Wednesday, September 10, 2003

By Phil Axelrod, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

The spotlight will be on Mike Sirianni, who will make his debut as head coach when Washington and Jefferson plays host to Allegheny Saturday night in W&J's first home game under the lights since the mid-1970s. Sirianni is ready. More than ready.

"But that doesn't mean I'm not nervous," said Sirianni, who spent the past four seasons as the offensive coordinator for the Presidents. "You never know what's going to happen."

Sirianni, who replaced John Banaszak, inherits 12 starters from a 9-3 team that reached the second round of the NCAA Division III playoffs. Banaszak, who had a 38-9 record and took W&J to the playoffs in each of his four seasons, was fired in the spring.

W&J is picked to win the Presidents' Athletic Conference for the 18th time in the past 19 seasons and have been ranked in most of the preseason polls and as high as No. 5 by Sports Illustrated.

"We're a long way away from being the fifth-best team in the country," Sirianni said. "We aren't there -- yet."

The biggest question is at quarterback, with sophomore Chris Edwards taking over for Brian Dawson, a four-year starter who holds 22 school passing records. Edwards played for the junior varsity team last season.

"He's as far along as we expected, but the speed of the game and the reads are going to be faster. He's going to have to make quicker decisions," Sirianni said. "I'm not going to say we're going to be vanilla on offense ... we'll do some things that hopefully can make him successful."

The Presidents will do it without tailback R.J. Zitzelsberger, who will be out at least four weeks with a stress fracture in his left foot. Sirianni will rotate three tailbacks, Matt Bettinazzi, Justin Platz and Ryan Mendel, a freshman from Brentwood.

Allegheny opened its season with a 45-26 loss at Baldwin-Wallace.

"They played a game and have the jitters out of the way," Sirianni said. "They're going to be just as emotional as us."

Sirianni got a look at his Presidents in a controlled scrimmage against three-time defending national champion Mount Union two weeks ago.

"How did it go? Not good," said Sirianni, a star wide receiver in 1993 when the Purple Eagles won the national title, and an assistant on the championship teams in '96 and '97. "We didn't keep score, but ... I'd rather scrimmage them than someone we know we can go out and beat up pretty good. You learn what your weaknesses are against a Mount Union."

PSAC

California's only first down in a 27-0 loss to Eastern Illinois came on the ground in the fourth quarter. ... IUP has won 14 consecutive games at home and has scored at least 20 points in 24 consecutive games. ... Slippery Rock is 1-6 against Division I-AA opponents in the past seven seasons.

PAC

Bethany has lost 14 of its past 15 games against Carnegie Mellon. ... Grove City scored its most points in an opener in 73 years in its 68-20 victory against Hiram. Steve Roberts is Grove City's all-time leader in punt return yardage with 682. His 35-yard return for a touchdown was Grove City's first punt return for a score since 1994. ... Waynesburg scored the second-most points in school history with a 70-14 victory against Denison.

Impressive debut

IUP tailback Mike Jemison, a 6-foot-1, 225-pound junior who transferred this season from Pitt, rushed for 141 yards and a touchdown on 29 carries in a 28-26 victory against Nebraska-Omaha last week. Jemison, who has two years of eligibility remaining, played sparingly as a tailback at Pitt in 2001 and was moved to linebacker last season.

"IUP has a great tradition for tailbacks," Jemison said. "It's nice to prove to everyone that I'm the next tailback at IUP."

Jemison has a lot of yards to go to catch up to the last tailback to transfer from Pitt to IUP -- Aamir Dew is IUP's second all-time rusher with 3,623 yards from 1999-01.

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