The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 40

SPORTS Irish flunk Stanford achievement test The Indianapolis Star SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1992 In IRISH 'LYNCH ING PLAY OF THE GAME: On the first play of the second half, Notre Dame fullback Jerome Bettis fumbled at his 22 and Stanford recovered. Three plays later, it was 16-13 and the Cardinal was back in the game. UNSUNG HERO: Stanford free safety John Lynch, who suffered a mild concussion in the first half, but came back in the second to force a fumble and pick off a Rick Mirer pass at the Stanford goal line in the fourth quarter that kept the Irish from the go-ahead points. He also had nine tackles. NEXT WEEK: Notre Dame visits Pittsburgh (7 p.m., ESPN); Stanford is at UCLA.

fit: By DAVID BENNER STAR STAFF WRITER South Bend, Ind. With 5:36 to play in the first half Saturday afternoon, Notre Dame was beating Stanford 16-0 and things were looking up. Ranked sixth in the nation, the Irish were controlling the 18th-rated team and a big victory which this appeared to be at first was in the offing. Another well-taken stomp In climbing the poll ladder to college football's No. 1 by season's end.

Yep, things were looking up. But afterward, it was Notre Dame wearing footprints to its psyche and its body as the Cardinal had applied a thorough 33-16 kicking that left the Irish, and many of its faithful sellout crowd of 59,075 In Notre Dame Stadium, pained in many ways with the outcome. i "It was a tough loss," said ND coach Lou Holtz. "I don't know if I've ever been in a game where personally I wanted our team to play very well, but we did not. Stanford did." How ironic? Just two years ago, almost to the day, Stanford came here and knocked the Fighting Irish from their No.

1 ranking with a 36-31 victory. Now Saturday arrives and the Cardinal essentially took care of what national championship hopes Notre Dame had since it drops to 3-1-1 on the season and will probably take a significant plunge in the polls. "The season's not over," said Stanford's John Lynch (17) intercepts a pass in the end zone intended ASSOCIATED PRESS from quarterback Rick Mirer. Wildcats pick up win while Boilers fizzle for Notre Dame's Irv Smith (bottom) Northwestern's Lee Gissendaner I I iN. All.

II I 4 If STAR STAFF PHOTO SUSAN PLAGEMAN Dozier defends in the third quarter. Scores AMERICAN LEAGUE 4 By MARK AMBROGI STAR STAFF WRITER West Lafayette, Ind. After an uplifting upset of California in the season opener, Purdue's football team has resembled a misguided rocket. It crashed and burned Saturday, losing to Northwestern 28-14 before a homecoming crowd of 38,728 at Ross-Ade Stadium. "I thought we might take a nosedive (after Cal), but I didn't think we'd dive this far," Boilermakers coach Jim Colletto said.

Purdue (1-3, 0-1 in the Big Ten) had won 15 of the last 16 encounters with the Wildcats, the Big Ten's perennial doormat. Northwestern (1-3, 1-0) won here for the first time since 1950, snapping a string of 14 straight losses. "Forty-two years," said Wildcats coach Gary Barnett, smiling. "I wasn't even born then." Actually the 46-year-old Barnett was. BOILERS BITTEN PLAY OF THE GAME: North-western's successful fake punt on fourth-and-1 from its 29 late in the first half.

The Wildcats picked up the first down on a 29-yard pass from Len Williams to Willie Lindsey. The gutsy call led to their third TD. UNSUNG HERO: Northwestern running back Dennis Lundy ground out a career-high 144 yards on 39 carries. NEXT GAME: Purdue hosts Minnesota (1 p.m.); Indiana is at Northwestern. but who's counting? There were no smiles on the Purdue side.

"I don't want to sound arrogant, but Purdue should never 'lose to Northwestern," wide receiver Jermaine Ross said. See PURDUE Page 6 in'" ''r-M Irish quarterback Rick Mirer, "but winning the national championship, maybe that's over." There doesn't seem to be a lot of maybe to It. After a fast and emotional start nine points In the game's first three minutes Notre Dame slowly got Itself Into trouble and, strangely, being fitted for handcuffs was the Irish's offense, ranked first In the nation. It started with turnovers the first two allowing Stanford to have to cover only a total of 46 yards In 64 seconds: continued with the Cardinal's shutting down the Irish running game; magnified with a See STANFORD Page 2 MSU drills 42 holes in IU defense By PHIL RICHARDS STAR STAFF WRITER East Lansing, Mich. A wild day of wide open offense and loose defense ended with a loose football Saturday at Spartan Stadium.

