COLLEGE FOOTBALL / BOWL GAMES REPORT : ROSE

Washington’s defense was built for speed.

“If you screw up, hopefully you’ve got somebody who can go catch the guy who’s out in the open, whether it’s a receiver or a running back,” Coach Don James said, explaining the advantages of a fast team. “When you get a lot of guys to the ball, hopefully you can prevent big plays. And that’s the name of the game on defense--stop big runs and big passes.”

Two events prompted James to recruit more speed:

--The sight of Alabama linebacker Cornelius Bennett disrupting his offense in the Crimson Tide’s 28-6 rout of Washington in the 1986 Sun Bowl.

--A 6-5 season in 1988.

“We’d gotten slower,” James said. “We were still big, but we had too many guys with marginal speed. It has helped us to get faster, no question. What we’ve got now is, we’ve got defensive ends and linebackers who can run like our cornerbacks used to run.”

James has recruited more track athletes in recent years.

“We encourage a lot more players to go into track, too,” he said. “We tell our junior (prospects), ‘Hey, the best thing you can do is go out and get faster.’ ”