MikeScialabba_CAL1MikeScialabba_CAL1
Ron Fried

Clashes Of Champions To 2020 Season Opener: SJSU-Central Michigan Football

            Today's dateline was supposed to be Mount Pleasant, Michigan following the San Jose State University football season opener at Central Michigan University's (CMU) Kelly/Shorts Stadium. It would be the third meeting between the two teams and the first since the Spartans' 48-24 win in the 1990 California Raisin Bowl.
 
            When these teams faced each other in 1979 and in 1990, there were conference championship bragging rights on both sides of the field. Typically, it was San José State's creative, high-octane offense versus Central Michigan's stout and stubborn defense. Possible final national rankings and campus and community immortality were at stake. Both programs delivered and reaped rewards.

CLASH OF CHAMPIONS #1 – UNDEFEATED SEASON ON THE LINE
 
              For a program that began playing football in 1896, the Chippewas were making just their second trip to California. In 1974, Central Michigan won the NCAA Division II championship crushing the University of Delaware, 54-14, in Sacramento's Hughes Stadium prior to moving up to NCAA Division I status and joining the Mid-American Conference (MAC) in 1975.
 
             Central Michigan came to Spartan Stadium with its first MAC championship in school history and a 17-game unbeaten streak covering 1978 and 1979.  Quarterbacks Ed Luther for San Jose State and Gary Hogeboom for CMU were on their way to National Football League careers and 1986 Indianapolis Colts teammates. Luther began his pro career with San Diego and spent 1985 with Jacksonville of the rival United States Football league (USFL). Hogeboom's 10-year NFL career started in Dallas and ended in Phoenix (now Arizona) in 1989.
 
             Back then, there was no overtime in college football and ties were possible. San Jose State had a six-game winning streak averaging 31.7 points a game in those wins under first-year head coach Jack Elway and a share of the Pacific Coast Athletic Association championship with Utah State. Central Michigan finished the season #1 in the country in total defense and #14 in scoring defense yielding just 12.1 points a game.
 
             On a November 24 Thanksgiving Saturday, the Spartans matched their scoring average against the Chippewas, but missed out on more that gloomy afternoon as Central Michigan's 34-13 lead evaporated but was just enough for a 34-32 win. Luther passed for 371 yards and touchdown passes of 70 and 39 yards to Mark Nichols, the Detroit Lions first-round selection in the 1981 NFL Draft, but there were three missed extra-point tries – a kicking PAT in the second-quarter and two fourth quarter two-point attempts.
 
            "Luther is the best (quarterback) we've seen. Nobody we've played can pass the ball like San Jose State," Chippewas head coach Herb Deromedi said during a pregame press conference.
 
            Freshman Mike Berg, who became San José State's career scoring leader as a senior, had a 31-yard field goal try blocked in the first quarter and missed a PAT attempt that would have tied the game at 14-14 with 4:41 to go before halftime.
 
           "Berg hadn't kicked for two weeks because of a sprained ankle," Elway explained after the game. After Berg kicked his second of three PAT tries, the Spartans trailed, 34-20, and chose to go for two following their next two touchdowns in a three-TD fourth-quarter rally. Neither paid off and San Jose State's final possession of the game ended with Central Michigan linebacker Mark Sankovith's interception off a ball batted up for grabs in the secondary.

CLASH OF CHAMPIONS #2 – NATIONAL RANKING IS THE REWARD
 
              Fast forward to 1990 and the California Raisin Bowl in Fresno for striking similarities. The Spartans faced the Chippewas with another first-year head coach. Terry Shea, San José State's offensive coordinator from 1984 through 1986, returned after three seasons at Cal in April. Central Michigan's head coach Derodemi had led the Chippewas to their third MAC title and first since 1980.
 
             Central Michigan, 8-2-1, was #1 in the country in scoring defense allowing 8.9 points a game. With the same record and riding a five-game winning streak after crushing Fresno State, 42-7, before a Spartan Stadium sellout crowd, the Spartans were tied for #7 in scoring offense nationally with a 35.2 average.
 
