pandemic and celebrated the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote. In college football, the University of Oregon played in the 1920 Rose Bowl losing a one-point decision to Harvard, 7-6. San Jose State football resumed in 1921 after a 20-year hiatus.
 
In 2020, games in the traditional college football season were postponed or cancelled in stages resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.  The voter registration surge for the upcoming general election continues. And, Oregon began the 2020 calendar year playing in the Rose Bowl, eking out a 28-27 win over Wisconsin, another one-point outcome.
 
Compared to today with just over 100 Spartans on the 2020 football roster, not enough men were enrolled at San Jose State one hundred years ago to field a team. According to the 1921 La Torre, the 224-page campus yearbook, the six athletically-eligible men enrolled had to play varsity basketball in order for the college to have one men's intercollegiate team.
 
But on September 24, San Jose State University learned college football would be played in the 2020 calendar year after the Mountain West Board of Directors voted for an eight-game regular season beginning Saturday, October 24 and a conference championship game on Saturday, December 19. The announcement was a reversal from an August 10 declaration that the 2020 football season would be conducted in Spring 2021 at the earliest.
 
With conformity to state, county, and local health ordinances and in consultation with government officials, and scheduling and preparation-to-play issues on-going, the "comeback" theme is today's view from the press box.
 
ONSIDE KICKS KEY LATE FOURTH-QUARTER STUNNING COMEBACKS
 
Spartans - The Kicking Team
 
Sports Illustrated's 1986 "Game of the Year" was San Jose State's 45-41 win over nationally-ranked Fresno State, undefeated prior to kickoff. The Spartans' 24-0 second-quarter lead evaporated in the third quarter. The surging Bulldogs had a 41-31 lead with 1:15 to go in the game, but San Jose State trimmed the deficit to 41-38 with 0:42 on the clock on Mike Perez's fourth touchdown pass of the game. The Spartans successfully recovered their on-side kickoff attempt. Three plays later, Perez ducked under Fresno State oncoming pass rusher Jethro Franklin and connected with wide-open wide receiver Lafo Malauulu on a 26-yard game-winning touchdown pass with 0:18 in the game for an improbable 45-41 victory in front of an announced crowd of 28,158, the largest home crowd for a San Jose State football game until the 1990 Fresno State encounter.
 
San Jose State – The Receiving Team
 
The following season with Perez and much of the Spartans high-powered offense back San Jose State captured its second mythical Bay Area championship over California and Stanford.
 
First up was Cal in Berkeley. The offense was clicking with Perez passing for 421 yards, but didn't finish drives with points. San Jose State trailed 25-24 at the 0:27 mark in the fourth quarter.
 
Fearing the possibility of a long kickoff return by halfback James Saxon, the current Arizona Cardinals running backs coach, and aided by a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty on Cal assessed on the kickoff after its go-ahead touchdown, the Golden Bears' ground-ball kickoff only reached midfield. Tight end Bill Klump picked up the bouncing ball and ran to the Cal 39-yard line.

Two plays later, a miraculous catch by Johnny Johnson, Jr., playing in only his second college football game, looking into a blinding sun on a 36-yard pass play set up Sergio Olivarez's fourth field goal attempt of the afternoon. Highly reliable in his two seasons as the Spartans' kicker, Olivarez overcame the optical illusion of the Memorial Stadium field's crown and converted a 20-yard field goal from the left hashmark with 0:01 remaining for a 27-25 victory. Two weeks later, San Jose State knocked off Stanford, 24-17, for its claim to a second Bay Area college football crown in six years.
 
OVERCOMING BIG DEFICITS IN BIG COMEBACKS
 
Down 20 to Stanford in 2006 is one
 
The impetus for San Jose State's 2006 New Mexico Bowl winning season started with a 35-34 win over Stanford in Spartan Stadium the second week of the season. Though the Spartans scored first for a 7-6 lead, Stanford scored the game's next four touchdowns. A missed extra-point kick after the Cardinal's first touchdown of the game proved costly. San Jose State overcame two 20-point second-quarter deficits for a 35-34 comeback win.
 
Spartan quarterback Adam Tafralis completed 15-of-17 passes with an interception for just 110 yards and one touchdown, scored the game's first TD on a 1-yard run, and threw the key block that sprung wide receiver James Jones on what turned out to be a 42-yard game-winning reverse midway through the third quarter.
 
Down 27 & A NCAA Regulation-Game Scoring Record
 
When your opponent scores 63 points, gains 634 yards of total offense and has a time of possession advantage of more than 24 minutes, your team should be heading off the field with a loss. Add to the statistical dominance giving up a school record 570 yards rushing and your team throwing four interceptions, then the score should be lopsided, really lopsided.
 
