USFL Championship : Stars Shine in the Farewell to Spring

It was a fitting goodby to spring for the the United States Football League. Its final title under the heat of summer went to the Baltimore Stars, who have dominated the league on the field but have suffered off it.

The Stars, who have been in all three USFL championship games, won their second straight title Sunday night with a 28-24 win over the Oakland Invaders as Kelvin Bryant rushed for 103 yards and 3 touchdowns, including the game-winner with 8:15 left.

That gave them a three-year-record of 47-13-1, including a 5-6-1 start this year that forced them to struggle to make the playoffs.

Coach Jim Mora and some of those players attributed the problems to the move to Baltimore forced by the league’s switch to a fall format in 1986. The team, which represented Philadelphia last season, practiced there, then traveled to College Park, Md., nearly three hours away, for its games.

“I don’t know what this is going to do to Baltimore, I haven’t been there much,” Mora said after the game.

“I didn’t think the move would be as distracting as it was. We loosened up after we clinched a playoff spot and played our best football in our last few games and tonight we played our best game.”

But for one quarter, that is.

Baltimore led 21-14 at the half, but stumbled through a third quarter in which their offense gained just eight yards.

A 19-yard field goal by Oakland’s Novo Bojovic made it 21-17, then Baltimore finally surrendered the lead, 24-21, with 46 seconds left in the period. Bobby Hebert hit Anthony Carter with a seven-yard touchdown pass at the end of a 24-yard drive set up by Al Harvin’s fumble.

Then, after taking the lead, the Stars allowed Oakland to drive from their own four to the Baltimore five. But Sam Mills stopped John Williams on a third and two at the five, and Oakland made a key mistake on the play--fullback Tom Newton was called for unnecessary roughness on the play and the ball went back to the 20.

Then Hebert’s third-down pass went out of bounds, Jonathan Sutton broke up a fourth-down effort and that did it.

“We lost our concentration in the third quarter, but I knew we had enough time to get back in the game,” said Bryant, who was named the game’s most valuable player. “It’s just an amazing comeback that we made and I couldn’t be happier.”

Oakland Coach Charlie Sumner, whose team was helped in its first touchdown drive by a questionable roughing the passer call on Baltimore’s Mike Johnson, was upset about the call on Newton.

“It’s a sad thing that a game of this caliber and magnitude had to end on a call like that,” said Sumner, who noted that throughout the game officials had called double penalties during the numerous pushing and shoving incidents.

Sumner also said that the rain that fell throughout the first quarter hampered Oakland’s passing game. Hebert said: “A couple of balls didn’t leave my hand right.”

The win was a semblance of revenge for the Stars, who played in all three USFL spring championship games and lost only the first--24-22 to Michigan in the first USFL championship game played. Nine of the Michigan players now play for Oakland, which merged with the Panthers after last season.

The loss left the Invaders, who had the USFL’s best regular-season record at 13-4-1 with a final mark of 15-5-1.

The Stars and the Invaders, which each represent cities abandoned by NFL franchises, had played the only tie in USFL history, a 17-17 contest in the second week of the regular season. And this game was almost as close.

The attendance was announced at 49,263.