San Diego State desperately needs a win

It’s going to be something to see how the Chargers and San Diego State react on the football field this weekend.

The Chargers will just be playing/hoping not to get anybody hurt when they close their exhibition season Friday night at San Francisco.

But it will be much different Saturday night for SDSU.

The Aztecs will be fighting for their season when they open by hosting Cal Poly, a team from the next division down in college football.

This is the same Cal Poly bunch that came to San Diego two years ago and upset the Aztecs, 16-14, when Coach Chuck Long became too conservative.

If SDSU loses to the Mustangs again, it may be the beginning of the end for Long on Montezuma Mesa.

While experienced on defense, the Aztecs are very young offensively.

Much of their season rides on redshirt freshman quarterback Ryan Lindley out of El Capitan High School.

His father, Tim Lindley, was a water polo All-American at Monte Vista High School. Ryan will try to take the family genes to another lofty status when he begins his Aztec career.

The SDSU defense is solid; the offense may not be. We’ll see.

Prediction: SDSU 20, Cal Poly 13

Poinsettia Bowl looks like a winner

When the Holiday Bowl first came to be in 1978, many people wanted to name it the Poinsettia Bowl.

Now that the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl is entering its third game, it looks like the bowl slot was well worth the wait.

The Poinsettia Bowl match-up Thursday night between Navy (8-4) and Utah (8-4) is one of the better non-New Year’s Day bowl pairings.

Or would you rather see Oklahoma State (6-6) vs. Indiana (7-5) in the Insight Bowl, or perhaps Alabama (6-6) vs. Colorado (6-6) in the Independence Bowl?

Even the BCS games between USC (10-2) vs. Illinois (9-3) in the Rose Bowl and Virginia Tech (11-2) vs. Kansas (11-1) in the Orange Bowl aren’t all that appealing on a nationwide basis.

Illinois has no business being in a major bowl, and Kansas didn’t even make it to the Big 12 championship game.

Utah boasts one of the nation’s better runners in Darrell Mack of Utah, who rushed 50 times for 248 yards in leading Monte Vista High School to a San Diego Section CIF championship four years ago.

Navy may very well suffer because head coach Paul Johnson has already moved on to become the new coach at Georgia Tech.

Look for the Utes to prevail.

Prediction:

Utah 27, Navy 17