No, no, really.

Quite literally.

There is no way possible for the Utes to lose to the Aztecs on Saturday night.

"Apparently," says coach Chuck Long, "we've never beaten a top 10 team before in Division I history."

Won't happen now. Can't happen.

And that's both a compliment to the quality of Utah's program and a plateload of disrespect to San Diego State's. The foregone conclusion has as much to do with the latter as the former, probably more.

One of the great mysteries of college football is why a large school, with decent facilities and doable academic standards, located in a beautiful city with desirable climes, surrounded by L.A., Mexico, the Pacific Ocean and decked with sunshine, with ribbons of beaches nearby and gorgeous coeds aplenty, can't put together a football program that doesn't embarrass anybody and everybody who would like to be connected to or associated with it.

We might as well be noodling the meaning of life here.

If Boise State can build a national football program, why can't San Diego State?

Answers are tough to come by.

The vast parameters of the mystery are drawn by how bad the Aztecs have been.

This season, they are 1-9, 0-6 in the Mountain West. On offense, they rank near the bottom - 117th out of 119 teams - in college football in rushing yards, and, on defense, they've been run all over. They are last in the league in rushing offense, total offense, and scoring offense. And they can't stop anybody.

Cal Poly beat them. Wyoming, a team that couldn't score a point against BYU, put 35 on them. New Mexico doubled that, going for 70, allowing just seven. After that annihilation, Long cancelled his team's next practice, attempting to put distance between that nadir and his players, recognizing that they were defeated in body and soul.

Since that time, SDSU has lost three more games.

The Aztecs have suffered injuries and been forced to play freshmen, some of whom were ticketed for a redshirt year.

"We have a lot of young guys just playing the game and getting the experience that we need," Long says. "Some of these guys we didn't want to play this year, but we had no choice."

That's the ready excuse/explanation for this season's fall. But, over Long's first two seasons as head coach, the Aztecs were 7-17. And the losing isn't unique to him and his time.

In this decade, San Diego State is 33-71, and, since 1969, back in the days of Don Coryell, the Aztecs have been to exactly three bowl games. Over that same span, the school has burned through seven head coaches, none of whom exited the place happily.

That kind of low accomplishment has stirred a brew of frustration, discontent, confusion, and, now, more than anything, apathy. Attendance at Qualcomm Stadium is low, students stay away, and alums are ashamed. At one point, there was a movement on campus, started by a professor, to dump the entire football endeavor.

When SDSU was first invited into the WAC before the 1978 season, there were projections of league dominance, a lot of people figuring the program, one of only three major college football outfits in Southern California, would out-recruit and eventually overwhelm the conference. The Aztecs went on to win the league title outright just once. They tied for first one other year. Since the formation of the Mountain West, San Diego State's best finish was a tie for third in 2002, when it compiled an overall record of 4-9.

A few years ago, the school hired Jeff Schemmel, the administrator largely credited for buoying up Kansas State football in the Big 12. He, in turn, hired Long, a first-time head coach, and the results are revealing more chapters of the same, sorry story.

Some say Long deserves more time. Some consider it an outrage that the coach pulls down in excess of $700,000 a year. Some believe the whole thing needs patience and consistency. Some say the program is cursed. Others are convinced that if administrators simply made better hiring decisions, brought in a top-flight coach who knows how to build a winner by organizing a proper effort and keeping sound recruits in the talent-rich Southern California area, San Diego State would win, would win big.

Tonight, though, it's too late for any of that.

The Aztecs, as usual, will lose, and lose big.