COLLEGE FOOTBALL ’91 : Best Incentive : Washington Is Putting Extra Effort Into Quest for National Championship That Barely Got Away

Steve Emtman could have let the barbell alone.

The defensive leader of Washington’s football team, a junior tackle who was co-defensive player of the year in the Pacific 10 Conference last season, could have plopped his 280 pounds into an easy chair.

He had finished one workout, with another scheduled for later in the day. The Huskies’ strength coach, Rick Huegli, had turned out the lights in the weight room, leaving Emtman alone in the dark. The start of fall practice was still two weeks away.

But a television crew hoping to interview Emtman was late.

So, after inserting a tape into a cassette player, Emtman went back to work, lifting the iron to his chest and over his head again and again as Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” blared over the sound system.

It was a telling scene.

Anybody who thought that Washington’s almost total devastation of the Pac-10 and humbling of Iowa in the Rose Bowl last season would leave it complacent probably hasn’t checked in on the Huskies.

Although they outscored conference opponents by 30 points per game last season, scoring more than 50 points three times, and put 13 players on the all-conference team, the Huskies believe they fell a bit short.

Thanks to UCLA.

A late-season loss to the Bruins, who upset Washington a week after Coach Don James’ team had clinched the Rose Bowl bid, probably cost the Huskies the national championship.

Other than UCLA, which beat the nation’s No. 2-ranked team, 25-22, on a 43-yard field goal by Brad Daluiso with 10 seconds to play, everybody in the Pac-10 paid heed last season to the Huskies’ fight song, “Bow Down to Washington.”

USC was beaten by the Huskies, 31-0, its worst conference loss in 30 years. Arizona State fell, 42-14. Then Oregon, 38-17. And Stanford, 52-16. And California, 46-7. And Arizona, 54-10. A week after its loss to UCLA, Washington beat Washington State, 55-10.

Then came the Huskies’ 46-34 Rose Bowl thrashing of Iowa, which trailed at halftime, 33-7.

“For Washington to do what it did last year, I’d have to say it was one of the best teams in the Pac-10 in the last 15 years,” Oregon Coach Rich Brooks said. “In my mind, there’s no question that Washington was the best team in the nation at the end of last season.”

But the Huskies, whose only other defeat was by 20-14 against Colorado earlier in the season, wound up fifth in the final news-service polls.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt we overlooked them,” Husky center Ed Cunningham said of the Bruins. “If we had prepared like we should have, I think it would have been a different outcome and we would have gone on to win the national championship. But you can’t go back.”

Emtman said of the Bruins: “They took a national championship from us, but I’m sure we’d do the same to them if we could.”

Rather than bemoan their fate, the Huskies have carried on, taking the attitude that anything left unfinished last season can be completed this season.

Fifteen starters return from a team that led the Pac-10 in total offense and total defense; rushing offense and rushing defense; scoring and scoring defense; passing defense; sacks, and turnover margin.

Washington ranked first in the nation against the rush last season, giving up only 66.8 yards a game, and its turnover differential of plus-23 also was the nation’s best.

“I’m not sure I’ve seen a better defensive team in this league,” Oregon’s Brooks said.

Emtman, whose 55 tackles included 16 for losses, has been called the nation’s best defensive lineman and the Huskies’ defensive front seven has been called the best in college football.

A rival Pac-10 coach, asked to choose the best linebacker in the conference, wrote on a questionnaire: “Any at Washington.” The best of the group is probably Donald Jones, a senior who is a candidate for the Butkus Award, given to the nation’s top linebacker.

The Huskies are so deep at linebacker that James Clifford, who sat out last season because of a knee injury after leading the Pac-10 with 164 tackles two years ago, was unable to break into the starting lineup last spring. Chico Fraley, a three-year starter, was demoted to second team during the spring when he fell behind in class.

“I’m about as excited about this team as I ever have been,” said James, beginning his 17th season as the Huskies’ coach. “It’s kind of fun having fewer questions unanswered. . . .