That didn't happen in 2004 when San Jose State hosted Rice in a Western Athletic Conference game.
 
Trailing 34-7 in the second quarter, the Spartans turned to senior Dale Rogers, their third quarterback of the game, after starter Adam Tafralis and #2-signal caller Beau Pierce could not get the offense to paydirt and the change was a 70-63 conference victory payoff.
 
Though Rogers threw three of the team's four interceptions including a Rice "pick-six" that kept the Owls ahead, 49-35 in the third quarter, five of his 10 completions on the night were San Jose State touchdowns. The shortest scoring pass was 29 yards to wide receiver Rufus Skillern in the third quarter drawing the Spartans to 41-35, the closest San Jose State would get until Rogers tied the game, 63-63, on a 1-yard run with 2:41 to go in the fourth quarter.
 
Besides combining for the NCAA-record 133 points, a record that stood until 2016, the two teams combined to throw seven interceptions. The San Jose State game-winner was two plays after Rogers' touchdown when safety Brian Nunez picked off the Rice pass in front of the Owls' sideline and ran 28 yards for the win. The dejection on the Owl players as they departed the playing field was in sharp contrast to the hollering and hooting by the Spartans as they evened their season record at 2-2 and 1-1 in the WAC.
 
WILL(HITE) POWER TO THE END ZONE
 
A good San Jose State football team was one of four squads featured in Sports Illustrated's November 10, 1980 "Hey Not Everybody Can Be Perfect" college football roundup. The Spartans traveled to Baylor for a non-conference game against the eventual Southwest Conference champion.

There were 21 players in the game that would eventually play in a regular season National Football League game.
 
The home team Bears' squad featured future Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker and San Francisco 49ers head coach Mike Singletary and 10 of his teammates. Known for his big eyes playing for the Chicago Bears, Singletary's eyes already were big then. San Jose State wide receiver Mark Nichols, cornerback Gill Byrd and running back Gerald Willhite would go on to be first-round draft picks and seven more Spartans played in the NFL.
 
San Jose State trailed 15-0 in the second quarter as Baylor scored touchdowns on its first two possessions and added a field goal. The Bears were dominant the first 1.5 quarters of the game. Like the Rice comeback in 2004, the Spartans changed quarterbacks with Steve Clarkson entering the game for his first action in three weeks leading the team on a 15-play, 91-yard scoring drive. San Jose State entered halftime only trailing, 15-7, and had captured the game's momentum.
 
The second-half belonged to the Spartans with Willhite as the most productive player on the field for both teams. Officially, Willhite and Clarkson teamed up for a 52-yard touchdown play to draw San Jose State to 15-13. Resembling Franco Harris' "immaculate reception" from the 1972 Pittsburgh Steelers-Oakland Raiders playoff game, Clarkson's intended pass for wide receiver Rick Parma in the middle of the field never reached the Spartan pass catcher. The violent collision between Parma and Baylor safety and future Oakland Raider Vann McElroy, and the football resulted in the ball going airborne to a waiting and surprised Willhite outside the field's left hashmarks for roughly a 40-yard jaunt untouched to the end zone.
 
Willhite would add runs of 2 yards for the go-ahead touchdown and a clinching TD run of 6 yards with 4:21 left in the game for San Jose State's second win in school history against a top-10 ranked team.
 
NOTES: Only 11 men were identified in the yearbook, two less than pictured in the 1898 San Jose State football team photo archived in Benjamin Gilbert's "Pioneers for One Hundred Years – San Jose State College, 1857 – 1957." The 1898 Spartans, the college's fourth team fielded, were the first to win a football game and finished with a 4-1-1 win-loss record.
 
Johnny Johnson, Jr., who played on the 1987 through 1989 San Jose State football teams and on the 1989 Spartan basketball squad, was named to the 1990 NFL All-Rookie Team after rushing for 926 yards and five touchdowns for the Arizona Cardinals.
 
Besides Nichols, Willhite and Byrd as eventual NFL first-round draft choices in the Baylor win, the Bears' running back Walter Abercrombie was the Pittsburgh Steelers' first round pick in 1982. Seven other Spartans from the win went on to play in an NFL regular-season game – wide receivers Stacey Bailey and Tim Kearse, offensive guard Mike Katolin, tight end Tracy Franz, outside linebacker Bill Benjamin, and defensive backs Kenny Daniel and Ken Thomas.

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September 19 - Spartans Miss 2020 Penn State/Big Ten Conference Experience
September 12 - SJSU-UC Davis Football - Sibling Rivalry; Brooklyn Dodger, National Champion
September 5 - Clashes Of Champions To 2020 Season Opener - SJSU-Central Michigan Football