The Daily Advertiser du lieu suivant : Lafayette, Louisiana • 19

niniiainiinBii 1 1 Chomp, chomp! Dangerous Saints? Like last season, the Saints have turned dangerous after starting 0-5 But Ericsson Stadium, Carolina's new facility, is turning into one of the NFL's toughest places for a visitor to play. The Panthers are 3-0 there and have outscored the opposition 97-26 at home. Page B-7 UAB 39 5 Nebraska 24 East Carolina 31 21 -State 23 USL 29 Texas Tech 10 12 Miami 6 Texas 20 17 LSU 41 7Alabama 37 13 Michigan 27 Clemson 28 Kentucky 14 OleMiss 0 Indiana 20 22 Ga. Tech 25 1 Florida 51 Air Force 20 14 Nwestern 34 23 Wyoming 42 16 Auburn 10 8 Notre Dame 17 Wisconsin 30 Fresno State 21 2 Ohio State 42 19 Colorado 20 15 W.Virginia 30 24 Utah 21 Purdue 14 Kansas 7 Temple 10 TCU 7 4 Arizona St 48 Iowa 21 20 Virginia 62 Army 34 USC 35 10 Penn State 20 Carolina 14 Tulane 10 The No. 1 Florida Gators were a little slow getting started, but quickly picked up steam in blasting SEC rival Auburn 51-10.

The Gators are now 7-0. Page 3 Upset Saturday Saturday was a day of upsets as a number of Top 25 teams including Notre Dame, Penn State and Miami fell. Page College Football B-2-4 High Sehool B-6 NFL B-7 Sports SECTION Sunday, October 20, 1996 LSU skins Kentucky Wildcats Bruce Brown mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm trrB time lead en route to a convincing 41-14 Southeastern Conference victory over Kentucky here Saturday before a Tiger Stadium crowd of 79,660. LSU improved to 5-1 overall and 3-1 in SEC play heading into next week's home contest with Mississippi State. "We talked in the real good programs, when you lose a game, you're upset." said DiNardo.

"Then you come back and everything you do you don't mope around and ask everyone to feel sorry for you. But quite honestly, you're not in a very good mood. "We talked about it. shared some experiences of when you're at the real good places and you lose a game there's a lot to be done," continued DiNardo. "In the hotel, I didn't think today was only about Kentuckv-LSU '96.

It was about Kentucky-LSU" '95, it was about Florida '96. it was about winning games in October so that you can be in position in November. All of those things are what good programs do when they get their butts kicked against Florida. That was the challenge to me." Carencro High product Richey shook off the affects of a slow start to boot field goals of 32 and 54 yards the second of which resulted in a 20-0 halftime lead. Richey's 54-yarder tied Ronnie Lewis' school record and broke David Browndyke's Tiger Stadium record of 52 yards.

"I looked up and it was a nice sight to see," Richey said of his 54 yarder. "It was nice to see it going end over end through the uprights." Richey and fellow Carencro native See LSU, B-3 By William Weathers Staff Sports Writer BATON ROUGE Somewhere buried deep beneath the rubble of last week's demolition at Florida was a LSU pondering the future. Just which way to turn after a 43-point humiliation. Left? Right? Straight ahead? Throughout this past week LSU had to find the answers they had the questions to the past prior four weeks. It was all about ahgning the pieces of a program disjointed for just one week.

LSU didn't wait long to respond to its lowpoint of the season. In fact, the Tigers' roar was almost deafening. No. 17-ranked LSU buoyed by Wade Richey's school-tying 54-yard field goal jumped out to a 20-0 half- THE ADVERT I SERBrad Kemp LSU's Kevin Faulk breaks loose to score the first of two touchdowns Saturday evening. Cajuns burned by UAB blaze Big plays critical as USL falls to 3-4 See the statistical box on page B-2 See related story on page B-2 By Bruce Brown See the Top 25 roundup on page B-3-5 Sports Editor BIRMINGHAM, Ala.

Alabama-Birmingham waited for over a year to get USL at Legion Field after a 56-21 loss at Cajun Field in 1995, and on Saturday it proved to be worth the wait. Coach Watson Brown's Blazers stunned the Cajuns 39-29 before a meager homecoming crowd of 16,327, using four touchdowns by Keith Roland to shove the 34 visitors to the brink of their first losing season in four years. Senior quarterback Jake Delhomme tied a USL school record with four touchdown passes, but it wasn't enough to overcome a 489-yard attack by UAB. Sixty-seven of UAB's yards came on the fourth quarter play that turned the game in the Blazers' favor. A screen pass from Rodney Hudson to Robert Davis against a USL blitz not only converted a third-and-8 from the UAB three-yard line but also ignited a 99-yard touchdown drive as Davis didn't run out of gas until reaching the USL 30.

