Busiest Place May Be the Scoreboard : Holiday Bowl: If past performances are an indication, BYU and Ohio State will be involved in a high-scoring affair.

On Oct. 30, Brigham Young’s John Walsh passed for 619 yards in a 58-56 loss to Utah State as the Cougars tied an unenviable major college record for the most points scored in a losing effort.

That performance could be telling for tonight’s Thrifty Car Rental Holiday Bowl when unranked BYU (6-5) plays No. 11 Ohio State (9-1-1) at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. Kickoff is at 5 p.m.

“Everything points to being a high-scoring, very entertaining type of game,” said Ohio State’s John Cooper, who has lost four bowl games as Buckeye coach.

Cooper is not looking forward to a shootout against BYU and Walsh. But if it happens, he thinks the Buckeyes can respond. “(People think) the Big Ten is big and slow and everybody lines up and runs off tackle,” Cooper said. “Times have really changed. This year we averaged more yards throwing than running.”

It has not changed much in Provo, Utah, where BYU’s assembly line continues to produce NFL-style quarterbacks. Walsh, a sophomore from Torrance, is the latest from the quarterback factory that produced Steve Young, Jim McMahon, Marc Wilson, Gifford Nielsen, Robbie Bosco and Ty Detmer.

“The level of expectation for that position is a little bit unreal,” said LaVell Edwards, BYU coach. “It’s like the old USC tailback. If you don’t have a record-breaking outing every time, people want to know what’s wrong.”

Walsh passed for 3,727 yards and 28 touchdowns and led an offense that averages 35.5 points per game. Still, the Cougars won only the bowl minimum of six games to qualify for postseason play.

BYU’s problem was its defense, which gave up an average of 37 points per game.

Injuries did not help. Twenty-three defensive scholarship players lost practice time because of injuries. Edwards, in his 22nd season, said most of the players have recuperated since the regular-season finale against Texas El Paso on Nov. 27.

So, the Western Athletic Conference’s co-champions could make it competitive for the Big Ten co-champions in BYU’s 11th Holiday Bowl appearance.

Although Cooper emphasizes his revamped passing attack, the Buckeye offense is anchored by Raymont Harris, a senior tailback who has rushed for 1,109 yards and scored nine touchdowns. Harris did not fumble in 234 carries. Joey Galloway, a junior split end, led Ohio State with 13 touchdowns.

The Buckeyes averaged 389.2 yards and 29.4 points per game. Yet, all anyone in Columbus, Ohio, seems to recall is the Buckeyes’ 1-1-1 finish after an 8-0 start. On Nov. 1, Ohio State was ranked third.

Then came a 14-14 tie against Wisconsin at Madison, Wis. The next week, the Buckeyes defeated Indiana, 23-17, setting up the team’s regular-season finale against Michigan. Ohio State lost, 28-0, when a victory would have ensured a trip to the Rose Bowl.

Said Chico Nelson, a defensive back: “We just totally unraveled.”

When Wisconsin earned a Rose Bowl berth by defeating Michigan State in Tokyo, the Buckeyes expected to be invited to the Florida Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1 as the Big Ten’s No. 2 team.

But in a surprising move, Big Ten athletic directors, excluding Ohio State’s Jim Jones, decided not to send the same team to the Citrus Bowl two years in a row. Ohio State played in last season’s game at Orlando, losing to Georgia, 21-14. Instead, Penn State, which lost to Ohio State, 24-6, and finished third in the conference, got the bid against sixth-ranked Tennessee.

Cooper is taking the snub in stride. “If you’re not going to be in Pasadena for the holidays, then what better place to be than in San Diego?” he asked.

Cooper, however, has other concerns. “We certainly don’t want to be remembered for the way we played the last game of the year against Michigan,” he said. “This gives us another chance to show people what kind of team we have.”

Holiday Bowl Notes

Ohio State is dedicating tonight’s game to Jayson Gwinn, a redshirt sophomore who was killed in a car accident near the Columbus campus on Dec. 20. The accident happened after Gwinn sought medical treatment for teammate Marvin Stillwell, who was shot once in the buttocks outside a Columbus nightclub. “I don’t know how that is going to affect the performance of our team,” Coach John Cooper said. . . . BYU won its first four games, then dropped four in a row, beginning with a 68-14 rout by UCLA.