YES

Perhaps you've heard that Jim Harbaugh, the University of San Diego's confident and charismatic football coach, wants a piece of San Diego State.

Perhaps you've considered the prospect of the Toreros, a Division I-AA team with not a single scholarship player, facing the Aztecs -- with the standard Division I-A allotment of 85 scholarships -- and enjoyed a chuckle at Harbaugh's expense. Perhaps you think he has a screw loose for thinking his undersized, outmanned bunch could spring an upset.

Perhaps you should allow for another possibility: Harbaugh is right.

While San Diego State is scuffling along in coach Chuck Long's first season, USD is laying waste to every opponent in its path. The Toreros are 9-0, have won 17 games in a row and 25 of their past 26. Granted, this run has come against other nonscholarship programs with obscure names such as Azusa Pacific and Morehead State, but you can only play the teams on your schedule.

We already knew the Aztecs, with no winning seasons since 1998, were a I-A bottom-feeder. But they could at least claim superiority over middling I-AA teams. They could, that is, until last weekend, when they suffered a shocking and humbling home loss to Cal Poly.

To be sure, a sound argument can be made that a team like Cal Poly, which can hand out as many as 63 scholarships and is ranked sixth in the I-AA poll, occupies a different league than USD. Then again, USD isn't the typical nonscholarship school.

Start with Harbaugh. In 2004, he inherited a squad that had averaged five victories in the previous six seasons and has whipped it into a machine. There's a reason why Harbaugh interviewed for the job Long landed and why his name has arisen in connection with the Michigan State vacancy. Like Urban Meyer during his Utah days, he's a star on the rise.

At the all-important field-general position, Josh Johnson -- a junior QB whom Harbaugh, with a straight face, has compared favorably with Heisman Trophy favorite Troy Smith -- would give the Toreros a substantial advantage over San Diego State redshirt freshman Kevin Craft. As for the trenches, the physical mismatch you would assume isn't apparent on paper; USD's offensive and defensive lines average 280 and 258 pounds per man, respectively, not all that different from Mountain West Conference stalwart Air Force.

If those points don't sway you, maybe some cold, hard mathematics will. In the latest power ratings by Jeff Sagarin, whose computations factor into the Bowl Championship Series, the little Toreros rank 95th, ahead of Colorado (104), Northwestern (113) and, yep, the Aztecs (123). According to Sagarin's model, USD would be favored by about a touchdown over San Diego State on a neutral field.

Sounds about right.

Contact staff writer Brian Hiro at b_hiro@hotmail.com.