Colorado and BYU Put Best Feet Forward : Nation’s Top Punters Face Off in Anaheim in the Freedom Bowl

To the north is the Rose Bowl and Rodney Peete. To the south, the Holiday Bowl and Barry Sanders. And to the east, the Fiesta Bowl and a national championship showdown.

Stuck in the middle, in the land of Angels and Rams and a college football tradition that dates all the way back to 1984, is the Freedom Bowl, which will kick off for the fifth time tonight at 5 at Anaheim Stadium.

And what does the Freedom Bowl have to offer, besides easy access to three major freeways?

Well, punters.

Colorado can run the football and Brigham Young knows how to throw it, but these teams do nothing better with the football than when they have to give it up on fourth down. Colorado has Keith English (the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.’s leading punter with a 45-yard average), BYU has Pat Thompson (runner-up at 44.8) and the Freedom Bowl, at last, has a matchup between No. 1 and 2.

WHAT A KICK! boasts the bold type in the Freedom Bowl’s publicity releases. “We’ve got the two best in the country,” exclaims Tom Starr, the game’s executive director, who booked this billing in November.

Kind of makes you tingly all over.

Actually, the punters are quite pumped up about tonight’s boom-off. As Thompson notes, it isn’t often when hang times and coffin corners are the featured items in a nationally televised (Mizlou Sports Network) bowl game.

“I think it’s going to be great,” Thompson said. “Usually, it’s quarterbacks or running backs in the limelight. Instead, we’ve got kickers. No. 1 and No. 2. It’ll be interesting to see how we do.”

English nods in agreement.

“I don’t think anybody knows Pat Thompson’s stats better than me,” he said. “I live with my brother and he gets all the newspapers. Every week, I’d check the rankings, look at the AP printouts, see how Pat was doing. Then, I’d bring out the calculator and figure out our net averages.”

Whoever said kickers aren’t intense?

Coaches, too, apparently get excited about these things. At Tuesday’s Freedom Bowl media luncheon, BYU’s LaVell Edwards took great umbrage at the suggestion that the punting averages of Thompson and English were artificially inflated because of the high altitudes of Provo, Utah, and Boulder, Colo.

“You read, ‘Well, they’re up there in the Rockies, punting in that thin air,’ ” Edwards said. “Well, Pat also punted in Hawaii, in Miami. He punted at sea level, lots of times.

“Pat’s been our starting punter for 3 years and he’s been one of the most consistently good punters in the nation. . . . He and Keith English really had a great race this year.”

And now they have come to Anaheim, paired off like gunslingers, to hang ‘em high, to settle matters once and for all.

Toe to toe.

Eric Bieniemy, Colorado’s All-Big Eight tailback, listened to such talk and couldn’t suppress a smile.

“The thing about it is,” Bieniemy said, “there may only be three or four punts all game.”

Good point. So what’s a Freedom Bowl crowd to do while waiting for fourth down?

Bieniemy might be a good place to start. As a 5-foot 6-inch, 190-pound pinball who rolls over linebackers, he can be quite a sight. Bieniemy, a sophomore from West Covina’s Bishop Amat High, rushed for 1,243 yards in 1988, the third-highest total in Colorado football history. And he did it, mostly, by running inside, in fullback territory, bouncing off some bodies and leaving others flailing.

“You’ll enjoy watching him,” Colorado Coach Bill McCartney said. “He comes out the back door.”

To spring Bieniemy on his mad scrambles, McCartney has devised an offense best described as a hybrid between the wishbone and an I-formation. Calling it his “I-bone,” McCartney aligns a fullback and tailback directly behind the quarterback--and then places a blocking back either to the right or left of the tailback.

“It’s one of the more innovative offenses I’ve seen,” Edwards said. “They run the option and have all the benefits of the wishbone--and, they can still take advantage of the tailback (position). It’s a great scheme.”

Colorado used it to finish third in the Big Eight Conference behind Nebraska and Oklahoma at 8-3. It marked the Buffaloes’ best record since 1976, when Colorado also went 8-3.

BYU (8-4) proceeded through its season like a point guard dribbling downcourt. Up and down. The Cougars lost their opener to Wyoming, then won their next 7 games, then lost 3 of their last 4, including routs of 57-28 by Utah and 41-17 by Miami.

“The last part of our season has been well-documented, and it’s not the end I wanted to see,” Edwards said. “We have to get things turned around in this game.”

Part of BYU’s problem, in an upset, has been at the school’s legendary quarterback position. The program that gave the National Football League Gifford Nielsen, Marc Wilson, Jim McMahon, Steve Young and Robbie Bosco gave Edwards a mini-controversy in 1988.

Junior Sean Covey started 11 games and wound up passing for 2,607 yards and 13 touchdowns. Not bad, but not up to the Cougars’ traditional standards. It wasn’t even up to arch-rival Utah’s standards, which has eclipsed BYU as pass master of the Western Athletic Conference with sophomore Scott Mitchell, who threw for 4,322 yards and 29 touchdowns in 1988.

More than that, Covey let BYU down in the November stretch. He couldn’t produce a victory against hapless San Diego State, was intercepted 3 times against Utah and passed for only 59 yards against Miami. In both the Utah and Miami games, he was replaced by a freshman, Ty Detmer.

Detmer started the New Mexico game in late October--Covey had a knee injury--and engineered a 65-0 victory, completing 24 of 35 passes for 333 yards and 5 touchdowns. As a reliever in BYU’s last 2 games, he threw for 238 yards and 2 touchdowns against Utah and 212 yards and 2 touchdowns against Miami.

Detmer is regarded as the quarterback of the future at BYU, a potential throwback to the great names of the past.

But will he be the quarterback for tonight?

Edwards isn’t saying, but he is leaning toward Covey to start because of his experience.

One more point about these teams: Both have previously appeared in--and lost--Freedom Bowls, which sets up one tonight for a unique distinction: two-time Freedom Bowl loser.

Colorado played in the 1985 game, a 20-17 loss to Washington that remains the best-played Freedom Bowl to date. The Buffaloes had a chance to win late in the fourth quarter, only to have halfback Mike Marquez fumble at the Washington 5-yard line.

BYU played in Freedom Bowl III, the game that made Gaston Green famous. Green rushed for a bowl-record 266 yards that night as UCLA routed the Cougars, 31-10.

Deciding to mix cliches-- If you can’t beat ‘em, try, try again --Colorado and BYU have decided to mix it up again in Freedom V. One of them might get it right this time. As Starr cheerily points out, “There’s gotta be a winner.”

Unless they tie.

And if that’s the case, you know what that means.

Punts. Lots of them.

And isn’t that why we came here in the first place?

Freedom Bowl Notes

The punt has a proud heritage at the Freedom Bowl. John Teltschick of Texas, now punting for the Philadelphia Eagles, kicked in the inaugural Freedom Bowl and Barry Helton, the rookie punter for the San Francisco 49ers, was the Colorado MVP in Freedom Bowl II. In that game, Helton averaged 39 yards a kick, had one punt of 54 yards and threw a 31-yard touchdown pass out of a punt formation. . . . Injuries: Colorado will be without defensive end Kanavis McGhee, a first-team All-Big Eight selection and the Buffaloes’ most valuable defensive player. McGhee broke his right ankle in the Nebraska game. BYU’s disabled list includes All-WAC defensive back Rodney Rice (broken left arm), defensive lineman Tim Knight (ankle) and running back Michael Brooks (knee).