THE ROSE BOWL : ARIZONA STATE 22, MICHIGAN 15 : In Schembechler’s View, Colletto’s Name Could Well Be Stiletto : ASU Assistant Had Cut Apart Bo’s Team Before

In the wake of Thursday’s Rose Bowl game, there will be many who say that Bo Schembechler was outcoached by John Cooper. There will also be a few, those with an eye for history, who say that Schembechler was outcoached by Jim Colletto.

Jim who?

Colletto is the offensive coordinator at Arizona State. He is the man that Cooper, ASU’s coach, has placed in charge of devising ways to move the football and score points.

Colletto is also becoming a thorn in the side of Schembechler.

Schembechler’s Michigan teams are not known for their defensive generosity. Any points scored off the Wolverines have to be earned.

So when Purdue scored 31 points against Michigan in 1984 and won, 31-29, it certainly was an occasion that got Schembechler’s attention, especially since only one other team ever scored more against a Schembechler-coached Michigan team.

Colletto was Purdue’s offensive coordinator in that 1984 game. He had a dazzling quarterback named Jim Everett, now with the Rams.

Colletto did it to Schembechler again in the Rose Bowl Thursday, guiding an offense that scored 22 points in a 22-15 victory and piled up 381 yards to Michigan’s 225.

“Jim Colletto called all the plays,” Cooper said, “so he deserves a lot of the credit.”

Colletto deserves credit in a number of ways. First, he learned from past games against Schembechler. And second, he put his learning to use to make his offense productive, unpredictable and exciting.

With the Wolverines leading in the third period, 15-13, the Sun Devils had the ball on the Michigan one on second down.

This is a situation ready-made for any armchair coach. The next move is obvious. Ram it in. One yard and a cloud of dust, not to mention six points. Playing it safe here is the right way. The only way. Straight handoffs. Wedge blocking. Cradle the ball and protect it.

So what was Colletto’s move? He called a pass.

His quarterback, Jeff Van Raaphorst, was told to send wide receiver Bruce Hill on a quick slant over the middle, and zip the pass to him for a touchdown.

That, football fans, is called risky business. One can only imagine what was going through Schembechler’s mind as he saw an opposing quarterback fade to pass in that situation. Or what Woody Hayes was thinking back in Ohio. Three plays to make it one yard, and Arizona State calls a pass play! Amazing.

And what was even more amazing was that it worked--but not the way it was supposed to--for a game-clinching 19-15 lead.

“The play was designed to go against a different kind of defense,” Colletto said. “So when Jeff saw that, he just improvised.”

But Van Raaphorst’s improvisation was based on knowledge, the knowledge Colletto acquired from previous games against Schembechler’s Michigan teams.”

“We knew Michigan pretty much stays in a zone in situations like that,” Colletto said. “They just always have played it like that.

“So we worked in practice on getting our quarterback and receivers to recognize that, and we told them to go to the back of the end zone and walk that back line till they’re open.”

Which is exactly what receiver Hill did, finding a seam behind Michigan’s zoned secondary and waiting for Van Raaphorst to find him, which he did.

“We were told,” Hill said, “that Michigan defensive backs tend to only go three yards back into the end zone. Other teams retreat about five yards deep, but Michigan thinks it can defend against that type of play by going three yards deep.”

Hill also caught the scoring pass that cut Michigan’s halftime lead to 15-13. Time was running out in the half and Van Raaphorst, after consulting with Cooper and Colletto during a timeout, was faced with a third and goal from the Michigan 4.

This time, a pass play was a much more conventional call, since Arizona State was out of timeouts and needed either success on the play or an incomplete pass to stop the clock and set up for a field-goal attempt.

Once again, Van Raaphorst got the ball to Hill. Once again, he did so at the back of the end zone, behind the shallow Michigan zone. And once again, the play didn’t work exactly as Colletto would have drawn it on the chalkboard.

“That one was really similar to the second one,” Colletto said. “Jeff had to improvise, because what we expected and what we got from Michigan’s defense weren’t the same.”

Hill actually made his catch after the ball was slowed up considerably going through the hands of Wolverine defensive back Doug Mallory.

“We both had a piece of the ball for a while,” Hill said. “Just call it good concentration.”

Not to mention good fortune.

As a matter of fact, there was good fortune all around for the Sun Devils when it came to this particular edition of the Rose Bowl, especially where it concerned Colletto.

He had done such a good job as the main assistant at Purdue from 1982-1984 that when the head coaching job opened up there at the end of this season, he was a top candidate. In fact, many published reports had him finishing second to Fred Akers, the former Texas coach who ended up with the job.

Had he become the Boilermakers’ coach, Colletto might have been long gone, tending to duties in West Lafayette, Ind., by the time Bo and his boys came to Pasadena for one of their frequent disappointments. Schembechler’s loss Thursday was his seventh in eight Rose Bowls.

Perhaps good things are meant to happen to Colletto in Southern California and the Rose Bowl. In addition to coaching at UCLA twice as an assistant and heading Cal State Fullerton’s football program from 1975-1979, Colletto was a captain on the 1966 UCLA Rose Bowl team that beat Michigan State, 14-12.

“This makes me 2-0 in the Rose Bowl,” he said. “Next, I’m going after Terry Donahue’s record.”” Donahue has won three.

There is a final irony in the Colletto/Schembechler/Arizona State connection.

Colletto’s 1984 Purdue team scored the second-most points ever against a Schembechler Michigan team. The team that scored the most, the 1969 Missouri team that got 40, was coached by Dan Devine. Devine currently is head of the Sun Angel Foundation, an influential fund-raising group for Arizona State.