ROSE BOWL : UCLA BRUINS vs. WISCONSIN BADGERS : He Has the Size, Speed and Talent, but With the NFL Knocking on His Door the Question Is Whether UCLA’s J.J. Stokes Has the . . . : Staying Power

Wayne Cook has a message for J.J. Stokes: “Come back and I’ll get you the Heisman.”

Stokes’ reply: “If I come back, it’s definitely not going to be for the Heisman. I don’t care about the Heisman.”

The if has come more frequently over a dizzying past few weeks that have seen Stokes named an All-American wide receiver, appear on national television with Bob Hope and finish seventh in the Heisman Trophy balloting.

At midseason, Stokes, a UCLA junior, talked about conversations with his father, who wants him to complete his college career and education. But now there is doubt because he might never be a hotter commodity in the NFL draft.

With 17 touchdowns and 1,005 yards, with scores in nine of the Bruins’ 11 games and all of their victories, with a 95-yard play and diving receptions and four touchdowns against Washington, and heightened awareness by defenses thereafter, it might not get better than this.

But it might.

“I hope he stays because I personally think the two of us can get nothing but better,” says Cook, who threw 15 of his 17 touchdown passes to Stokes.

Over the season, they became an entry, the quarterback feeling his way in a season of development after one of rehabilitation because of a knee blowout; the receiver trying to show that he was no one-game wonder, that his 263-yard day against USC as a sophomore was merely a prologue.

They connected on designed plays and improvisations and developed an uncanny sense of communication.

“I don’t know why,” Stokes says. “It’s just that he knows. It’s like the SC game. I was supposed to run a route inside, but he saw that was cut off

and knew I was going to turn and run to the corner. So he put the ball in there for six points.”

Cook claims no telepathic talents. He also claims no real understanding. It just happens. “For some reason, I just have this special connection with what he’s going to do,” Cook says. “Sometimes he does things he’s not necessarily supposed to do and it still works. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s not like I’m saying, ‘J.J., stay after practice and let’s run a few routes.’ We do our practice thing, and when game time comes around, something starts happening and we start clicking.”

And scoring. And winning enough games to get into the Rose Bowl, where Wisconsin awaits with a message of its own.

“The key to the game is to pressure the quarterback, Wayne Cook, and disrupt the offense,” says Badger defensive back Reggie Holt. “J.J. kind of reminds me of Derrick Alexander of Michigan. Alexander is a very good one, with exceptional hands for catching the ball. He was going to get his yards because of his talent and skill, but our main objective was to disrupt him from his patterns. We stopped him by being physical, and we need to do the same with J.J. We’re going to play bump-and-run with him and take him out of his game.”

Postscript: Alexander still caught a seven-yard touchdown pass in a 13-10 loss to the Badgers.

Post-Postscript: He is 6 feet 2, 190 pounds. Stokes is 6-5, 217. Holt, the strong safety, is the biggest Badger defensive back at 5-11, 195.

“I enjoy it when the defender is up close,” Stokes says. “I haven’t seen a lot of it, but I don’t think it’s going to be any problem.”

“If they get up in his face, that’s OK,” says Rick Neuheisel, who coaches UCLA’s receivers. “You don’t see much of it in the Pac-10 because of all the eight-man fronts they play here. But because of his size, he can use a swim move or something to separate himself and get open. It will be very difficult to cover him that way.”

Or any way.

Stokes began the season with the goal of making certain people understand that his exploits in a victory over USC the year before were no fluke.

He caught seven passes for 106 yards and had a five-yard touchdown pass from Cook in a second-half comeback that fell short against California.

He did not score against Nebraska, in a game where Cook was battered and occasionally confused. He had only three catches and 17 yards--with a six-yard touchdown reception--against Stanford after a week with little practice because of a thigh injury.

Then came a five-catch, 164-yard, three-touchdown night at San Diego State; five catches for 61 yards and three touchdowns against Brigham Young, and versus Washington, well, a personal game for the ages.

The Bruins fell behind, 15-0, in less than six minutes and had the ball on their five-yard line near the end of the first quarter.

On third and six, Cook threw quickly from the shotgun. Stokes ran a slant pattern, caught the ball, wheeled quickly to the outside to shed a defender, lost two more Huskies 30 yards downfield and finished off a 95-yard pass play, UCLA’s longest ever, that made every highlight show in the country that night.

It was UCLA’s most important play of the season, though not its most spectacular. That happened in the next quarter when Cook overthrew everybody but Stokes in the end zone. Stokes’ diving, fingertip catch at the end line cut Washington’s lead to 18-14 and sent the Bruins to a 39-25 victory.

“It was probably my best catch all season,” Stokes says.

Says Cook: “Nobody else in the world could have made that catch.”

That Stokes finished the day with 190 yards in receptions and two more touchdowns embellished the story.

The two plays helped make Stokes an All-American.

And a marked man.

Oregon State double-covered him whenever possible and sent in a pass rush with arms raised to cut off Cook’s vision and negate UCLA’s best play, the slant pattern to Stokes. Still, he scored a touchdown, and one against Arizona and two at Washington State, the second taking control of the game in a 40-27 UCLA victory.

Stokes caught seven passes for 73 yards, but scored no touchdowns against Arizona State in a game Cook didn’t play because of a kidney injury.

The reprise against USC, where all this had started a season before, included six catches for 53 yards and an improvised touchdown.

Time since then, between Bob Hope and various media obligations, has been spent in relaxation and musing about the future.

The NFL is on his mind, but it’s on the mind of everyone who plays football at UCLA, which has more players on pro rosters than any other school.

“I’ve been thinking about the NFL a long time,” Stokes says. “It makes you work harder so you’ll have a chance to play there. Not too many people have that chance.”

What goes into a decision to forgo one’s senior season?

The response to a letter to the NFL College Advisory Committee, certainly. First two rounds in the draft? Three through seven? Not at all? It is non-binding, but rather a best estimate as of the first week of January.

The memories of a college teammate might play a part. Sean LaChapelle had considered making himself available for the NFL draft as a junior, when quarterback Tommy Maddox decided to leave. But LaChapelle came back, played his senior season and was injured, finally being drafted in the third round by the Rams, for whom he toils in oblivion. Did LaChapelle wait too long?

“Nothing is swaying me,” Stokes says. “I just have to weigh out what I can do. I really haven’t been thinking about it. I’m not saying I’m going to go, but I’m not saying I’m not going to go, either. It just depends on how I feel. If I feel like I should leave, I’ll leave, and if I don’t, I’ll be here.”

Even Cook, who can seemingly read Stokes’ mind on a pass play, has no idea what Stokes is going to do.

“I just told him I’ve got some money I’ll give him if he has financial need,” Cook says, laughing. “If he stays, the way J.J. and I communicate, I think we can have a spectacular senior year.”

Coach Terry Donahue is hopeful. “As late as a week ago, he told me he would be back next season,” Donahue said in a mid-December news conference.

But that was then and this is now. The more immediate concern is Wisconsin and the Rose Bowl on Saturday. “I saw them play Michigan State on television, and I thought we could pass on them because Michigan State was passing on them,” Stokes says of the Badgers.

Anything after Saturday is for another time.