It’s a Bumper Crop of Wheatley : College football: The running back’s 235 yards rushing--12 short of the record for the game--power Michigan past Washington, 38-31.

It is a geometry lesson in cleats: The shortest distance between two goal lines is whichever way Tyrone Wheatley decides to run.

The Rose Bowl race went to the swiftest Friday, when Wheatley, Michigan’s sophomore tailback, conducted a one-man Rose parade past a Washington defense of spectators and the Wolvervines floated past the Huskies, 38-31, in the 79th annual game.

A crowd of 94,236 watched Wheatley run for 235 yards, 12 short of Charles White’s 13-year-old Rose Bowl record. Eighty-eight of those yards came in one-record breaking chunk as the Big Ten won for only the seventh time in 27 years.

Wheatley, who scored from 56, 88 and 24 yards, was voted the game’s most valuable player.

Michigan finished 9-0-3, the Wolverines’ first undefeated season since 1973, while Washington ended up 9-3, with three losses in its last four games.

There were six lead changes in the game, but none as spectacular as Wheatley’s 88-yard run for a touchdown that put Michigan ahead, 24-21, on the first play from scrimmage of the third quarter.

It was a play typical of how the Wolverines manhandled the Husky defense on the ground. Michigan got 308 yards rushing and 483 yards of total offense against a team that seemed intent on showing that its defensive standing of eighth in a 10-team conference was no fluke.

On the big play, Michigan quarterback Elvis Grbac dropped back two steps and handed off to Wheatley, who took it from there. Asked to explain, Wheatley proved to be a man of many moves but few words.

“There’s nothing to explain,” Wheatley said. “I ran left, it just opened up and there I went, off to the races.”

In this race, there was only one winner.

“We couldn’t catch him,” said Washington Coach Don James, who was asked if he could have come up with something different to combat Wheatley.

“Tackle him better,” James said.

It was a bitter end to what became a somber season for the Pacific 10 Conference champion Huskies, who began the season 8-0, before allegations of NCAA violations and two losses in their last three regular-season games ruined what looked like a perfectly good year.

Washington, which beat Michigan in last year’s Rose Bowl, 34-14, had little trouble moving the ball as quarterback Mark Brunell passed for 308 yards and two touchdowns.

Scoring wasn’t a problem for the Huskies. Defending was.

In James’ defensive scheme, all of his players are positioned close to the line of scrimmage, a tactic that backfired. Michigan’s draw plays and traps caught Washington off-guard and the Huskies never adjusted.

“Michigan didn’t show many traps or draws in the game films, but that’s all they ran,” Washington nose guard Mike Lustyk said.

From his vantage point on the Husky defensive line, D’Marco Farr said he wasn’t prepared for what he saw.

“In films, all I saw in Michigan was off-tackle stuff,” he said. “Then we get here and there’s none of that, just traps and draws.”

It was a clever trap. Besides Wheatley’s long gains, Grbac and tight end Tony McGee combined on several pass plays over the middle that Washington never seemed able to cover fully.

It was Grbac’s 15-yard touchdown pass to McGee midway through the fourth quarter that broke a 31-31 tie. On that one, McGee caught the pass at the two-yard line, fell out of the grasp of linebacker Jaime Fields and into the end zone.

No one benefited more from the Washington defensive scheme that Wheatley, who averaged 15.7 yards in 15 carries. And he knew it.

“They play close to the line (so) once you’re through, you’re through,” he said.

In any event, Coach Gary Moeller wasn’t through with his first Rose Bowl victory in his second try until the last minute.

Brunell and the Huskies had one last chance after David Killpatrick partially blocked a punt by Michigan’s Chris Stapleton at the Wolverine 44-yard line with 63 seconds left.

Giving Brunell four chances to get the ball into the end zone is a fairly risky proposition, from any place on the field, but on this prime occasion, Brunell failed.

His first-down pass was incomplete, Jason Shelley dropped his pass on second down and his third-down pass went through the hands of a leaping Mark Bruener.

Down to one last play, Brunell dropped back to pass again on fourth down, but his throw over the middle to Damon Mack was incomplete and the ball went over to Michigan.

All that was left was for Grbac to drop to one knee and watch the clock run out. From there, Moeller got doused by the ritual bucket of ice water in celebration.

His reaction?

“It was cold,” Moeller said.

Then the blue-jerseyed Michigan players pulled off their helmets, held them aloft and gathered in front of the stands where the Wolverine band played “Hail to the Victors.”

It was hardly a routine moment by the standards of the Rose Bowl. It took Bo Schembechler five trips to Pasadena before he heard the Wolverine fight song in victory.

“I couldn’t be happier,” Moeller said. “The one thing Michigan wanted to do . . . is that we wanted to sing ‘The Victors’ in Pasadena.”

For more than a few moments, it seemed as though Michigan would be singing the same old Rose Bowl tune as usual.

In fact, Washington’s best chance to draw even probably occurred during the fourth-quarter drive before it got the ball on the blocked punt.

Brunell’s third-down pass to Mack down the left sideline gained 28 yards to the Michigan 38. One play later, Brunell had the Huskies at the 25-yard line after completing an 11-yard pass to Joe Kralik.

But after fumbling the snap from center on first down and then missing twice on passes, Brunell looked at fourth and 11 at the Michigan 26. He dropped back to pass, found no one open, tucked the ball in and took off for the first-down marker.

He didn’t make it. Dwayne Ware drove him head-first into the turf two yards short.

There weren’t too many times Brunell was short on anything. He completed 18 of 30 passes and had touchdown pass plays of 64 yards to Shelley, a controversial catch, and 18 yards to Bruener during the second quarter. Combined, they turned a 17-7 Michigan lead into a 21-17 lead shortly before the half.

Wheatley played from the first quarter on with worsening muscle cramps after he caught a helmet in his back. He said he felt pain down his left leg and eventually had to leave the game during the third quarter, never to return. But he had done enough damage already.

Napoleon Kaufman’s 47-yard kickoff return after Wheatley’s 88-yard touchdown run that began the second half gave Washington good field position at the Wolverine 46.

Behind by 24-21, Brunell kept the drive going with an 11-yard scramble to the 30 on third down and a 16-yard pass to Bruener to the one. From there, Kaufman dived over. When Travis Hanson kicked a 44-yard field goal the next time Washington got the ball, the Wolverines trailed again, 31-24.

The quarter might have ended that way, except for the only turnover in the game. Kaufman fumbled a pitchout at the Husky 24 and Bobby Powers recovered for Michigan.

On the next play, Wheatley scored to create the tie at 31. It was a run completely characteristic of Wheatley, moving swiftly around right end and ending up in the end zone unperturbed.

How easy was it?

“No one touched me,” Wheatley said.

For at least one day, he was untouchable.

*

Golden Rushers The top rushing performances in Rose Bowl history:

Year Player (School) Yds 1980 Charles White (USC) 247 1993 Tyrone Wheatley (Mich.) 235 1986 Eric Ball (UCLA) 227 1959 Bob Jeter (Iowa) 194 1981 Butch Woolfolk (Michigan) 182

*

Inside * MIKE DOWNEY On one good leg, Tyrone Wheatley carries Michigan to a Rose Bowl victory. C10 * MARK BRUNELL The Washington quarterback rewrites record book in Pasadena. C11 * MICHIGAN Fifth-year seniors savor victory that washes away frustration of last season. C11