Football Teams

It isn't easy to lose to a team with a 3-8 record. But Western Kentucky pulled off that feat in dramatic fashion, blowing a 20-3 third-quarter lead to fall, 20-24, to Arkansas State. The Hilltoppers (0-12) thus chalked up their 20th straight defeat, the longest losing streak in the Football Bowl Subdivision, whatever that is. And, most important, wacky WKU captured the Bottom Ten title. Lowlights of the season included three games in which WKU gave up more than 60 points, including 68 to No. 5 North Texas, a team that finished 2-10.

FOOTBALL URBAN LEGEND : A professional football team once leased a quarterback to another team. Strange trades have long been a part of professional sports history. Heck, just recently in Sports Legends Revealed I've featured a quarterback that the New York Giants acquired an entire franchise just to add to their team and a trade by the San Diego Padres where they dealt a player for a pair of treadmills . However, I don't believe I have ever encountered a trade like the one the Houston Oilers and the Denver Broncos made in 1964 where the Broncos traded a player to lease a quarterback from the Oilers!

SITE -- Sun Devil Stadium, Tempe, Ariz. This is the first game to be played in Arizona. SEATING CAPACITY -- 74,000. KICKOFF -- 3:18 p.m. PST NETWORK COVERAGE--By NBC-TV (Channel 4) to approximately 215 stations and throughout the United States plus Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Bahamas, and Antigua. By CBS Radio (1070 AM) to more than 375 stations within in the United States. The Armed Forces Televison and Radio Network will also provide broadcast through out the world.

While the legislature in Minnesota continued to work on a solution to keep the Vikings, AEG on Tuesday unveiled its latest vision for an NFL stadium in downtown Los Angeles. Two weeks remain in the public-comment period of AEG's environmental impact report on the concept, and the company hopes to have its approvals in place by late summer, with the goal of luring a football team back to L.A. next spring. AEG's is one of two competing stadium proposals, with the other in City of Industry.

The Rose Bowl -bound college football teams made their annual pilgrimage to Disneyland on Sunday, taking in a day of roller coasters, parades and confetti-filled pomp. During the visit, Wisconsin Badgers and Texas Christian Horned Frogs football players rode the Matterhorn bobsleds and the Mad Tea Party teacups after greeting fans in a celebration in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle. "I don't really like the rides where you go up and down too much," said 6-foot-3, 305-pound Texas Christian center Jake Kirkpatrick.

Arrowhead League--Southern California Christian (Bert Esposito). Century League--Canyon (Bob Hughes), El Modena (Steve Howard), Foothill (Tom Meiss), Orange (Dick Hill), Santa Ana Valley (Scott Orloff), Villa Park (Pat Mahoney). Empire League--Century (Bill Brown), Cypress (John Selbe), El Dorado (Rick Jones), Katella (Larry Anderson), Kennedy (Mitch Olson), Loara (John deFries).

Southern California high school football teams are 2-1 against Hawaiian opponents after San Clemente and Dana Point Dana Hills split their games Saturday. Terrell Vinson rushed for 197 yards and scored three touchdowns to lead Dana Hills over Honolulu Pac-Five, 30-14, at Aloha Stadium. Vinson scored on touchdown runs of 10 and 70 yards and had a nine-yard touchdown reception. San Clemente did not fare as well in a 40-7 loss to Honolulu St. Louis.

ACADEMY Offensive MVP--Jimmy Freeman (St. Margaret's), Sr. Defensive MVP--Corey Wright (Capistrano Valley Christian), Jr. First-team offense--Quarterback: Rhett Swanson (St. Margaret's), Jr. Running backs: Davion Archie-Wade (Downey Calvary Chapel), Sr.; Kirk Cooper (L.A. Ribet Academy), Sr.; Darren Kelly (St. Margaret's), Jr.; Sean Porter (North Hollywood Campbell Hall), Sr.; Dustin Smith (Capistrano Valley Christian), Jr. Receivers: Ryan Allen (Capistrano Valley Christian), Sr.

The San Diego Section seeding committee will meet at 8 a.m. today to determine the four at-large high school football teams from the 2-A and 3-A divisions. The committee also will determine the top seeds for the playoffs. Each league, except the Grossmont 2-A, will automatically send its top two teams. The Grossmont 2-A league will send only its top team because there are only four teams in the league.

