College Football : Pressure Is on Notre Dame’s Holtz To Keep Up the Good Word

As Notre Dame continues to win, the pressure on Coach Lou Holtz increases proportionately.

The pressure, though, is not top-ranked Notre Dame’s 15-game winning streak, the longest in Division 1-A. Rather, it’s whether Holtz can continue to outrageously build up out-manned opponents while downgrading his own team.

Purdue is next for the Fighting Irish and, if you believe Holtz, the Boilermakers are a team to be reckoned with. Never mind that Notre Dame beat Purdue last year, 52-7, and that the Boilermakers have beaten only Miami of Ohio this season before losing to Washington, 38-9.

“The only weakness I see in Purdue is they have not been able to run the ball on a consistent basis,” Holtz said. “Their passing game is awfully good and their defense is very solid.”

Nonetheless, Holtz has a liberal substitution plan for Saturday’s game in West Lafayette, Ind.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that we have to play more people, even if it costs us dearly,” he said, referring to a list of freshmen he intends to start using.

“We have no other option or we’re going to be a basket case by the end of the year. The thing we did last year is, we got better. The reason we got better is, we were able to play a lot of different people.”

Translation: Holtz can beat Purdue with his reserves.

Next week, Notre Dame plays Stanford and the pressure on Holtz to make a case for the Cardinal will be challenging even for him.

A more realistic appraisal for an opponent is Pittsburgh’s respect for West Virginia, mainly quarterback Major Harris.

“How can you figure out what he’s going to do when he doesn’t know what he’s going to do?” Pitt linebacker Curtis Bray asked.

Harris, a Pittsburgh native and a clever scrambler, has disrupted opposing defenses as ninth-ranked West Virginia has won 17 consecutive regular-season games.

A junior, Harris is one of only two returning offensive starters from West Virginia’s Fiesta Bowl team of last season. Yet, he’s the main reason the Mountaineers are unbeaten. He has completed 51 of 87 passes for 812 yards and six touchdowns.

“He has so much raw athletic ability, you have to defend against a lot of things,” Bray said. “We play an attack defense, but I don’t think it’s going to make him any less aggressive. We’re an attack defense, but he’s an attack player.”

According to Phil Terranova’s Handbook of College Football Recruiting, UCLA has recruited the best players the last five years, followed closely by Notre Dame.

USC is ranked 11th.

Free speech isn’t practiced at many schools, where football coaches warn their players not to say anything that would arouse an opponent.

It’s different at Miami (Fla.), where the players seemingly say whatever comes into their minds.

Take freshman middle linebacker Michael Barrow, for example. He’ll be starting Saturday for the first time against Michigan State, but he sounds like a salty veteran.

“I’m ready to go,” Barrow said. “I’m ready for us to go ahead and blow ‘em out in the first half. And in the second half, I play one series and then rest and smile the whole day.”

Barrow is starting as a replacement for injured Bernard Clark. “(Quarterback) Craig Erickson said to me, ‘Hey, you’ve got some big shoes to fill,’ ” Barrow recalled. “I reversed the roles. I said, ‘Hey, you’ve got some big shoes to fill. Steve Walsh won a national championship for us. What are you going to do?’ ”

The second-ranked Hurricanes (3-0) are dominating teams with their defense and Barrow predicted that trend will continue.

“We’re the graveyard shift--rest in peace,” he said. “All we’ll try to do is put tombstones on East Lansing’s field.”

Michigan State Coach George Perles, in his seventh year in the program and with one Rose Bowl victory already behind him, faces Phase 2 Saturday in his double-barreled pressure battle.

His game against second-ranked Miami follows immediately on the heels of his 21-13 loss last Saturday at top-ranked Notre Dame.

Going into that 1-2 punch, Perles was subjected to a bit of media scrutiny and MSU fans were advised that they would not be unrealistic to expect a win in one of the two games. Sports Editor Steve Klein of the Lansing State Journal wrote that Perles’ program is not an infant, that Spartan fans should have high expectations.

So the heat continues to build, despite the near miss against the Irish and the coach’s recognition of the quality of the top-ranked team in the country.

“You’ve got (Notre Dame) ranked right where they should be,” he told reporters after last Saturday’s game.

Heisman Trophy winner Barry Sanders is gone, but Oklahoma State has another good running back in Gerald Hudson.

“I’m at the stage now where I wonder how good he really is,” Coach Pat Jones said.

Hudson, a junior, has improved with each game. He ran for 102 yards in the opener against Tulsa, then gained 140 yards against Ohio State. Last week against Texas Tech, Hudson had a career-high 157 yards.

His average of 133 yards a game is third-best in the nation. That he is doing it without the benefit of any returning starters in the offensive line makes it even more impressive.

The Cowboys’ record isn’t impressive, though. They’re winless in three games.

Arizona stamped itself as a legitimate contender for the Pacific 10 Conference championship with its 20-17 victory over Washington last Saturday night.

The Wildcats, though, are prospering in the midst of adversity.

Wide receiver Melvin Smith, who caught a 43-yard touchdown pass, became the eighth player to face discipline or dismissal from the team this year.

Smith was arrested after the game on aggravated assault charges for allegedly firing a gun into a crowd.

Arizona Coach Dick Tomey said that he and the university administration are dealing firmly with such problems and “eliminating guys from the program who can’t conform.”

The Wildcats could strengthen their position in the Pac-10 race Saturday by beating Oregon in Eugene, Ore.

The Ducks were stunned by Stanford last Saturday, 18-17, losing on a field goal with no time remaining.

Oregon was coming off a 44-6 win over Iowa and Coach Rich Brooks tried to tell his team that previously winless Stanford would be difficult to beat at Palo Alto. “I would hope they’re intelligent enough,” he said of his players. “But past results have proven that not all 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds really believe what their coach tells them all of the time.”

Brooks obviously knew what he was talking about.