Six plays later, Hudson hit Roland over a blitzing Damon Mason for a 13-yard touchdown to overcome a 29-28 Cajun lead with 3:40 left to play. Hudson then found Kenny Causey with a two-point conversion pass. The Blazers tacked on a late field goal "That was just a great play on their part," said Mason. "We were blitzing from both sides, and they called the screen on third and long, backed up in their own end zone. "I missed a tackle, and the guy ran for 50-something yards." "We thought we could come out and win the football game in the second half," said Stokley, whose team trailed 28-17 at the break but rallied to gain an edge.

"Our defense played solid until the last few minutes. "When we let them out of the one-yard line, that just broke our backs. We just had nothing left after that." "We had complained all game that we couldn't get any pressure on their passer," said co-defensive coordinator Jerry Beach. "So when we finally got something going there, we didn't want to let them get back into a rhythm." On first down from the one-yard line, USL's Paul Cabbie stormed through to hit Hudson and jar the ball loose. The Cajuns recovered for an apparent touchdown, but the play was ruled an incomplete pass.

Two plays later, the Blazers had their game-saving play. See Cajuns, B-2 Rest of season a big challenge ESPN's Dan Patrick would have you believe that the hardest thing to do in sports is to hit a baseball, but that may have to be re-evaluated. The toughest task may be to rekindle the fire for USL's Ragin' Cajuns after Saturday's humbling 39-29 loss to the Alabama-Birmingham Blazers. Coach Nelson Stokley's team had whipped UAB 56-21 a year ago, prompting cries that the Cajuns ran up the score despite the fact that quarterback Jake Delhomme threw only 19 passes. An open date last week and homecoming designation set this year's meeting up as a tasty revenge dish to savor, and the Blazers ate up all of it.

On Saturday, Delhomme had already tried 24 passes by half-time, hitting 12 for 178 yards and a pair of scores, as USL piled up 284 total yards and 19:18 of the clock and yet trailed by 11, 28-17. Then, after rallying to take the lead at 29-28, the Cajuns let the Blazers out of a third-and-8 hole at their three-yard line to spark a 99-yard drive and hand the game away in the fourth quarter. Can't get over hump "It's tough," said Stokley, "because it seems like we just can't get over the hump. "I'm disappointed for this team because they worked hard this week and we were ready to play. It looked like we were into the game when we came out, but we're just not executing well.

"I hope we've got something to us, because we've got a lot of work to do. This is about as easy as it comes, and we couldn't get it done." "It seems like we can't use all of our experience and pride to get back out of that hole." said fullback Kenyon Cotton. "Sometimes it's just a little bit too late. Southern Miss and Houston, and now today. "I believe this one's a real sore because these guys talked the talk and pretty much gave it to us today." "We got beat up and down the field, on both sides of the ball," said senior quarterback Jake Delhomme.

"Obviously, we're not a very ood football "team. You can tell the way we're playing right now. That is absolutely pathetic. "That's all I have to say. We're terrible.

We have to get back to the drawing board." Winning season long shot Trouble is, the 3-4 Cajuns have probably kissed goodbye any chance at a winning season with Saturday's loss road games at Virginia Tech and Texas Tech offer no chance for an upset at the moment and it didn't have to happen that way. The Cajuns had UAB backed up, with a 29-28 lead, with the game almost theirs. Then, a team that has proven it can't tackle all year ran a blitz on the Blazers' third-and-8 from the three. Simply stopping the play short of the sticks would force a punt. But the blitz risked a big play, and the end result was a 67-yard pass that finally turned the game in UAB's favor and left the Cajuns facing the real possibility of their first losing record since 1992.

Rock bottom, hard landing "We've just about hit rock-bottom." said Stokley. "We've taken this team and really coached them down over the past few weeks. "We've really gone backwards since the La. Tech game, and I think our performance speaks for itself. We're just not a very good football team now.

