Look Who Is All Red-Faced This Time

The last time Washington State went to the Rose Bowl, Herbert Hoover was President, Hitler had not even gotten started, Mussolini was running Italy, the Great Depression was just starting, bread was a nickel, new Fords were $600, the movies were just beginning to talk, Max Schmeling was heavyweight champion of the world, and everybody listened to Eddie Cantor on the radio on Sunday night.

It wasn’t much of a game. Washington State--the Cougars had formerly been known as the Red Devils--showed up in red from helmets to shoes and someone pointed out that, by nightfall, they had faces to match. Alabama hoodwinked them badly, 24-0.

I don’t know about you, but I hate to see people, who just don’t understand the situation, riding out for an annual clobbering and thinking it’s just a lousy stinking coincidence. Quixotic impulses are all right for the stage and screen, but they just don’t work in real life.

So, I went out to the UCLA-Washington State game Saturday, determined to do something for the public good. I was just going to tell the Washington State administration to give it up. Stop being the palookas of the Pac-10. Go play Idaho State or somebody but stop tilting at windmills. Leave the big boys alone. It was getting like watching somebody pull the wings off butterflies.

I mean, these looked like a nice bunch of kids. You wanted to tell them to be careful, this wasn’t Pullman or the Palouse down here. Try to remember the Brooklyn Bridge is not for sale. Don’t buy a watch from anyone on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, don’t put any money down on a house in the mountains, don’t bid on any car that once belonged to Rudolph Valentino.

As a matter of fact, don’t drink the water. Or eat the oranges. You may remember, back in ‘31, Cougar Coach Babe Hollingberry blamed his defeat in the Rose Bowl on his players eating too many oranges.

Look! I wanted to tell those green kids. This UCLA team you’re playing is ranked No. 1 in the country. It has a quarterback who’s fixing to win the Heisman Trophy and it has a backfield that will be the Green Bay Packers’ in a year or two. I didn’t plan to look. I’d rather watch Titanic movies.

I thought to myself, don’t these guys ever learn? I mean, you looked up their past few trips down here: Last year, USC beat them, 42-7. In 1986, UCLA beat them, 54-16. UCLA beat them here one year, 62-3, and USC beat them, 51-21, in 1979.

So, I settled in Saturday. I hoped Washington State hadn’t eaten too many oranges. Or painted its shoes red. It wasn’t going to be a game, just a kind of complicated track meet for UCLA.

The game was as formful as I thought it would be. UCLA was ahead, 27-6, in no time at all. I had a moment of misgiving once. At the half, with a minute to play, UCLA had the lead and the ball on its 20 and the best passer in the universe--we’re told--in the backfield. Twice, they fell on the ball.

Now, I’m an old Jack Dempsey man, myself. Or a Nick the Greek. When you have your opponent on the ropes and dazed and bleeding, you don’t step back and wait for the bell. You go for it. You try to put him away. You don’t clinch and look up at the clock.

When you have a ribbon clerk in the game, and you have the cards, you don’t say, “I’ll pass.” You see him and raise. You run him out of the game. Bet the ace.

But, I suppose the unthinkable began to look possible in the third period when, with the score 27-13, UCLA had the ball on its 20-yard line and Eric Ball went roaring around end for 20 yards. And fumbled.

Within 5 plays, Washington State had scored. Its quarterback ran twice for 24 yards as UCLA, fearing his passing game, had scrambled backward desperately.

It was, as it happens, the old ballgame. In no time, Washington State had tied the game, 27-27. UCLA went briefly ahead, 30-27, but UCLA lost its poise. The Bruins began hitting players out of bounds and grabbing face masks.

Much was made of the fact that UCLA, to use a baseball term, died on third as the game ended. Troy Heisman could not find anybody open. But that’s academic. The score probably should have been 40-27, UCLA, by that time. UCLA over-relied on the pass not only then but all day, airing it out 44 times, 4 times in a row as the game ended.

None of this dampened the joy in the Washington State locker room later. If this team were a fighter, it would be named Rocky. Its games are like barroom fights, all offense. These guys can hit. They beat Illinois, 44-7; Minnesota, 41-9; Tennessee, 52-24, and California, 44-13. Even in games it loses, it scores 28 points.

It’s not a team to go toe to toe with. It’s a team you try to keep the ball away from.

Its quarterback is from the wheat-and-apples country. Neither USC nor UCLA had any interest in Timm Rosenbach as a high schooler, but this day he had gone into the game as No. 1 in the nation in passing efficiency and No. 3 in total offense. His 16-for-25 passing Saturday, with 2 touchdowns, one on an 81-yard play, did nothing to diminish his reputation.

When someone asked, “Do you think you should get some consideration for the Heisman now?” a lot of people thought his response would be “What’s a Heisman?” Instead, it was a cool “That’s up to the voters.”

Clearly, they’re getting delusions of the big time up in the Palouse. They may even want to make the Rose Bowl. Once every 57 years isn’t bad.

If they make it, we should get out a whole bunch of Essex and LaSalle cars, put an Irving Berlin on the gramophone and rerun some Garbo movies.

We already got Shirley Temple as the parade marshal. Perfect! She was probably just learning to sing “The Good Ship Lollipop” the last time Washington State went to the New Year’s Day game.