Who’s No. 1? Hey, It’s SDSU’s Arey!

SAN DIEGO — The nation’s top receiver sat on the bench outside of the San Diego State locker room trying to sort it all out.

Since the latest NCAA statistics came out Sunday, Dennis Arey has spent the week feeling like a guy who just found out the prettiest girl in school has a crush on him.

He’s thrilled. He’s trying to figure out how it happened. He’s a little embarrassed by all of the attention.

“I looked in the mirror the other day and thought that people probably look at me and say, ‘Damn, that kid plays receiver? Him?’ ” Arey said.

He is averaging 115.20 receiving yards a game, which makes him the nation’s top pass receiver and the Aztecs’ leading joke receiver.

He sat there, attempting to downplay his current status, but that lasted as long as it took before a teammate walked by. Then he would receive some sarcastic comment, handle it almost as smoothly as he catches a Dan McGwire pass, then downplay some more. And another teammate would walk by.

And so on.

“No. 1,” offensive lineman Nick Subis said.

Arey smiled. He looked down.

“Guys like that,” Arey said. “He shows it is due to everyone. He’s giving Dan time to throw, Dan throws the ball, and Patrick (Rowe) and I are just catching it.”

This is Arey’s first defense. Deflect some of his accomplishment to his teammates.

Then someone else walked by.

“Remember my autograph,” freshman receiver Curtis Shearer said.

“See?” Arey said.

He flashed a smile, and you thought maybe he would be perfect playing the lead in a school play.

That kid plays receiver? Him?

Him. That’s A-R-E-Y. He’s a senior, 5-feet-11, 185 pounds, from Fountain Valley High School.

You look at his numbers. He is sixth in the nation and fourth in the Western Athletic Conference with an average of six receptions a game. Last week against Wyoming, he became only the third SDSU player to put together four consecutive games of 100 or more yards receiving. It was the best game of his career: eight catches, 171 yards, three touchdowns.

He leads the team with 31 receptions. Entering the 1990 season, he had only 33 in his career.

That explains why not everybody is giving Arey a hard time when they find out he is leading the nation’s receivers in yards per game.

“He is?” Coach Al Luginbill asked. “I don’t get wrapped up in statistics. . . . That’s neat for our football team and university that Dennis has that.”

Arey takes football seriously, works hard and runs his routes with pinpoint accuracy. That, and that he is quicker than he looks, makes him a threat.

“I think people underestimate Dennis’ speed,” Luginbill said. “He’s fast enough to play anywhere.

“He has a great awareness of the passing game. He knows where the ball is going to be thrown, and he’s learned to come back to the football. He’s got excellent feet and agility and a great work habit, too.”

Said McGwire, Arey’s roommate: “He’s a hard worker and a great learner. He always wants to learn how to run the right routes against different coverages. He’s always asking CJ (receivers coach Curtis Johnson) how, why. . . . He’s great. I can go out Saturday and have extreme confidence that I know where he’s going to be.”

As in SDSU’s 48-18 victory against Air Force two Saturdays ago. With no score in the first quarter, McGwire and Arey hooked up for a 71-yard touchdown pass. Arey was not the primary receiver; he was just running a clear-out route down the left sideline. But McGwire looked Arey’s way and saw that Arey had given the slip to his defender and was wide open. Touchdown.

“I think all of the hard work he’s done has paid off,” McGwire said.

For one thing, Arey is relaxed this season.

“I’ve been happy,” Arey said. “I think that’s the biggest thing. It’s my senior year.” While Arey has been at SDSU, since 1986, luck has sometimes been tougher on him than an opposing cornerback. He redshirted in 1986, then missed most of the 1987 season because of a stomach virus. He played in 1988, mostly in a back-up role, and he finally cracked the starting lineup in 1989--and missed three games with a hamstring pull.

Now, for the most part, life is first downs and touchdowns.

“Everything has turned around for me,” he said.

Everything, that is, except the team’s success. The Aztecs have struggled early, getting off to a 2-3 start. The offense is starting to fire on all cylinders, but the defense has been another story. Arey goes out, gets his 100 yards receiving a game, contributes quite a bit to an offense that is averaging 38 points a game . . . and then watches the defense give up 39.

The Wyoming game, the best of Arey’s career, was a 52-51 loss.

“I had a great game, but we lost,” Arey said simply. “And I contributed.”

He and Patrick Rowe miscommunicated on a kickoff, fumbled and turned the ball over to Wyoming in the fourth quarter. The Cowboys went 17 yards for the go-ahead touchdown and a 45-38 lead.

Now, the Aztecs and their leading receiver face a trip to the Rose Bowl to meet UCLA this week. Arey hasn’t said much about this week’s game. Memories of last year’s 28-25 UCLA victory still burn in his mind.

“I think that was my most depressing time,” said Arey, who caught five passes for 88 yards.

The Aztecs trailed, 28-25, with 1:23 left and had a fourth-and-10 on UCLA’s 47. McGwire threw an out pass to Arey for what would have been a first down . . . but Arey caught it out of bounds.

“I didn’t drag my feet,” he said.

And that was it. UCLA got the ball back and ran out the clock.

Now, he and SDSU will get another chance.

“Coach told us, if we win, it will heal a lot of wounds,” Arey said. “Especially this one for me, personally. I proved a lot to myself when we played against them last year.”

Until Saturday, there will be jokes. Someone will ask him something, and he won’t hear it, and next thing he knows, that person will be telling him, ‘Oh, you’re No. 1. You won’t talk to me.’ Or, in the middle of a conversation with someone, that person will suddenly say something like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m talking to the number one receiver.’ ”

Arey takes it in stride, but deep down, it bothers him a little. He’s a friendly kid, not a cocky superstar. He’s like your favorite old next-door neighbor who wanted nothing more on a Saturday than a game of catch. Now, all he wants is to be an important part of a winning team.

So he practices, and gets ready for UCLA, knowing he could fall a few notches on the NCAA chart after any game. He and fellow receiver Jimmy Raye continue to dig up sports trivia questions to stump Johnson, something they started a few days ago. It’s an ongoing rivalry between the coach and his receivers, and Johnson claims he’s ahead.

For Arey, it’s all part of keeping things in perspective. His ranking is like a good book--something to be put away, with care, until some cloudy winter’s day when he has time to pull it out and enjoy it. Right now, he would like a few more victories. He knows that eventually, he will be the answer to an SDSU trivia question.

He just doesn’t want that question to be: Who led the nation in yards receiving per game for just one week in 1990 on a losing team?

AREY IT OUT

Opponent Rec. Yds. TDs Oregon 4 51 0 CS Long Beach 4 117 1 Brigham Young 11 133 0 Air Force 4 104 2 Wyoming 8 171 3 Totals 31 576 6