"We've just got to come out and try to get better. I don't know if it can get any worse." Before the season began, Stokley said he wanted his team to be judged by an entire campaign rather than the first two games against Florida and The Cajuns split with those two powerhouse programs. It's the others that seem to give them fits. AP Photo after intercepting Delhomme, but the game Cajun tight end Cody Romero shakes off a would be UAB tackier to was decided by the 99-yard march and that score a second quarter touchdown Saturday in Birmingham crmcai screen pass. IceGators use power play to stop Sea Wolves, 6-3 larly during the decisive middle frame, when Handy sandwiched goals around a Dan O'Rourke even strength tally to cap a three-goal spurt in the first 6:33 of the period which turned a 1-1 game into a 4-1 IceGators lead.

The production tonight was exactly what IceGators coach Doug Shedden was looking for. "We've got a lot of experience on that power-play," Shedden said. "It was second Handy during a three-goal flurry in the second period, to roll to a 6-3 win over the Mississippi Sea Wolves before a raucous crowd of 5,128 almost half of which were IceGator fans at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. The win gave the IceGators a good start towards defending their ECHL South Division title that they won last year. The power-play unit, which scored on three of 13 chances, was the key, particu in the league last year, and when you're in the top five of either special teams category, you're going to win some games." Handy agreed that the ability to capitalize on the man advantages, particularly a 5-on-3 power-play that set up Handy's second goal, and an important factor in Saturday's win.

"When a team takes penalties like that, you've got to hurt them with it," Handy See IceGators, B-9 By David Friedlander Staff Sports Writer BILOXI, Miss. The Louisiana IceGators may have just opened the regular season against the Mississippi Sea Wolves Saturday night, but their power-play unit was showing no signs of early season rust. The IceGators scored three times with the extra man, including two by Ron Heavy rains put World Series on hold As it stands, Game 1 will be Sunday night at 7:30 p.m., with John Smoltz starting against Yankees ace Andy Pettitte. Game 2 is now scheduled for Monday night at 7:15 p.m. The travel day would be eliminated, and the third game would be Tuesday night in Atlanta.

Then again, that all may be optimistic because of a big storm hovering over the Northeast. There was an inch of water in the dugouts by early evening and the grounds crew put picnic benches on top of the tarpaulin in a futile attempt to keep it from blow Weather Update NEW YORK (AP) The opening game of the World Series, postponed Saturday night because of heavy rain, could be in jeopardy Sunday night. A heavy, wind-driven rain soaked the metropolitan area Saturday, causing the postponement about seven hours before the first pitch was to have been thrown. The rain was expected to be heavy through Sunday morning, with a chance of thunderstorms through the night, weather service meteorologist Mike Wooldridge said. Game Two was scheduled for 6:15 p.m.

COT. Monday, which was to have been a travel day. The forecast for Monday called for windy, cloudy weather, and a 40 percent chance of light rain or drizzle. NEW YORK (AP) -Welcome to the World Series, New York style. Game 1 never had a chance Saturday night.

The opener between the Yankees and Atlanta Braves was called off at 1 p.m. EDT, seven hours before its was supposed to start, because of heavy rain and expected wind gusts of 60 mph. The result? Pitching plans wrecked. The field sloppy. Travel schedules ruined.

Ticket problems looming. It was the first Series rain-out since 1986 in New York a day after the Mets won the Bill Buckner eame and first If the delay presented an edge, it went to the Braves. A day after Torre said he planned to use a three-man rotation, he announced Kenny Rogers would pitch Game 4. Rogers, hit- hard in a pair of playoff starts, will get another chance because there won't be a day off after Pettitte, Jimmy Key and David Cone take their turns. "Even though it hasn't worked out yet, I still feel Kenny might give us the five or six innings we need," Torre said.

The defending champion Braves, meanwhile, now have the option of moving up Greg Maddux. As it stood, Atlanta manager Bobby Cox was planning a rotation of Smoltz, Denny Neagle, Maddux and Glavine. But with an extra day of rest for Maddux and Glavine, Cox could bump Neagle to Game 4 and, allow his big three to make two starts each, if necessary. The Braves, coming off a tough NL championship series that ended Thursday, might also enjoy a day off. They arrived in New York on Friday, then got stuck in traffic for a few hours on their way to Yankee Stadium.

Ahdy Pettitte ERA John Smoltz 24-8, 2.94 ERA ing away. Mike Wooldridge. a meteo imxMmxTE Series delay since the Bay Area earthquake in 1989. "It's a mess out there now," Yankees manager Joe Torre said, "and it may continue rologist with the National Weather Service, said steady overnight showers were expected to taper off by morning, but there was a chance for more rain by Sunday evening. Flood warnings for nearby coastal areas were issued.

World Series Game 1 7:30 p.m. (FOX-TV).