Cal’s Uwaezuoke Still Feels a Hunger

One might wonder what California’s football team might be doing today had its players stayed healthy. Celebrating a Rose Bowl championship?

Cal was the only Pacific 10 Conference team to beat both UCLA and Arizona, but the Bears also lost to USC, Washington, Washington State and Arizona State in succession.

Wide receiver Iheanyi Uwaezuoke finds a direct correlation between the four defeats and three injuries to key players, including quarterback Dave Barr’s shoulder sprain.

“We always knew the Rose Bowl was definitely something we could achieve this year,” said Uwaezuoke, who played football at Harvard High (now Harvard-Westlake). “But the injuries came at a bad time.”

Uwaezuoke and his Cal teammates can look back at this fractured season with satisfaction after they trounced Iowa, 37-3, in the Alamo Bowl on New Year’s Eve.

Uwaezuoke, a 6-foot-1, 185-pound sophomore, prefers to say he’s happy--not necessarily satisfied. He caught 25 passes this season. He’ll tell you he should have caught 50.

“I’m the kind of person who’s always hungry,” he said. “I’m never satisfied. But pleased to some extent? Yeah.”

Especially after his final reception of 1993, a 34-yard touchdown catch against Iowa in the third quarter that put the game out of reach, 31-3. The play wasn’t designed to go to Uwaezuoke, but when Barr saw him line up one-on-one with a cornerback, he called an audible.

“I ran a perfect post route and Dave laid it in perfectly,” Uwaezuoke said.

It hardly mattered that the big catch came in the Alamo Bowl, not the Rose Bowl.

“It was just awesome,” said Uwaezuoke, 20, who moved to the United States from his native Nigeria when he was 7. “I was just overly pumped.”

Uwaezuoke caught two passes for 55 yards in the Alamo Bowl. In the regular season, his 25 catches accounted for 422 yards (16.9 per catch) and two touchdowns, and ranked him third on the team. The Bears often looked to him in big-play situations, but next year they also will use him as a possession receiver, Uwaezuoke said.

Cal finished 9-4 and was one of three Pac-10 teams to win a bowl game. The only team to lose was UCLA. Arizona routed Miami and USC beat Utah. Uwaezuoke said the Pac-10’s success was not surprising.

“Comparing the Pac-10 to non-Pac-10 opponents,” said Uwaezuoke, “we were basically running people over. It’s an honor to play in the Pac-10 and be able to compete on this level.”

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Good bowling: Cal fullback Marty Holly (Harvard) closed out his career with three pass receptions for 21 yards in the Alamo Bowl, and freshman running back Tarik Smith (Oak Park) rushed three times for 13 yards. Uwaezuoke said Smith has a bright future with the Bears.

“He has enormous talent--all the physical tools,” Uwaezuoke said of Smith, who figures to play behind sophomore Reynard Rutherford next season. “He’s still the back of the future. It’s just a matter of when he matures.”

Utah fullback Jamal Anderson (El Camino Real) had 128 combined yards in rushing (16 carries for 67 yards) and pass receiving (seven catches for 61 yards in the Utes’ 28-21 loss to USC in the Freedom Bowl. Anderson’s 34-yard touchdown run, on which he broke four tackles, made the score 28-13 in the third quarter. Anderson and Cal tackle Todd Steussie (Agoura) will play in the East-West Shrine game Jan. 12.

Arizona junior running back Ontiwaun Carter (Kennedy) gained 63 yards in 17 carries in the Wildcats’ 29-0 victory over Miami in the Fiesta Bowl.

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Checking the fax: In basketball, Oklahoma City guard Kevin Franklin (Taft) has been slowed by an ankle injury while averaging 12 points a game. His high for the season is 21 against Henderson State. NBA scouts from at least seven teams have watched him play this season.

Oklahoma junior forward Calvin Curry (Ventura College) is averaging 11.6 points and 4.2 rebounds through nine games.

New Orleans senior forward Tony Madison (Antelope Valley College) scored a career-high 20 points in a 79-72 victory over Southern last week.