For Openers, It’s UCLA-Oklahoma : Bruins Will Have ‘Bone to Pick With Nation’s No. 1 Team

The best college football team in the nation will play the best football team from the West Coast today. The game will not only open the season for both Oklahoma and UCLA, but for both incumbent and challenger in the race for No. 1.

Will the Sooners finish No. 1 again? If it means anything, Oklahoma is starting as the heavy favorite. The Sooners have 10 of 11 starters back on an offense that shredded defenses for a remarkable 3,694 yards rushing last year. Many experts figure that with the wishbone offense, a repeat national title is on its way, Sooner or later.

Although it is hardly a multiple offense, the wishbone is capable of causing compound fractures of the defense. So it is the job of UCLA, ranked anywhere from No. 2 to No. 7 in various polls, to stop the wishbone. For this task, they have hope. They hope the Sooners fumble.

“The wishbone doesn’t allow you to hide,” UCLA Coach Terry Donahue said. “Some offenses don’t expose you, but the wishbone does. It exposes you physically.”

The Bruins had better be able to run in all directions. Forward, backward and especially from side to side. Shortly after the kickoff at 12:30 p.m. PDT, it should be fairly clear if the UCLA defense is having any luck.

“They are going to have 12- to 15- to 17-play drives during the game,” UCLA strong safety Craig Rutledge said. “But if we keep working, they’ll turn the ball over because their offense is mistake-prone. Hopefully, they’ll make enough mistakes.

“If you can make them drive 80 yards every time, you’ll see at some point that they’ll make a mistake. We’re real cognizant of how their runners carry the ball. They carry it out a lot. (Jamelle) Holieway holds it out in front of him because he has to pitch it. If we concentrate on tackling, we believe the fumbles will come our way. That’s not our only shot. They don’t have to fumble five times for us to win. But it would sure help.”

Holieway, the leader of the wishbone, is a smallish sophomore quarterback from Carson, who has a pretty tough act to follow. He should be able to recognize it, though, because it is his own. As a freshman, Holieway was the key player in the Sooners’ drive to No. 1.

“That in itself is unheard of,” Donahue said.

Holieway makes himself heard in the wishbone. He can run it himself or he can hand the ball off to any of the three running backs fanned out behind him--fullback Lydell Carr, left halfback Spencer Tillman or right halfback Patrick Collins.

None of the options are particularly appealing for a defense. Sometimes, even when you think you’re doing the right thing, you really aren’t.

Penn State discovered that last January in the Orange Bowl. The Nittany Lions were only three-fourths right. They held Holieway to 1 yard, Tillman to 43 and Perry to 24, but they didn’t stop Carr on the dive, the Wishbone’s running play up the middle. Carr rushed 19 times for 148 yards and led the Sooners to a 25-10 victory.

In the wishbone, that fullback dive is the first option of the quarterback, depending on what the linebacker does. If Holieway doesn’t hand the ball off on the dive, he rolls out to one side or the other and again watches the defense react. Holieway can then pitch the ball to his halfback or keep it himself.

Ken Norton Jr., one of the Bruins’ inside linebackers, said that Holieway is vital to the success of the attack.

“He gets down the line really quick and reads the defense so well,” Norton said. “He’s the most important part of the formation because everything the wishbone does comes off him. It’s awesome. But it’s awesome because it’s Oklahoma’s wishbone. Other teams with the same offense aren’t as awesome.”

What makes it awesome? The people who are blocking for the wishbone aren’t salad dressing. They do their work in a big way. From tackle to tackle, the Sooner blockers weigh 275 pounds, 280, 265, 280 and 295. These players are tailor-made for the wishbone, although the tailor probably had to let their uniforms out a little.

If anything, the wishbone is simply this, Donahue said: “It is an offense geared to big people who move forward.”

To combat the wishbone, the Bruins are installing what is called an assignment defense. Each defensive player has his own offensive player with whom to contend. They will accept no substitutes.

Said Donahue: “Somebody better take the fullback, somebody better take the quarterback and somebody better take the pitch man. If the fullback is running untackled, you’ll know that somebody was assigned to him and blew that assignment.”

