A LOOK AT TWO OF SUNDAY’S RAIDER, RAM OPPONENTS : BERNIE THE KID : Not Yet 23, Browns’ Passer Bernie Kosar Possesses the Hottest Arm in the NFL and a Brain to Match

Bernie Kosar is so young, and so intelligent, that he borders on the unbelievable.

The Cleveland Browns quarterback, in the second half of his second season in the National Football League, won’t be 23 until next week. He is 12 days younger than Vinny Testaverde, whom he beat out for the starting job at the University of Miami when they were freshmen.

Had Kosar stayed in school, he would be a senior at Miami this season, and Testaverde might be only the mop-up quarterback, or a disgruntled transfer playing somewhere else.

Kosar graduated from Miami in three years, a remarkable achievement for any college student but doubly so considering the time that football consumes. His degree is not in physical education but in finance and economics.

Maybe this is his secret: He doesn’t read about sports.

“I read a lot,” he said. “I read everything in the newspaper except sports.”

Kosar will take the hottest arm in football into the Coliseum Sunday to face the Raiders in a battle of teams that have each won six of their last seven games. Last Monday night against the Miami Dolphins, Kosar completed 32 of 50 passes for 401 yards--without a touchdown--as the Browns won, 26-16.

It was the first time that anyone in the NFL had thrown for 400 yards or more without reaching the end zone, but there should be an asterisk next to the record. At least three of Kosar’s passes were dropped in the end zone, and an apparent touchdown pass to Kevin Mack was nullified when the referee whistled the ball dead, saying Kosar was in a defender’s grasp.

Kosar knows better than to expect a day like that Sunday.

“I don’t expect we’ll be throwing 50 times against a team the caliber of the Raiders,” he said in a telephone interview. “We didn’t go into the Miami game expecting to throw 50 times, either, but the pass was working so successfully in the initial stages of the game that we kept it up.”

Kosar, who had been annoyed by the lack of passing in the Browns’ attack, had thrown 30 or more passes only four times this season. Against the Dolphins, he threw 33 in the first half .

Kosar also knows that the Raiders won’t be looking at the same team they defeated, 21-20, last season when he was making his first home start as a professional. In that game, before a sold-out crowd of 77,928, Kosar had the Browns ahead, 20-14, with seven minutes left but had to sit and watch as the Raiders used up all the remaining time in scoring the go-ahead touchdown.

“We were a one-dimensional team last year,” he said. “Teams knew we were going to run the ball, and they reacted accordingly. This year they’re looking at a different offense. We’re mixing it up a little better. The passing got all the notice against the Dolphins, but our runners had their best game, too.”

Complementing Kosar’s 401 passing yards were 168 on the ground, including 92 by 30-year-old Curtis Dickey, who returned to the lineup when Earnest Byner was injured against Green Bay. Byner is out for the season with torn ligaments in his ankle. The 558 yards in total offense were the second-most in Browns’ history.

Contrast that with the Browns’ previous against with Miami--a 24-21 playoff loss last January. That day the backs ran for 251 yards, but Kosar threw for only 62.

Cleveland had two 1,000-yard backs in Mack and Byner last season, but the Browns ranked 25th out of 28 teams in passing.

Coach Marty Schottenheimer’s reaction was to bring in an offensive specialist, Lindy Infante, to strengthen the passing side of the Browns’ package. Infante had been the architect of Cincinnati’s 1981 Super Bowl team that threw for 30 touchdowns and scored 421 points.

“It took the team a while to get the new offense down properly,” Kosar said. “But as we are progressing, we are becoming more flexible. We know better what we’re doing out there. We’re on the same page. We’re capable of using a 50-50 mix of running and passing, and that’s what you have to do to keep defenses off balance.”

Kosar, an even-tempered young man who has a knack for not getting involved in controversies, demurs when it is suggested that the Browns brought in Infante strictly to get a dividend on their $5-million investment in a strong-armed quarterback.

“A lot of people associate the new offense with utilizing my abilities,” Kosar said in a Browns’ publication. “I think it will best utilize everybody. There is a better balance between the run and pass, so the defense won’t be able to lock in on our keys and tendencies.

“That better balance makes me more comfortable in throwing the ball. The offense wasn’t comfortable for me last year. The passing design wasn’t what I was accustomed to. This year I like it because it is similar to the one we ran at Miami, it stretches the defense out horizontally and vertically.”

At Miami, after being selected over Testaverde by Coach Howard Schnellenberger and quarterback coach Earl Morrall when both passers were red-shirt freshmen, Kosar led the Hurricanes to the 1983 national championship with a dramatic 31-30 win over Nebraska about the time the Cornhuskers were being touted as one of college football’s best all-time teams. Kosar was named the Orange Bowl MVP after passing for a record 300 yards.

As a sophomore he passed for 447 yards against Boston College on national television, but it was all but forgotten when Doug Flutie threw his 65-yard desperation pass on the last play of the game to upset the Hurricanes. Kosar’s final college game was against UCLA in the Fiesta Bowl, where he hit on 33 of 44 passes for 294 yards and 2 touchdowns, only to see the Bruins win, 39-37.

Even though he knows that Howie Long, Sean Jones, Greg Townsend & Co. will be coming at him Sunday, Kosar maintains that he is looking forward to the confrontation with the Raiders.

“This will be the fourth time I’ve played them, twice in preseason and twice in league games,” he said. “I always enjoy going against the Raiders because they have an aggressive defense. They are really spirited and have a good attitude about the way they go about playing football.

“No matter who they’re playing, they go hard on every play. They’re always coming at you. I enjoy playing against a team like that.”

Kosar also revealed that when he was a quarterback at Boardman High School, about 60 miles from Cleveland, one of his idols was Raider quarterback Jim Plunkett, who will be starting against him Sunday.

“I grew up following Jim,” he said, then added: “I don’t know if Jim is going to take offense at that. I hope he doesn’t. I mean it as a compliment.”

There is something appropriate about that. Plunkett, who at 38 is the oldest quarterback in the NFL, and Kosar, the youngest, are alike. Both are slow-footed and both throw passes with less than artistic motions. And both, more importantly, have a great awareness of the field that enables them to react to situations only very few quarterbacks would notice.

“The one thing about Bernie that continues to amaze me is that he’s unflappable,” Schottenheimer said. “There’s a mental toughness about him that’s going to be a big thing in his development. He’ll never take you out of a ballgame.”

It’s the kind of a statement someone might have made about Bernie Kosar’s idol.