Rose Bowl Notes : Coauette Shakes the Flu, Leads USC in Tackles

Greg Coauette, USC’s senior cornerback, led his team in tackles with 10. Which is no big deal for a player the caliber of Coauette, except that he was surprised he even played in the game.

“I didn’t sleep a bit last night,” Coauette said afterward. “I didn’t really think I’d be able to play.”

Coauette had been ill with the flu all week and hadn’t eaten at all Tuesday or Wednesday.

“But I felt a little better Thursday, so I decided to eat a meal,” he said. “I figured I needed to do that to get my strength up.”

Instead, the meal didn’t sit well with him, turning his New Year’s Eve into a sleepless one and making his appearance against Michigan State much less likely than even many of his teammates knew.

“I don’t know if it was food poisoning or just more of the flu,” Coauette said, “but it sure left me dizzy out there a lot on the field. The trainers kept telling me to keep a lot of fluids in me, and I got through it all right. Once you get out there on the field, you tend to forget about everything else.”

Michigan State fans, proudly decked out in green school colors and seated in a block from the north end zone toward the center of the field on the west side of the Rose Bowl, tried to get a wave started at one point of the game. But when it got out of the MSU cheering section, it fizzled.

MSU fans, apparently sensing that USC fans thought this kind of stuff had become blase, booed loudly.

Speaking of MSU fans, Todd Krumm, Spartan defensive back, said: “We came out on the field before the game, saw all that green in the stands and our guys on the sidelines started saying, ‘Hey, we’re at home.”

George Perles, MSU coach, gave a pretty good idea of his approach to the game when he said afterward: “We don’t do right flinging the ball around. We get the ones we should get, the big ones.”

Big ones, indeed. MSU completed 4 of 7 passes for 128 yards, and they went like this: Andre Rison caught passes of 55 yards and 36 yards; Willie Bouyer caught one for 29 and Mike Sargent got one for 8.

USC’s defense dominated MSU in the middle of the game. From midway through the second period, until the closing seconds of the third period, the Spartans managed just one first down--and that one on a penalty.

When USC lined up on the play that turned out to be its fake field goal and run by back-up quarterback Kevin McLean, the placekicker was Erik Affholter, not Quin Rodriguez, who is normally in there from that range.

Affholter kicked a record 64-yarder in high school and got the attention of USC scouts that way, rather than for his pass catching. And he became USC’s long-range field goal kicker.

On this play, however, he was in a potential new role: ballcarrier.

“McLean was either going to run it himself, or pitch it back to me,” Affholter said.

Asked to rank Michigan State with the teams in the Pacific 10 Conference, USC Coach Larry Smith said: “They rank right up there with UCLA. They are a different team, though. I think the teams in the Pac-10 throw the ball more. But nobody in the Pac-10 has a defense like them. They run the ball very well and they are very, very sound. They don’t have the speed of UCLA.

Perles said: “Besides our team, the real winner in this game was the network. This was a great game right down to the end.” The packed-in crowd waited out the final seconds. How often does an L.A. crowd stay put until the final seconds? As the game ended, the bowl sparkled with the flashes of cameras--presumably Michigan State fans recording the moment.

Spartan middle linebacker Percy Snow was named player of the game. He is one of just three defensive players to receive the award since 1968. The last defensive player to be named was Jack Del Rio of USC.

As for the distractions involved when a team from the Midwest comes here to play and has to go through the ritual of sightseeing, Perles said: “Kids come to college to grow up. Part of growing up is meeting Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse and visiting Universal Studios.”

Perles on USC’s Smith: “Larry is a gentleman-and-a-half. He’s a top-shelf guy.”

Spartan strong safety John Miller tied nine other players who share the Rose Bowl record for interceptions when he picked off two passes. USC quarterback Rodney Peete also tied a Rose Bowl record for throwing interceptions, becoming one of eight to have thrown three. Peete’s 303 yards ranks is second in total yardage in one Rose Bowl game.

Michigan State came into the game ranked No. 2 in the nation behind Oklahoma in total defense, allowing opponents an average of 225.6 yards per game, and were No. 1 in rushing defense, allowing only 61.5. Although it lost, USC gained a total of 410 yards, 161 of them rushing.

Times sports editor Bill Dwyre and staff writers Jim Murray, Scott Ostler, Mal Florence and Shav Glick contributed to this story.