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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 31, 1989)
he Battalion ieJlPORTS ler rife 13 fhursday, August 31,1989 ichev widely i P ro -M( r °m th e Ags, LSU resume rivalry •‘as A&M tries to beat ocum will try to end opening game whic HJ mx rought lay Rasmussen Maybe Sherrill should have hardest hitters in e Battalion Stall jhe latest battle of an all too fa- Hiar series continues Saturday Moldav; night at Kyle Field, an aswas seven years ago that former ass ret Head Coach and Athletic Director gthejjj Jackie Sherrill said one of the first rossu'sffeKP&s intended to do to the fekas A&M football program was to Uat Texas A&M Site: Kyle Field ickoff: 5:45 p.m. banking: LSU (tenth), A&M(un- ked) TV/Radio: ESPN (Ch. 32); ■ AM (AM 1240) ion are * t , l ,e ,^ agan >nal On; J inform; n, debt and a rograni A&M-LSU series going ayt waited. Since the instatement of a ten- year contract with LSU, the Tigers nave beaten the Aggies in their last three meetings by a combined score of 79-20. LSU leads the series 25-14- 3, including a 27-0 drumming last year in Baton Rouge. “It’s embarrassing,” said A&M Head Coach R.C. Slocum. The Aggies will have a tough time with a relatively young defense matched up against the Tigers’ pow erful, high scoring offense. A&M’s defensive line and line backer spots are Filled with players who have ittle experience. The bright spot in the Aggies’ defense was to be their secondary, but the in jury of free safety Gary Jones leaves the Aggies thin in the defensive backfieid. Jones is regarded as one of the the Southwest Conference and his leadership will be missed in Saturday’s game if he cannot play, Slocum said. Jones is listed as questionable for the LSU game. The revamped Aggie offense will have a long night if they can’t shut down the Tigers’ defense. Regarded as one of the stingiest defenses in the Southeastern Conference, LSU re turns Karl Dunbar and Clint James to the defensive line. The Aggies’ offensive linemen will have to minimize the effects of these two if junior running back Darren Lewis is to have a good game. The Aggies have made a tradition of playing tough opening schedules and playing catch-up football during these non-conference games. A&M See LSU/Page 15 Pavlas confident, ready to lead Aggies on return road to cotton By Richard Tijerina Of The Battalion Staff ugl ;a t Coming out of Lance Pavlas appearecf to have it all: All-American quarterback from Tomball. Consecutive ap pearances in Class 5A state championship games. One of the nation’s most highly-recruited players. Strong armed and smart with the right attitude to make it big. But Lance Pavlas’ story was to nngs of that got in the way ot tnat storybook ending. Fans expected him to become the next great Aggie savior after All- SWC quarterback Kevin Murray left in 1987. Pavlas was to make the jump from Tomball Field to Kyle Field quickly and continue Texas A&M on its way to winning consecutive conference cham pionships and Cotton Bowl ap pearances. But Pavlas was expected to come too far too fast. Projected as the starter of the future, Pavlas was redshirted his freshman year. When he came back in 1987, he found himself locked in a quar terback controversy with veteran Craig Stump, who eventually won thejob. Pavlas waited patiently. When Stump was finally out of the picture, it appeared Pavlas’ time had finally arrived. How ever, no one seemed to notice the signing of a virtually unknown quarterback from Louisiana named Bucky Richardson. At least, no one seemed to notice un til mid-season when he became the Aggies’ starter and led them to a 35-10 Cotton Bowl victory over Notre Dame. Pavlas waited patiently. Last year, Richardson was again the starter. Southern Mis sissippi transfer Chris Osgood ranked ahead of Pavlas on the depth chart. His play was spo radic last season, with more inter ceptions than touchdowns. His job was usually the mop-up job, coming in at the end of the game when the game was already de cided. Pavlas waited patiently. And now all that waiting has seemed to paid off. Richardson went one way as a knee ligament went another in last year’s Texas game. Surgery in the offseason forced coaches to redshirt him this season. Flead Coach R.C. Slo cum named the 6-foot, 