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Show Saturday's football season opene should see the pigskin take to sk: along with reserves Mike Conway and Ike Spencer pose a possible threat for the Miners. Utah's speedy Steve Odom is second in league stats in scoring with five touchdowns in three games, and he is third nationally in all purpose running, only behind be-hind the more renowned Woody Green of Arizona State and Johnny Rodgers of Nebraska. Odom is a 9.4 sprinter, and a very exciting one to watch no matter what he's doing, whether its running an end-around, returning kicks, or running pass routes. Needless to say, once he catches the ball, he knows what to do. Th,sw,lbei Cn,feren Same ! artlflcal urf, as,' magural event (ot er!,L Rice w,ll officially be; l'me ceremonies n businessman made, of $1 million by In a seven ga Miners, Utah eadsl three, while Utah . has a 3-0 mark ate,' Coah Meek r pleased with last f! Washington Slate , 'or the same type , P'ay out of his lea, ference, followed by numbers seven ende eight from Utah Wilhe Arm-stead Arm-stead and Lance Bobbins. In the UTEP vs. Lamar Tech game, Taylor really went wild and caught 12 passes for 197 yards So it's Plain to see that neither team' has the slightest hesitation ,o put the ball in the air. To Keith-ley's Keith-ley's dismay, Utah boasts the WAC s top pass interceptor in Larry Eld-racher. Eld-racher. Eldracher has four steals in three games, and is tenacious on pass defense. Most of the running Saturday will be done after passes are caught as neither squad has any top rush-Pr rush-Pr UTEP has the number seven by GARY LESSER Chronicle Staff The sky will be filled with flying pigskins Saturday, as the Univer-sity Univer-sity opens its Western Athletic Conference season against the University Uni-versity of Texas-El Paso in Robert L. Rice Stadium. Kickoff is set for 1:30 p.m. The game is the regular season sea-son opener for both teams, and each comes off a first-of-the-year win last Saturday. UTEP pulled out a 21-20 squeaker over New Mexico State, while the Utes surprised many of their critics with a convincing convinc-ing 44-25 victory over Washington State. If the ball isn't thrown in this affair, it never will be. Both squads boast a top passing quarterback; Utah has Don "Brownie" Van Galder, and UTEP's pride is Gary Keithley. Van Galder is 16th in the nation in total offense, while Keithley is fourth nationally in both total offense and passing. In Western Athletic stats, Keithley Keith-ley is leading in total offense, with Van Galder second. Keithley has averaged 233 yards a game, and 6.3 yards per play; while Van Galder has accounted for 189 yards a contest, with an average gain per play of seven yards. Keithley also leads the WAC in average yards per completion, with a whopping 17.3 per catch. Van Galder is fourth with 11.3, but Brownie has passed for 5 touchdowns touch-downs to Keithley's 4. Greg Taylor is Keithley's favorite target, having snagged 24 passes in three games, for an average of eight catches per game, all league-leading league-leading totals. Taylor's teammate, Lon Crittendon, is fifth in the con- i ' - J ,' - , . ,r . - . -. Utah tight end Willie Armstead (45) catches another an-other tough one in a crowd. Here, Willie is triple teamed, but managed to hoi ball anyway. and 13 rushers in the conference, nothing to brag about, but Utah doesn't have a single running back in the top 15. This is highly unusual un-usual considering how highly touted tout-ed running backs Gene Belczyk and Steve Marlowe were going into the season. They were still expected expect-ed to break loose any game, and The kicking game isn't suffering too much with the loss of ail-American ail-American Marv Bateman, as soph Dan Marelli is doing a fine job filling fill-ing Bateman's big shoes. Neither has big feet, but Marrelli has averaged aver-aged over 40 yards per kick in three games, good enough for third in the conference. The Utes will be new 60-member Pep totally new look li football season. A cc is estimated, and Us ager Monty said t; tickets are still avai'ii purchased at (he S Center Ticket Office day afternoon and a ticket office on Safe are admitted frees 1 J S A- ' 'I Steve Hallsey one of Don Von J vorite forgets. He-here He-here against b'' of a student a others, reserved set general admission . The game Sal"' again bring forth a"' a game break Belczyk, Van Ga lor, Odom, A any 0' a nUf athletes. It with possibilities- dream. ' |