“When you have a guy back that’s one of the top players in the league, it’s kind of nice. And I think we have a couple of those guys.”

Still, James and his staff have two major holes to fill:

--Quarterback Mark Brunell suffered an injured right knee in spring practice and might be sidelined for the season.

--Tailback Greg Lewis, offensive player of the year in the Pac-10 after rushing for a school-record 1,279 yards, has moved on to the NFL.

Unlike last season, when the Huskies opened the season against lesser opponents San Jose State and Purdue before lowering the boom on USC in their Pac-10 opener, Washington will play at Stanford and Nebraska in its first two games this season.

“Last year, our confidence didn’t kick in until the third game,” James said. “The first couple of weeks, we tried to get some experience and not panic. This year, the game is on (from the start).”

Billy Joe Hobert, a confident, strong-armed sophomore from Puyallup, Wash., will replace Brunell, who has told teammates privately that he will be back playing by the middle of October.

Until then, and possibly longer, the pressure is on Hobert, who made it clear last spring that he won’t back down when he told Blaine Newnham of the Seattle Times: “I can accept people saying I don’t have experience, but I can’t accept people saying I can’t do the job.”

Brunell completed only 46.6% of his passes last season, but he threw for 14 touchdowns and ran for 444 yards and 10 touchdowns.

“I like to run the ball, too,” said Hobert, who played in seven games last season, completing four of six passes with no touchdowns or interceptions. “I’m not slow, but I’m not as fast as Mark. I hope I can be a double threat. Whether or not I will be remains to be seen.

“As far as passing, I’d like to think I can hit the target more often, but he did a good enough job for us last year. I’ll probably throw the ball a lot more than he did when I drop back.”

Brunell will be missed “as a person,” Hobert said. “But a player’s a player. Everybody’s expendable in football.”

Said James: “As a passer, Billy Hobert is about where Mark was at this time last year. He could be as good a quarterback as Mark was.”

Lewis’ replacement will be Beno Bryant, a 5-11, 175-pound junior from Dorsey High in Los Angeles who is probably more explosive than his predecessor.

Bryant returned three punts for touchdowns last season, when his average of 15.6 yards per return ranked second in the nation. In his only start at tailback--Lewis was sidelined because of an injured knee--Bryant ran for 112 yards against Washington State.

“With Lewis, we knew we could go out and get four, six, eight, 10, four, six (yards),” James said. “With Beno, we might get zero, one, two, 60. If Beno has the ball out in the open, he won’t be caught, but he’s got to stay healthy enough to get the carries.

“If he gets enough carries, he’ll break a long one. I don’t think he’ll need as much help, in some respects, as Greg did.”

If that’s true, and if Hobert develops as quickly as Brunell did, Washington should again be a contender for the national title.

The presence of Emtman up front and the speed of its linebackers and secondary allows Washington to apply a great deal of defensive pressure, which in turn should lead to advantageous field position for the Huskies’ inexperienced offensive tandem of Hobert and Bryant.

“We have more talent than we had last year,” Emtman said. “It’s all a matter of how we come together. Team chemistry is very important, and we got very tight last year as the season went on.”

It could be even more important this season as the Huskies, who embarrassed several foes last season, provide a target for every team in the Pac-10.

“We can be better than we were last season, but it’s going to be hard to match last year in the way we flat dominated people because other teams are going to make it harder for us to exploit some things,” Cunningham said.

“You can’t realistically expect that we’re going to beat teams by 30 points a game. We were shooting at other teams last year--we had a lot of pay-backs, and we had a lot to prove.

“Well, we proved it and now a lot of other teams in the Pac-10 are going to be shooting at us and trying to gun us down.”

Reflecting the Huskies’ mood, Emtman said: “You think back and say, ‘If we’d worked a little harder the summer before, or if we’d put in a little more practice time that week, or we’d made one less mental mistake, we might have been 12-0 last year.’ Hopefully, we learned from our experience.”