Michigan State University seized Trent Green's fourth-quarter fumble and two plays later scored the clinching touchdown in a 42-31 victory over Indiana. Many In the homecoming crowd of 65,516 poured onto the field moments later to celebrate the 1-3 Spartan's lone success of the season. "Face It." said tailback Tico Duckett, who rushed for 142 yards and scored a touchdown, "this was a must win and we played like It. It was a typical MSU team, down 14-0 and on (their) 1-yard line. We had to come out and we did." Green's fumble may have been the clincher, but for Indiana (2-2) the killer was Its execution on the other side of the ball.

As surely as the offense was never out of the Big Ten Conference opener, the defense was never In it. "Terrible day for the defense," snorted linebacker John Miller. "The offense puts 31 points on the board and we can't win. That's terrible." "Wisconsin beat Ohio State today," offered Hoosier defensive tackle Larry McDanlel. "It's a wide open race this year and there's no one team that's domi-' nating the league.

If we play like we did this week, we're going to be in the basement." Jim Miller passed for 274 yards and a touchdown and Craig Thomas complemented Duckett by rushing for 103 yards and four touchdowns. Flankerreturn man Mill Coleman was a perpetual problem as Michigan State totaled 509 yards. Coleman returned a punt 40 yards, ran 16 yards for a touchdown on a fake field goal attempt, caught six passes for 98 yards and stretched the IU defense all day with his deep threat. I See INDIANA Page 6 HIGHLY OFFENSIVE PLAY OF THE GAME: Michigan State tailback Tico Duck-ett's 55-yard run on second and 9 from the Spartan 2. MSU was down 140 and about to be knocked out of the game.

Instead, it scored five plays later to begin a comeback that would run up 509 yards and six touchdowns. UNSUNG HERO: Spartan linebackers Ty Hallock, Matt Chris-tensen and Rob Fredrickson. Their flow helped limit Indiana to 126 yards rushing and they contributed several big plays. NEXT GAME: Indiana visits Northwestern Saturday (1 p.m. EST); Michiqin State is at Michigan- reaches for a pass as Purdue's Ikee Inside Biggest dog: Butler knocks down Indianapolis in the final Top Dog football meeting.

Page 4. Controversial win: Fittlpaldi takes Marlboro Challenge, but challengers deride officiating. Page 9. Playoffs set: Toronto clinches its second consecutive AL East division title. Page 13.

INDEX College football 2-7 High School Report 8 Robin Miller 9 Auto racing 9 NFL Report 10-11 Briefly Sports 12 Baseball 13 Scoreboard 14-15 Lines and Sports 16 Bowling 16 COLTS-BUCS WHEN: Noon today. WHERE: Tampa Stadium, Tampa, Fla. CROWD: 55,000. SURFACE: Grass. BROADCAST: WNDE-1260 AM, FM.

TELECAST: WTHR-13. LINE: Buccaneers by 912. SERIES: Colts lead series 4-2. LAST MEETING: Bucs won 17-3 Dec. 22, 1991 in Tampa Stadium.

INJURIES: Colts Out, CB Tony Stargell (knee); Questionable, OT Irv Pankey (virus); Probable, QB Jeff George (thumb), RB Ken Clark (hamstring), CB Eugene Daniel (knee). Buccaneers Out, Tom McHale (ankle); Doubtful, RB Gary Anderson (shoulder); Probable, OT Paul Gruber (ankle), DT Ruben Davis (neck), DT Mark Wheeler (ankle), RB Alonzo Highsmith (ankle), DF. Keith McCants (knee). Story onjage 11 If) v) "CP 1 -I Central State strikes with big plays in Classic By KEVIN HARMON STAR STAFF WRITER Saturday's Circle City Classic football game was filled with big plays. Unfortunately for losing Alabama State, it was also filled with costly mistakes.