Rutledge, for instance, will be lined up on the same side as the split end and his assignment is to contain the pitch. He must turn the runner back to the middle of the field toward the defensive pursuit.

“The key down is first down,” Rutledge said. “They have to get four yards at least or else they’re in a little bit of a sweat. They’re used to four yards and a cloud of dust.”

For the last three weeks, Norton has spent an hour or two each day looking at videotapes of the wishbone. He thinks he has learned something important.

“We have to be disciplined and stay with our assignments,” he said. “You also have to go get the wishbone. If you wait for it to come to you, it’s already too late. If we’re running around, flying to the ball, gang-tackling, then I know we’ll be all right. But everybody has to do it.”

Since this is the first game of the season, the Bruins have had more time to prepare for the Sooners than they would have ordinarily. That may work to UCLA’s advantage, the Bruins believe.

Another factor that could help the Bruins: The wishbone depends so much on timing that maybe Oklahoma hasn’t put everything together yet. That’s the theory, anyway.

“When you play a wishbone team, you pin a lot of hopes trying to survive on turnovers,” Donahue said. “In order for us to stop it, we’re going to have to get some bad pitches, fumbles and interceptions.”

Of course, none of that will matter unless UCLA’s offense does its part. It will be led by Matt Stevens, a fifth-year senior quarterback who has the job of keeping the UCLA defense off the field long enough so it isn’t being run ragged by the wishbone. And scoring some points while he’s at it.

Already, Stevens is going to be operating a little short-handed. Senior tight end Derek Tennell is gone for at least this game, a scholastic casualty. That’s one less guy Stevens can throw to. If tailback Eric Ball can’t play because of a sore knee, that’s one less guy Stevens can hand off to.

Tailback Gaston Green and fullback Mel Farr Jr. are healthy, though, and they are capable of sustaining a drive, Donahue hopes.

Still, he also hopes the Sooners have butterfingers.

“We’re playing the No. 1 team in the country,” he said. “If the wishbone is being run exactly right, they won’t turn the ball over. If it’s not being run exactly right, then they have a tendency to lay the ball on the ground. And if they do that, we’ve got to hope we can capitalize on some turnovers. Hope springs eternal.”

Bruin Notes Quarterback Matt Stevens isn’t as sold on Sooner linebacker Brian Bosworth as a lot of other people apparently are. “There are two guys in our conference who are just as good--Byron Evans (of Arizona) and Hardy Nickerson (of California),” Stevens said. “(Bosworth) is just getting so much publicity and talks so much, it sounds like he’ll have about 35 tackles, 4 sacks and 9 assists against us. We’ll just have to see.” And this on Bosworth from UCLA linebacker Ken Norton Jr.: “He’s kinda’ weird. A lot of people say he’s a great player. I hope he’s as good a player as everybody says he is or he might be pretty disappointed.”

Four Bruins, none of them starters, will miss the game because of injuries, the coaches say. They are fullback Marcus Greenwood, offensive guard Mark Schmidt, and inside linebackers Adam Hutchins and Craig Davis. The Sooners are saying that only one player is definitely out, senior defensive back Tony Rayburn. Nose guard Curtice Williams, who missed some practice time with a knee injury, is now healthy and will play, although he may not start.

The Sooners and Bruins have never played one another. A rematch is scheduled Sept. 8, 1990, at the Rose Bowl. . . . They have about the same records against one another’s conference. Oklahoma is 14-7-1 against the Pac-10, which includes a 2-3-1 mark against USC. Sooner Coach Barry Switzer, however, is only 4-3-1 against the Pac-10. The Bruins are 14-5-1 against Big Eight teams, and UCLA Coach Terry Donahue is 5-2.

A sellout crowd of 75,004 is expected for the game. . . . Donahue said the wishbone’s comeback in the last few years can be traced to a number of different sets that weren’t used in the formation before. “It was like a dinosaur,” he said. “It had died and dried up. It’s come back to life, but it’s a new wishbone.” The changes include a departure from the original set of three backs, a tight end and a split end. Now, the wishbone can also employ two split ends and two tight ends. The plays have changed, too, Donahue said, with a combination of sweeps and off-tackle plays, double-isolation plays and traps.