COLLEGE FOOTBALL : Aikman Nearly Picture Perfect : He Passes for 328 Yards, Two Touchdowns in Win

For UCLA’s athletic department, there were some clouds in the silver lining here Saturday, when junior quarterback Troy Aikman did his Vinny Testaverde imitation and the Bruins beat Arizona State, 31-23.

Aikman’s 22-of-31 passing performance that accounted for 328 yards and 2 touchdowns, marking the fifth-best passing yardage day ever for a UCLA quarterback, probably meant the following for some of the people administering Bruin athletics:

--A few thousand more dollars in the budget for weekly postcards and mailing, updating the statistics of a Heisman Trophy candidate (such as were sent out this year to tout Gaston Green);

--Another fall of semi-permanent writers’ cramp for Sports Information Director Marc Dellins and his staff, who fill out the weekly cards sent to the media all over the country.

Such is the state of bad news these days in the UCLA football program. One Heisman candidate, Green, hurts his elbow early in the game and can’t play the rest of the way, so another emerges to carry on the Bruins’ march to the Rose Bowl.

With UCLA, you keep waiting for Coach Terry Donahue to motion to the end of his bench in a tight spot one of these Saturdays and have Gary Beban and Kermit Alexander trot in. Napoleon should have had this kind of depth.

At most schools, after a performance like Aikman’s, the guys in the press box would be writing that a star was born. These days, UCLA writers would tend to put the word another before the phrase.

Just imagine what next year’s postcard can include.

You start with the picture: Troy Aikman, 6 feet 3 1/2 inches, blond and blue eyes. He may attract more groupies than Heisman votes.

Then you go to the stats: Going into Saturday, he led the nation in passing efficiency with a 175.1 rating (the formula includes things such as percentage of completions and lack of interceptions, but does not factor in blue eyes and blond hair). After Saturday, he had completed 106 of 168 for 1,657 yards and 13 touchdowns. And, in all that time, he has thrown only two interceptions, neither of which were his fault.

Aikman’s performance against the Sun Devils made the Bruins’ record 7-1 overall and 5-0 in the Pac-10. He came to UCLA from Oklahoma, where he was the starter and star for the Sooners in 1985, leading them to a 3-0 record and well on their way to 4-0, when he broke his leg.

Along came a kid from Los Angeles named Jamelle Holieway, whose quarterback style is the exact opposite of the pro-set, passing approach that Aikman excels at. Aikman thinks an option is something you play with in the stock market, but Holieway, thrown into the fray by Aikman’s injury, ran that type of offense so well that the Sooners started passing every quarter or so.

Aikman’s leg healed, but he was suddenly a man without a team. So Barry Switzer, Oklahoma’s coach, phoned UCLA Coach Terry Donahue and, well, the rest may become quite a story when next year’s Heisman voting is neck-and-neck between Aikman and Holieway.

When asked what he thought when UCLA, down at halftime, 9-0, and struggling badly in he first-half rain, came out for the second half and was greeted by sunshine, Aikman said, “I was just glad something was finally shining on us.”

To the Heisman questions, he responded: “I don’t even think about those things. That’s so beyond reality for me right now that it’s silly. They’re talking about the right guy here for the Heisman and it’s unfortunate he didn’t have a couple of better games along the way. If they want to do that postcard stuff for me next year, I guess I’d be flattered.”

In truth, Aikman didn’t have to say much Saturday after his performance. Everybody else did, making the postgame mostly a testimonial. A couple more touchdown passes and the Friars would have shown up to roast him.

Some samples of the oral idolatry:

Donahue, when informed that Aikman had thrown nine incompletions, feigned anger and said, “I guess I’ll just have to have a long talk with him about that on the plane on the way back.”

Steve Axman, offensive co-ordinator (translation: the new Homer Smith), said, “Troy is just an unbelievable talent.”

Rick Neuheisel, former UCLA quarterback, part-time UCLA assistant coach who worked all last season with Aikman during Aikman’s redshirt year, and occasional NFL quarterback when the San Diego Chargers are on strike, said, “This kind of success for him doesn’t surprise me a bit. He’s just a gifted, gifted player.”

Willie (Flipper) Anderson, who caught 7 of Aikman’s passes for 130 yards, said, “He was like a basketball player out there today, the kind of guy who gets hot and you want to just keep giving him the ball.”

Mike Farr, who also caught 7 of Aikman’s passes for 69 yards, and had one perfectly thrown pass bounce off his chest into the hands of an ASU player, marking only the second time all season that Aikman has had a pass intercepted, said, “He’s a leader out there. You know it in just the way he carries himself--confident but not cocky. . . . When that interception happened, he came right to me on the sidelines and said, ‘No big deal. Just keep your head up.’ ”

But perhaps the most glowing testimonial to Aikman came from Eric Allen, an ASU senior defensive back, who entered the game leading the Pac-10 in interceptions. Allen said, “Aikman was just a lot better than I thought he’d be. I didn’t think he was the kind of player who would come into a big game on the West Coast and just plain take over like he did.

“We tried a lot of things on him. We tried to disguise defenses, jump around a lot. But he didn’t rattle. I was surprised, really surprised.”