Despite Aches and Pains, Cal’s Taylor Not Ready to Toss It Away

A day that dawned bright and sunny turned dark and ugly over Memorial Stadium, mirroring the nasty fate that has befallen California quarterback Troy Taylor.

This was supposed to be the year that Taylor emerged from the shadows of Troy Aikman and Rodney Peete and established himself as the best quarterback in the Pacific 10 Conference, if not all of college football.

But as he watched his teammates work out Tuesday in preparation for Cal’s game against UCLA Saturday at the Rose Bowl, Taylor hadn’t practiced in two weeks.

The flu put him down in the days before the Golden Bears’ game at Miami Sept. 16, then the second-ranked Hurricanes put him down with several thunderous hits. The pain subsided enough for Taylor to play last Saturday against Wisconsin, but then he sprained an ankle against the Badgers.

Since throwing for 305 yards and two touchdowns in Cal’s season-opening 35-19 loss to Oregon, Taylor has completed only 15 of 35 passes for 170 yards and one touchdown.

His right ankle is swollen and discolored. His ribs, bruised in the Miami game, still ache. And two of the Bears’ next three games are against UCLA and USC, which combined last season to sack Taylor 17 times.

Cal is 1-2, its only victory over Wisconsin, and another conference loss will take the Bears out of the race for the Rose Bowl, which they haven’t reached since 1958.

The upbeat Taylor, however, sees only brighter days ahead.

“It could have started off better,” he said of his senior season, “but I haven’t let it become frustrating. I don’t let things frustrate me.”

That may help explain why Taylor, who plans to play against UCLA despite his problems, has prospered at Cal while playing for teams that are a combined 11-22-3.

Last season, the Bears finished last in the Pac-10 while allowing their quarterback to be sacked 42 times, but Taylor nevertheless completed 61.2% of his passes for 2,416 yards and 16 touchdowns.

National Football League scouts took notice, calling the 6-foot-4, 185-pound Taylor the No. 1 quarterback in the 1990 draft.

It’s not a great season for quarterbacks, said draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr., but “Troy Taylor’s the best. He’s a tall kid, sees the whole field. He’s got a real good release, (a) powerful arm.

“He’s done a good job without a supporting cast. If he can fill out a little bit and get a little stronger, he’ll be a first-round pick.”

Dave Thomas of NFL Draft Report, which lists Taylor as its All-American quarterback, told the San Francisco Chronicle: “If Troy Taylor were at USC, you could mail in the Heisman.”

Although he grew up outside Sacramento, Taylor long dreamed of playing for the Trojans. His father, Robert, who played at now-defunct Excelsior High School in Norwalk, was a longtime USC fan, as evidenced by the name he gave the youngest of his two sons.

Said Taylor: “He used to imagine what it would sound like over the (public-address system): ‘Starting at quarterback for the University of Southern California, Troy Taylor.’ And he thought that sounded pretty good.”

Taylor used to follow the Trojans so closely that whenever they weren’t playing on television, he would phone a sports-scores service to check on their progress.

But at Bella Vista High in Fair Oaks, Taylor didn’t figure to get much notice from college scouts. While Taylor played there, Bella Vista used a run-oriented, two-tight end offense, never allowing Taylor to pass more than seven times a game.

His father suggested he transfer, and moved the family to Rancho Cordova so that his son could play his senior year at Cordova High, a Northern California powerhouse.

Taylor beat out the incumbent starter and flourished at Cordova, passing for 2,312 yards and 22 touchdowns, running for 1,327 yards and 16 touchdowns and leading the Lancers to a 14-0 record and the section championship.

Among the schools that recruited him was USC, but Taylor decided after his campus visit that he would go elsewhere. The fact that he was Coach Ted Tollner’s No. 2 choice--behind Pat O’Hara--probably had a lot to do with his decision, he said.

“It’s not that I didn’t like it, but I didn’t feel like I’d fit in,” Taylor said. “I just didn’t really want to be there.

“You look at USC from a different angle when you’re actually being recruited than you did when you were a kid. As soon as they started recruiting me, I thought, ‘Would I want to go to SC? Do I want to run that offense? Do I want to play-action pass?’

“Look at Rodney Peete. He didn’t get drafted until the sixth round and he did everything right. He was incredible. But I think people took into consideration that that’s not a real pass-oriented offense. For Rodney Peete to get drafted in the sixth round--that’s just amazing, after what he did.”

Robert Taylor groomed his youngest son to be a passer, developing Troy’s quick release.

“He throws the ball as well as anyone I’ve ever seen,” Taylor said of his 52-yard-old father. “He’s got a great motion. And all the time when I was growing up, I remember him telling me, ‘Don’t bring your arm back. Just throw from your ear.’ That’s how (Dan) Marino’s dad taught him to throw.”

The carpenter’s son wound up at Cal after rejecting a strong overture from Arizona, whose coach was Larry Smith, now at USC.

Taylor expected to red-shirt as a freshman, but former Cal Coach Joe Kapp, hoping to light a fire under a 2-9 team, hinted midway through the season that Taylor might be pressed into service. Taylor, not wanting to waste a year of eligibility, met with Kapp and told him that unless he was going to start, he’d rather not play.

Taylor didn’t see much of a chance of that happening because, in the first month of the season, he practiced only sparingly.

Much to his surprise, Kapp called a meeting the next day and announced that Taylor would be the Bears’ starter that week .

“One guy was laughing,” Taylor said of a teammate.

But after only one full day of practicing with the first team, Taylor completed his first six passes and nine of his first 11 in his debut, a 14-12 loss to Oregon State.

He has been the Bears’ starting quarterback since, although he missed one game at the end of his freshman season because of a broken jaw and two games at the end of his sophomore season because of a broken finger.

He is quick and light on his feet and has a strong, accurate arm, but what his coaches talk about most is his ability to read defenses and make snap decisions.

“It’s what’s inside the helmet that makes him really special,” said Cal Coach Bruce Snyder, a former USC and Ram assistant. “He learns faster than most people I’ve been around.”

At Cal, Taylor has learned to take the good with the bad.

In a questionnaire he filled out for Cal’s sports information office a few years ago, he listed his future goals and ambitions.

“WIN THE ROSE BOWL,” he wrote, adding in smaller letters off to the side, “Buy White Lamborghini Countach.”

Unless he gets back together in a hurry, Taylor is closer to the latter than Cal is to the former.