Central State's Henderson Mosley and running back Charles Thompson made the Hornets pay dearly for those mistakes, too, leading the charge in the Marauders' 34-13 victory in the Hoosier Dome. A record 62, 109 tickets were issued for the ninth Classic. Most didn't show up until Central State (4-1) had the game decided. Mosley. a senior quarterback, completed 8 of 15 passes for 285 yards and three touchdowns.

One of those was to the junior Thompson, who's resuming a career that started at the University of Oklahoma. Thompson carved through the Alabama State (1-3) defense for 139 yards on 24 carries, also catching two passes for 105 yards. He assisted on another when the ball bounced off his helmet and into the hands of Curtis Thomas for a 78-yarder that marked the game's final score. "We knew this game would be decided by big plays and that the team that made the least amount of turnovers would be in pretty good shape," Mosley said. "Being able to take advantage of their mistakes was the whole difference In the game.

I don't think there's a linebacker in the country that can stop Charles Thompson one-on-one either." The game was tied 13-13 at the half, but Central State scored three unanswered touchdowns in the second half, two in the third quarter. The first was set up by one of four ASU turnovers. CSU's Marvin Coleman Intercepted a John Feagln pass and returned it to the Hornets' 36. Two plays later, Mosley drilled a 35-yard bullet to Thomas, who had slipped by ASU defender Reggie Barlow. The conversion gave the Marauders a 20-13 advantage with 8:56 left.

"In the second half we pretty much self-destructed," said Alabama State coach Houston Markham. "We made some mistakes defensively that were hard '4 compensate foWe played well to tie the fme up i the half, but those turnovers In the secow were Boston 7 New York 5 Baltimore 7 Cleveland 1 Toronto 3 Detroit 1 Oakland 10 Milwaukee 3 Kansas City 7 Minnesota 6 California 4 Texas 2 Seattle Toitaago 2 NATIONAL LEAGUE New York 2 Pittsburgh 1 Cincinnati 6 San Francisco 1 Philadelphia 3 St. Louis 2 Montreal 3 Chicago 1 Atlanta 1 San Diego 0 Houston 3 Los Angeles 2 COLLEGE FOOTBALL AP TOP 25 (1) Washington' 17 10 (2) Miami 19 (3) Florida State 16 (4) Michigan 52 Iowa 28 (5) Texas 19 Tech 17 (7) Tennessee 20 LSU 0 (8) Penn State 38 Rutgers 24 (9) Alabama 48 South Carolina 7 jj Qhio state (14) Virginia 31 Wake Forest 17 (16) Georgia 27 Arkansas 3 (17) Syracuse 15 Louisville 9 (18) Stanford 33 (6) Notre Dame 16 (19) Oklahoma 17 Iowa State 3 (23) Gaf Tech 723 (22) Boston Coii.24 West Virginia 24 (25) Clemson 54 BIG TEN, STATE DIVISION AREA Anderson 42 Franklin 18 Butler 28 Indianapolis 6 Michigan State 42 Indiana 31 Minnesota A Illinois 17 Northwestern 28 Purdue 14 Western iMaZIIZ' Youngstown St. 30 Indiana State 24 CIRCLE CITY CLASSIC Central State 34 Alabama State 13 IHL PRESEASON Ice 5 Fort Wayne 4 STAR STAFF PHOTO PATRICK SCHNEIDER Alabama State's Reggie Barlow pulls down a pass over Central State's Marvin Coleman. uncalled for and added up." Thompson, back in college after serving a 17-month prison term after a drug conviction at Oklahoma, set up Central State's next TD with a 35-yard run.

Fullback Glen Braxton scored his second touchdown of the game on a 2-yard run, but the extra-point kick was blocked. Alabama State only seriously threatened once In the second half, moving to the CSU 2 midway through the fourth quarter. It lost the ball on downs, however. "We put together a very strong defensive effort," said Central State coach William "Billy" Joe. "We caught some breaks against Alabama State and were fortunate enough to capitalize on those breaks.

I'm very happy with the effort we came to Indianapolis and gave." Alabama State missed a golden opportunity to score on its opening drive. After taking the ball on Its 16, wide receiver Horace rooks took a lateral toss See CENTkAL Page 7.