The Western State Conference has approved a realignment for schools competing in football that will send Ventura and Moorpark colleges to the Northern Division, joining Glendale, Santa Barbara, Harbor and L. A. Southwest. The Southern Division will comprise Bakersfield, Compton, Pierce, Valley, Santa Monica and West L. A.

The draft will be held Thursday, Friday and Saturday in New York. Times NFL writer Sam Farmer examines the needs for each team by division. Today, the South divisions: AFC South Stanford's Andrew Luck might not telegraph his passes, but the Colts do. They informed him a week before the draft that he'll be the No. 1 overall pick. New Coach Chuck Pagano wants to install a defense similar to the one he ran in Baltimore, and that means Indianapolis will seek at least one disruptive defensive tackle and some capable corners.

USC opens spring practice Tuesday. The Trojans will work out 15 times, concluding with a scrimmage at the Coliseum on April 14. All practices except the April 14 scrimmage are closed to the public. Here are five questions facing the Trojans: Is there anything left for Matt Barkley to work on? The senior said he would spend his fourth spring practice refining his footwork and throwing mechanics and becoming "a coach on the field. " That's fine with Coach Lane Kiffin.

"Undefeated" presents itself as a look at a single season in the life of a striving high school football team in impoverished North Memphis, Tenn., but really it's about so much more. Like all memorable sports documentaries — and this Oscar-nominated film is definitely one of those — "Undefeated" is really an examination not of how games are won and lost but how lives are lived, how young people faced with daunting challenges come to see, often in the most dramatic fashion, what is important going forward and what is not. "If you think football builds character, it does not," Bill Courtney, the volunteer coach central to the success of both the film and the Manassas High School team shrewdly observes.

I had dinner with Georgia Frontiere , where the Rams' owner chose to tell me about each of her seven husbands — four too many for me to make a newspaper deadline and still explain to the people of Los Angeles how she had just won approval to move her team to St. Louis. I hopped into a waiting limo in Oakland, expecting to find Al Davis , but got a pair of Raiderettes instead. So I never did get around to meeting with Davis to discuss the possibility of the Raiders returning to L.A. Former super-agent Michael Ovitz sent a martini to my hotel room and had Tom Cruise and Jerry West call to talk football and the prospect of bringing the NFL back to town.

Raymond Nelson, freshman tight end at UCLA, has been kicked off the team for an incident that occurred before the Bruins played Illinois in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl on Dec. 31. Nelson was sent home the day before the game for violating team rules, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak on the subject. Coach Jim Mora, hired last month, reviewed the situation before making his decision. Neither Mora nor Nelson could be reached for comment.

TIMES' FIRST TEAM OFFENSE: QB: Johnny Stanton, Santa Margarita, 6-3, 200, junior — No one improved more from the first game to the last than Stanton, who rushed for 1,520 yards and 25 touchdowns and passed for 2,439 yards and 13 touchdowns. RB: De'Jon Coleman, Arleta, 5-10, 175, senior — Coleman set a City Section record for most touchdowns in a season with 47. He rushed for 2,029 yards and also started at free safety for the East Valley League champions.

Cross-town football rivals will team up next month when players and coaches from three high schools sponsor a carnival aimed at raising money for their cash-strapped programs. The Tri-School Fair will take place June 3-5 and is being organized by football teams from Irvine, Woodbridge and University high schools. The teams are fierce competitors on the field, but boosters said that all three need money.

UCLA running back Johnathan Franklin huddled in the back of the small locker room at the Coliseum on Saturday night, with no way to hide his emotions. Stunned. Shocked. Defeated. All products of USC's 50-0 victory over UCLA. "We've got to . . . uh . . . swallow it and accept it," Franklin said, then acknowledged, "50-0 is a hard pill to swallow. We did not show up. We did not show up. " Days later, Franklin showed up, smiling and determined. "You've got to let a game like that go," Franklin said Tuesday.

Energized alumni. Fired-up fans. Large crowds. Motivated players. It's rivalry week in high school football, and what a group of games is set for this weekend. It starts with Thursday night's Coliseum League title decider between Dorsey and host Crenshaw. Then comes the East Los Angeles Classic, with Garfield taking on Roosevelt at East Los Angeles College on Friday night. Add Santa Ana Mater Dei facing Anaheim Servite at Angel Stadium and Narbonne playing at San Pedro in a Marine League title decider, and you have a perfect storm of rivalry games.