Head football coach Steve Mooshagian can breathe a sigh of relief. The first-year coach came to Sacramento State to reveal that infamous “light at the end of the tunnel.” He ended up throwing on the floodlights in their home opener as the Hornets romped Saint Mary’s 69-19.

Those lights shined the brightest on Hornets’ star receiver Fred Amey — Sac State’s version of Terrell Owens. Once Amey realized he was all alone on his 83-yard punt return in the second half for a touchdown, he celebrated his way into the end zone and continued to dance until he was kicked out of the game for two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. And through the grandiose scope of what is good for Hornet athletics — good for him and good for Sac State!

Not only did it give the Hornet faithful something to get excited about, but it allowed the Hornets to finally shove it in someone else’s face for once. After playing on All-Madden last week against Oregon State, we switched the difficulty level to rookie mode in week two and dominated SMC on all parts of the field.

We have the offensive stars in Amey, running back Tyronne Gross, and quarterback Ryan Leadingham. These players need to be marketed as individual stars and they won’t be until the Hornets’ sports marketing department makes an effort to recognize these standouts and turn them into celebrities around Sacramento.

If you do believe what you hear about this team — which is generally nothing — than you probably weren’t there watching on Saturday. Still, despite a lack of buzz about this team both on and off campus, they will make noise within the Big Sky Conference.

Mooshagian still needs time to let the program grow from under him, but this remains the most crucial time for the head coach and his program. They’ll need to win now to prove their doubters or else the program could lose even more ground and that’s a bad thing when you’re building from a shaky foundation.

Let’s get to some other things…

One Kings’ fan e-mailed in regarding my statement last week that the Kings were now the fifth best team in the West. “Yes, they did give away Clark, Pollard and Hedo, but Miller was a good pickup for the team,” Lyu, a Sac State student said. “Not being able to control Van Exel led to the Kings flopping in the playoffs.-Bibby had a sub-par season, but he looked pretty good in the Olympic qualifying games held recently in Puerto Rico.”

A Kings’ fan whom fails to see his team below another? Nah…Look at it objectively my little bandwagon buddy: you lost three of the players that gave the Kings a deep bench and quite possibly Jim Jackson too. You replaced them with Brad Miller, a guy who is nearly identical to Pollard. The team didn’t address any of their problems on defense and a guy like Van Exel or another team like the Mavericks will continue to beat a poor defensive team. Lastly, the fact that Bibby is performing well against teams like Puerto Rico, while playing on a dream team, isn’t very telling of his success next season.

I’m still reeling over the fact that both the 49ers and Raiders have selected antenna balls in the draft. From what I hear the Raiders antenna ball has already been arrested for fighting at a bar and the 49ers antenna ball is holding out on his contract.

Lawyer Milloy, who was inexplicably cut by the Patriots just recently, signed with the Bills and helped deliver a 31-0 blowout against his former team in week one. This is the equivalent of showing up at a party with supermodel Heidi Klum on your arm and seeing your ex-girlfriend. Then watching Klum destroy your ex-girlfriend in Madden 31-0…

Can the Raiders please win a game? I’m telling you, the last two times I’ve seen these guys play when it mattered they really blew it. But seriously, it’s really about how you end your season and not how you started it. Home field advantage is important though, especially when you’re players eat at 4 p.m., go to bed around 6 p.m. and wake up at 5 a.m. — staying in your own home and not traveling becomes much more accommodating then… get it, because they’re OLD!

The 49ers defense looked money against Kordell Stewart… in others news, Stewart and his Bears offense racked up 152 yards and one touchdown, with three interceptions and four sacks against the 2003 (insert your high school J.V. team here) squad in a preseason scrimmage last week.

Mark Kreidler wrote in a column for ESPN about Tennessee Titans’ safety Lance Schulters’ and Raiders’ wide receiver Jerry Porter’s jawing match before their game this past Sunday.

Schulters told a newspaper about his great dislike for Porter and Porter came back with, “I don’t like playing football against girls” and then challenged him to a fight in the streets on Saturday night saying, “I’ll beat the (expletive) out of the (expletive). Then I’ll beat him Sunday.”

So what happened? The Titans won the game and Porter had one catch for six yards. He sat most of the game because of pulled abdominal muscles. Really makes you wonder doesn’t it? He calls out Schulters for a fight in the street because he is such a tough S.O.B. and then sits out most of the game because he has a tummy ache. The Raiders of old were tough, mean guys and the “tough” Raiders of the year 2003 bring true comedy that can’t be topped.

Agree, disagree, or just want to discuss Britney and Madonna’s kiss on MTV?

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