2-inch, 185 lb. Pavlas the starter in spring practice, then hired former Ore gon offensive coordinator Bob Toledo to come in and redesign the offense with a more pass- oriented attack to suit Pavlas’ tal ents. Pavlas leads the Aggies in their 1989 season opener on Saturday at Kyle Field against Louisiana State University. Although he is 1-2 in his career as a starter, he well in the final game played last See Pavlas/Page 15 angers resume familiar fade despite good individual efforts mdrall; ISC to with a to hool is back in session, and it’s a whole semester. Remember last spring? hool was over, the birds were chirping :lessly and summer was as close as the rest beach. However, in our mad rush tc te College Station, some of us missed a uliar sight. Te Texas Rangers were on top of the erican League West. They were blowing jay the competition with Nolan Ryan’s and the smoking bats of Julio Franco, id Palmeiro and Ruben Sierra, ng-suffering Ranger fans were king the pilgrimage to Arlington to see se new Rangers and their strange habit Ivinning. They left for the ballpark ;kets. bllsfully ignoring the incessant doomsayers ■ninding them of Ranger collapses past, sion $wB\h, summer. Vacation. Valentine, rveasikittories. There were even four Rangers e pro, onihe All-Star team. Ranger faithful in :e since: paradise. iut, now the summer vacation is over, Alan Lehmann Sports Writer and so are the hopes of a Ranger pennant. The Rangers can find valid excuses for the slide, but excuses don’t win pennants. The harsh reality is that the Rangers’ hopes are as dead as the roadkill on 1-45. Mathematically, it’s still possible for the Rangers to win the division. However, being 11 games out with only 33 games left, the Rangers are mired in fourth place, closer to fifth place than third. To win the West, the Rangers would have to win almost all of their remaining games, and hope for the three best teams in the American League to completely fall apart. Don’t hold your breath. In fact, with 18 of their remaining games against the Royals, A’s, Angels, and Orioles, the Rangers might not finish above .500. No more wondering. This is not the year. So, what’s left? Nothing, other than the mundane task of finishing the season with no hope of winning the division. What went wrong? Although the Ranger front office is best remembered for disasterous trades like the Walt Terrell and Ron Darling for Lee Mazilli fiasco, the front office did turn the franchise around in 1989. In 1988, the Rangers finished the season below the .500 mark, and hopelessly behind the A’s. However, the current Ranger record (68-61) is the second best at this J e M' stage in the history of the franchise. Ranger General Manager Tom Grieve’s deals for Palmeiro, Franco, and Harold Baines kept the Rangers in the race most of the season, and give the Rangers one of the league’s most potent offenses. The cost of attaining this extra firepower was not unbearable. Trading away starters Pete O’Brien, erry Browne, Scott Fletcher and Oddibe "cDowell did anger some fans. However, only Brown has played well enough to regret, and the play of Julio Franco has made Browne obsolete in the Ranger lineup. Signing Nolan Ryan may have been Grieve’s master stroke. With a 14-9 record, Ryan has been the workhorse of the Ranger staff. His 243 strikeouts lead the league by a wide margin. What went wrong? It wasn’t the Ranger hitting. Their .263 team average is in the top six in the league. For the first time in recent memory, the Rangers had three starters chasing the batting title. Although none are still in contention, Franco, Sierra and Baines all boast averages of .300 or better. With the exception of Ryan and Russell, the pitching has been streaky. Rookie Kevin Brown has been a pleasant suprise. However, the rest of the staff has been unreliable. The Achilles Tendon of the Rangers has been the defense. Cecil Espy’s defensive lapses have cost the Rangers several games this season. Palmeiro has had difficulty in adjusting to his new position, and all of the Ranger infielders have made errors costing at least one game. The solution? Just hope that the team will gel over the winter, and play like a team with the chemistry needed to win the AL West. To borrow a phrase common among Ranger fans, “Wait until next year.”