            Shea and quarterback Ralph Martini, a 1990 first-team All-Big West honoree who passed for 2,923 yards and 23 TDs in the regular season, agreed the bowl game's momentum shifted to the Spartans when outside linebacker Mike Scialabba tackled running back Billy Smith for a 1-yard loss on a 4th-and-1 at the San Jose State 5-yard line. The Spartans, in their fifth year of running their version of the Chicago Bears' "46 defense," retained their 10-7 lead with just under 10:00 to go in the second quarter.

First-Hand Account Of The Game's Biggest Play
 
            "We knew he (Smith) was their star player and that he would be getting the ball. Our defensive coordinator Donnie Rea called an all-out blitz to make the stop there, because it was such a critical time in the game," said Scialabba, currently an associate principal at Santa Teresa High School in San Jose.
 
            "I took an inside path. We were blitzing up the middle. Linebacker Steve Hieber was coming up the middle and the fullback was trying to cut me. That's when I lost my helmet, because I went low and we collided. I was able to maintain my balance and make the tackle in the backfield. They had gone off tackle, but we were coming tight on the inside approach and caught him (Smith) in the backfield before he got going," Scialabba said. He discounted the possibility of Central Michigan calling an outside running or even a pass play.

Offense Takes Over From There
 
            "We were such a proficient offense and scoring lots of points, primarily touchdowns. I would bet that is what went through Central Michigan's mind is, 'we've got to try and outscore the Spartans,' and that was part of their thinking," said Shea reflecting back. After tying Louisville, 10-10, to open the 1990 season, the new San Jose State head coach was determined to go for the end zone at every opportunity.  
 
            "That was a huge play, a momentum changer. And, then we stepped it up once we saw the defense do that and make that play. We took it upon ourselves to really turn it up and take control of that game," said Martini, who would pass for 404 yards and two touchdowns. By the end of the afternoon, the Spartans had totaled 642 yards of total offense.
 
            "I remember going out and looking at the guys (in the huddle) and telling them, hey, it's our turn. The defense did their job. Now, it's our turn to put some points on the board and flip this game, which we did."
 
            Running back Sheldon Canley was the San Jose State game MVP scoring five touchdowns. His second-quarter fumble on a kickoff return that gave Central Michigan the ball deep in Spartan territory and a chance to take the lead. After Scialabba and the defense's crucial stop and behind a dominating offensive line, Canley was relentless the rest of the way finishing with 164 rushing yards and four TDs on 23 carries and caught a 5-yard Martini toss for a 48-10 advantage early in the fourth quarter.

"Absolute Loyalty" Theme
 
            For Shea, whose theme that season was "Absolute Loyalty," he remembered the Spartans needed to focus on a bowl week upon arriving in Fresno and challenged the team to get in gear which they did as the week's practices progressed. His defining moment came before the start of the second half.
 
            "I wondered if our guys were not looking too far down the road with this football game and if we could match our first half performance," Shea said to himself as he was walking down the Bulldog Stadium ramp to the field with a 26-7 lead. "I turned around and the guys were, maybe, 15 yards from me still at the crest of the walkway. I said to myself, 'These guys are ready to play four more quarters or six more quarters if we went that long. I said this is a phenomenal football team when it comes to teeing it up and playing at a very energetic level. There's no way we're going to lose this football game with the first half score and the fact our guys are so ready to finish this game."
 
            And they did.
 
           San Jose State's reward as the California Raisin Bowl champion was its first top-20 ranking at the end of the season. The Spartans were 20th in the in the United Press International coaches' poll and 26th by the Associated Press. Washington, ranked #5-nationally and a team that edged San Jose State, 20-17, in the second game of the season, was the only West Coast team ahead of the Spartans in the final U.P.I. poll.

WHAT'S AHEAD
 
With the series tied, 1-1, the home-and-home agreement between the two teams presently has Central Michigan coming to San Jose in 2025.
 
Next up in a look at what could have been in 2020 is the UC Davis series. The Spartans were set to open the home schedule with the Aggies on Saturday, September 12.

NOTES
 
Central Michigan quarterback Gary Hogeboom was inducted into the CMU Athletics Hall of Fame in 1989. A year later, current San José State University Athletics Director Marie Tuite, a basketball and field hockey star for the Chippewas, became the school's third female athlete inducted into the CMU Athletics Hall of Fame.