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Show Thursday quarterback SUSC vs. Southern Colorado Before the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference football season began, people were pointing at Saturday's Satur-day's matchup between Southern Utah State College and University of Southern Colorado as a possible championship name. Although plenty of unexpected results have changed things considerably con-siderably from the preseason predictions, this week's 1 p.m. clash between the two supposed powerhouses at Thun-derbird Thun-derbird Stadium could still turn into a title battle. Now, however, oodles of "ii's" and "maybes" are involved in the championship aspirations of both teams. Saturday's game will be carried live on Radio KSUB. Current conference standings show Southern Colorado, an over whelming preseason favorite, tied for last place with an ignominious 0-2 league record. Meanwhile Southern Utah is tied with three other teams (Mesa, NM Highlands, and. Western State) for first place. All lour have 2-1 KMAC marks. A look at the circumstances cir-cumstances surrounding So. Colorado's record and a look at the Indians' overall record both indicate in-dicate that the Pueblo team can be plenty tough. In all games, the Indians' are 2-2, with a 36-14 swamping of a highly regarded (and nationally ranked) East Central Oklahoma and a 20-17 win over traditionally tough Eastern New Mexico. Strong defensive efforts ef-forts against a sputtering, sput-tering, ' injury-ridden, and, hence, spotted with inexperience Indian offense have caused the S. Colorado losses. Mesa used its gambling defense to shut down the Pueblo crew, 20-14. Fort Lewis scored a field goal against the Indians and used its defense to hang on to a 3-0 win. Southern Utah also fell to Mesa (24-19), and the Thunderbirds struggled with Fort Lewis before coming out with a 17-13 win just last week. "We look at Southern Colorado as being a very good team. They've beaten some pretty good teams," Jack Bishop, SUSC coach, evaluates. "It appears to me like they haven't really had things pulled together. They lost some quality players to graduation; they have some quality new players; but it just takes some time to get it all working right. I also suspect that they may have had some injury problems." Bishop expects a game much like the SUSC-Fort Lewis contest where defense ruled, "although I think that Southern Colorado will have a stronger offense than did Fort Lewis." The Indians will be quarterbacked by veteran Joe Pannunzio who is finding success with near 50 percent passing good for over 160 yards per game. All purpose Roy Thomas, a smallish 5-9, 160-pound running back, tops Southern Colorado in rushing, scoring, and pass receiving. Freshman Fresh-man Mark Cannon has moved into the starting fullback spot. The 6-2, 220-pounder reminds Pueblo fans of Bill (lower, who ran well against the T-Birds for lour seasons. p i k, w f " ' ' Cleon Lawrence of Summit was last week's winner in the Corry's Realty World-Iron County Record football contest. Lawrence picked ten out of ten winning teams and will receive $50 for his efforts. |