If Napoleon Goes Into the NFL, It’s Waterloo for Washington

In only 13 months, the football fortunes of the Washington Huskies have hit rock bottom and might only get worse.

With an 8-0 record going into November, 1992, the Huskies were No. 1 in the nation, but they finished this season out of the Top 25 and hurtling downhill.

From the time the Billy Joe Hobert scandal broke, everything has gone wrong. They are 8-7 since, have another season of probation and stand to lose their top running back, Napoleon Kaufman.

Kaufman, who set a Huskies’ record by rushing for 1,299 yards this season, has one year of eligibility left, but might sign up for the NFL draft in April.

“I haven’t made a decision about next season yet,” Kaufman said. “It will depend on several things.”

Kaufman was the bright spot in a 7-4 season. If he turns pro, the situation will continue to get worse for the Huskies. It may be a long time before Washington, Pacific 10 champion three years in a row ending last season, returns to the top ranks.

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Rivalry: Compared to the other season-ending Pac-10 rivalries, Arizona-Arizona State is practically in its infancy.

But today at Tempe, the two will go a long way toward deciding which conference teams go to what bowls. If the Wildcats, 7-2-1 against Arizona State in the last decade, win, they will have a 9-2 record and probably go to the Fiesta Bowl. But, if the surging Sun Devils, winners of four in a row and a mild favorite, win, they will go to the Freedom Bowl and USC will go to the Hancock Bowl.

This is the 66th meeting of the series, which began in 1899, but has been continuous only since 1946.

During the early years Arizona State was Arizona Teachers College at Tempe and known as the Bulldogs. They had trouble competing with the four-year school. But, after World War II, Arizona State has competed with some of the nation’s best.

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Trivia Time: Stanford and California have met 96 times in college football’s Big Game. How many players from the two schools are members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame?

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Foul Play: The injury situation for the Oregon State basketball team has become so serious that Coach Jim Anderson claims his trainer has the best Beaver team.

“In my 32 years of coaching, I’ve never experienced a preseason like this,” Anderson said. “It was going to be a difficult rebuilding season anyhow, and it has just gotten much worse.”

Among those injured before playing a game are Brent Barry, freshmen Sonny Benjamin and Dwayne Franklin, sophomore J.D. Vetter and senior walk-on David Brown. Benjamin is lost for the season, but the others will return.

Barry might play in Saturday’s opener against Oklahoma. The talented son of former NBA player Rick Barry, has a sprained ankle, not a broken one as feared.

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Name Game: It may take more than a little detective work to find out how Dick Tracy, who finished sixth last Saturday in the Political Ambition Handicap at Hollywood Park, came by his name.

Nothing in the family history of the horse, bred in France by Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos, gives a clue and owner auto dealer Stephen Taub said he was never told how the horse was named.

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Trivia Answer: Only one, Ernie Nevers of Stanford.

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Quotebook: “I am either going to throw this up on the green or throw up, depending on the shot,” President George Bush said when he found his ball in a bunker in the Texas Open pro-am.