COLLEGE FOOTBALL / BOWL REPORT : ROSE : Holdren Wants to Send Message Home

Michigan linebacker Nate Holdren has a special reason for wanting to beat Washington in the Rose Bowl: to silence the critics who second-guessed his decision to enroll at Ann Arbor instead of Seattle or Pullman, Wash.

“I was home for four days before we came here, and I heard a lot of talk about what the Huskies were going to do to us, especially around Seattle,” Holdren said. “There are a lot of Michigan supporters down where I live, though.”

Richland, where he became the Washington high school player of the year as a quarterback in 1989, is about a four-hour drive from Seattle, near the Oregon border.

Holdren’s decision to pass on Washington and Washington State, he says, was prompted by Michigan’s baseball program. A left fielder, Holdren hit a 400-foot home run against Tampa last spring.

When Desmond Howard, Michigan’s Heisman Trophy winner, and Steve Emtman, Washington’s Outland Trophy winner, are on the field, it will be the first Rose Bowl matchup of No. 1 offensive and defensive players since 1971, when Stanford quarterback Jim Plunkett faced Ohio State lineman Jim Stillwagon.

Emtman was sick Thursday and missed practice.