*Field Goals* - The Grand Finale

An Air Force Falcons' team adjudged to be little more than Mountain West Conference canon fodder before the season began, enters its game versus San Diego State this weekend with the opportunity to post its ninth win. A second place conference finish is still a possibility for AFA and a bowl game awaits Fisher DeBerry and the team in December.

NO LAUGHING MATTER. Rodney Dangerfield's signature quip is that he doesn't get any respect. Neither did the Air Force Falcons before this season began. Eight wins in eleven games, a chance for a ninth victory in the regular season, a bowl game waiting to be played next month and the possibility of finishing among the nation's top twenty-five teams when the season's final polls are released in January, have earned Air Force the respect it was not accorded in the preseason. Fifteen Air Force seniors will suit up for their final home game as the team faces San Diego State on Saturday morning. The seniors have posted 4-0 marks versus Army and Navy and now seek a similar record against the Aztecs. San Diego State brings a 3-8 overall mark and a 1-5 road record into the contest. EARLY WAKEUP CALL. The Falcons and Aztecs close their respective MWC schedules in a television mandated, midmorning slot of 10:00 A.M. Mountain time. The crisp, relatively early morning air may challenge the Aztecs, just as San Diego State's highly effective passing attack may test the Falcons. While the Falcons have broken a midseason three game losing streak and have won their past two games, there is concern about how a weakening defense will perform against the Aztecs' passing game. The 2001 AFA football season concluded with the team losing five of its final seven games. Air Force struggled from first game to last in trying to find some combination of players on defense which would bring a halt to the unrelenting supply of yards and points the team yielded to its opponents. One of the most lax and uninspired units in Fisher DeBerry's eighteen years as the team's coach, burned its energy early in the season and ran on fumes for the remainder of the schedule after being pummeled in Provo by BYU. Last year's squad surrendered 5,432 yards of offense or 452.6 yards a game. The Falcons allowed 386 points in twelve games or 32.16 points a game. It was a team whose defense played well in the first half of the season and then faltered badly in the second half of the schedule. There are some frightening similarities between this year's defense and last, mitigated only by a more productive AFA offense this season than last. SLIPPING AWAY. After playing effectively in the first six games of the season, AFA's newly installed 3-3-5 alignment has either hit the wall or had its inherent mysteries solved by opposing offenses and offensive coordinators. The record shows that: a defense which held a nationally ranked California offense without a touchdown until the sixtieth minute of play and to a mere 21 points on the day, yielded a TD to a winless Army team in the first quarter of play and 30 points in the game. A defense which shut out Utah in the second half, blocked punts, forced fumbles and intercepted passes, thereby allowing the Falcons to overcome a twenty point deficit, is the same unit which allowed Wyoming to score 34 points as the Cowboys posted their first MWC win since 1999. A defense which muted the Brigham Young University offense all night, before the Cougars scored their only TD of the game in the fourth quarter and were held to minus twenty-one yards rushing, is the same crew which allowed UNLV to score on its first possession of the game while yielding 469 yards of offense--303 of which came on the ground--to the running Rebels. Everywhere you look a weaker Air Force defense is now in evidence than was the case during the first half of the season. Just as the 2001 Air Force team limped to the finish line in large part because of defensive liabilities, so too, has Air Force stumbled badly in the second half of the current schedule, only to be saved by an offense which features the nation's leading rushing attack. SCARY NUMBERS. Last fall Air Force allowed 452.6 yards and 32.16 points per game to opponents. Through the first six games of the current schedule AFA allowed a mere 309.8 yards--an improvement of 31.55%--and 16.16 points--an improvement of 49.75% a game--to its opponents. Over the past five games AFA's defense has allowed 414.2 yards--an improvement of just 8.4% over last season--and 29.6 points--an improvement of just 7.9% over last season--to opposing teams. Whatever malaise and ineptitude gripped the Falcons' defense in 2001 has returned full force in the second half of this season. An Air Force rushing attack led by quarterback Chance Harridge, halfback Leotis Palmer and a cast of ensemble running backs has rescued a defense which has allowed thirty or more points to the Falcons' past four opponents, an ignominious feat unmatched by even last fall's porous and slack defense. AN AIR STRIKE. San Diego State QB Adam Hall sustained a concussion in last week's game against Colorado State and is unlikely to see any action in this week's game. Lon Sheriff will take Hall's place in the lineup. It's certainly a tough break for the Aztecs that Hall will miss the game and a piece of good luck for Air Force, as it is fully aware of Sheriff's abilities. He started against Air Force last year in the Falcons' 45-21 win in San Diego and went 12/20/0TDs/1int/194 yards for the game. The Aztecs had more rushing, than passing, yardage versus the Falcons last year, a circumstance not likely to be repeated this weekend. Sheriff will launch all kinds of passes in the direction of the MWC's leading wide receiver tandem of J.R. Tolver (5/127 versus AFA last year) and Kassim Osgood. When the Falcons lost to Wyoming last month, the Cowboys' quarterback, Casey Bramlet, went 32/43/2TDs/387 and felt next to no pressure from AFA's pass rush. Unless the Falcons can sustain a pass rush against the Aztecs' accomplished passing attack, Air Force defensive backs may yield numbers similar to the debacle in Laramie. AFA's ability to engineer ground-gaining, time-consuming drives which produce TDs rather than field goals, is the antidote for neutralizing the lethal effects of San Diego State's quick strike offense. Senior Wes Crawley, who started 29 games in his career--twenty-one of them consecutively--before breaking his collarbone while making an interception on the first play of the Army game, will be missed by the Air Force secondary in this game against the pass happy Aztecs. Fisher DeBerry has mastered the Aztecs more frequently than any conference team against which he has coached. The Falcons are a solid 12-4 versus San Diego State and have beaten the Aztecs seven of eight times at Falcon Stadium in the DeBerry era. The Aztecs always seem to struggle on the road and their 1-5 record this fall suggests there has been no change in that regard. The Aztecs will be playing on the road, early in the morning, at altitude rather than at sea level, in cool weather, in a stadium in which they have posted two wins in ten games covering twenty-two seasons. It's not a pleasant scenario for Tom Craft and his bunch. San Diego State is a team playing out the string. Air Force is riding the crest of a wave of recently generated momentum as it tries to honor its senior class by sending them off with a final victory at home. Air Force has won its final home game in each of the past five seasons. A win sustains the Falcons' opportunity to finish in sole possession of second place in the MWC and send them to a December bowl game in which they can register a tenth win during the 2002 season. THIS AND THAT. AFA QB, Chance Harridge, has passed for 846 yards this season while rushing for 1,042. By passing for 154 or more yards against San Diego State, Harridge would become the fifth AFA quarterback, and the fourteenth player in division 1-A football, to rush and pass for 1,000 or more yards in the same season. Graduating senior, halfback Leotis Palmer, will play the final home game of his stellar career on Saturday. Palmer is in position to become the second most prolific ground gaining halfback in the option era of Air Force football. Leotis has rushed for 1,403 yards and needs 76 yards to reach such status. The durable back of all trades will start his team leading twenty-third consecutive game when Air Force plays in Falcon Stadium this Saturday.