COLLEGE FOOTBALL ’94 / SEASON PREVIEWS : J.J. Returns, but Balance Is Initial Idea : UCLA: Stokes will be the man to watch for Bruins, who would like to run the ball a little bit.

All together now, repeat after Terry Donahue:

“You win football games with balanced offense.”

But his new offensive coordinator at UCLA, Bob Toledo, a former quarterback, feels liberated after coaching at run-oriented Texas A&M;, and passing 60 times a game would be fine with him.

He has J.J. Stokes, one of the top receivers in the nation, and Kevin Jordan, a highly regarded sophomore wideout.

He has Wayne Cook, the first returning Bruin quarterback starter since Tommy Maddox left early for the NFL. And Cook led them to the Rose Bowl, an 8-4 record and a Pacific 10 championship tie with USC and Arizona, both of whom UCLA beat.

He has 310-pound left tackle Jonathan Ogden back to protect Cook’s back. Ogden already has NFL scouts antsy.

And he has a banged-up group of running backs. Skip Hicks, the best of them, is probably out for the season after slipping on a wet long-jumping board in the spring and wrecking his knee.

The elements are there for a UCLA aerial circus. Donahue as ringmaster?

Not in this lifetime.

“We’ve got to try to take advantage of J.J. Stokes, and at least in the early going we’re going to have to ride the arm of Wayne Cook and hope we can protect him,” Donahue said. “But you win football games. . . .”

“I’d like to throw more, but I know you have to have a balanced offense to win football games,” Cook said.

“We will have to have a balanced offense to win,” Toledo said.

They learn it before they learn the alma mater at UCLA.

When you talk about the Bruins, you begin with Stokes.

“He’s a big-play guy,” Toledo said, “and you’ve got to get the ball in the hands of big-play guys.”

Stokes caught 82 passes for 1,191 yards and 17 touchdowns last season, including 14 catches for 176 yards--both Rose Bowl records--against Wisconsin. Big plays such as a 95-yard catch and run against Washington spawned something of a legend and made him the No. 7 vote-getter in the Heisman Trophy balloting. Nos. 1-6 are in the NFL.

Can he have that type of season again?

Probably not, because teams will be outdoing themselves in defensive innovation, all seeking to keep him from beating them. Toledo must find a way to keep Stokes from being double-covered all season.

Defensive subtraction of Stokes could mean additional offense from Jordan, who caught 45 passes for 612 yards and two touchdowns in 1993; and Mike Nguyen, who caught 26 passes, at least one in every game, for 300 yards.

It also could mean a big season for the backs.

With Hicks out, Sharmon Shah returns as the No. 1 tailback, but both of his knees have been surgically repaired, and the right one swelled in preseason. Another operation is possible. Derek Ayers is next in line, nine pounds heavier and a year older, but he, too, has a leg problem.

Daron Washington? He has had moments at No. 1 tailback, but is pushing James Milliner at fullback now. If Shah and Ayers can’t play, Washington might move back where he started, this time as a senior tailback, sharing time with freshman Shaun Williams.

Williams was in the defensive backfield before he became an instant running back when Shah and Ayers went down. He has been impressive.

If Washington plays tailback, freshman Greg Ford, 5-10 and 255, could get a lot of playing time at fullback.

UCLA has had only one 1,000-yard season, from Kevin Williams, with 1,141 in 1991, since Gaston Green left in 1987, and this season probably won’t produce the second.

“Obviously, a coach would prefer to have a 1,000-yard runner, because then you know you have a good player that you can count on,” Donahue said. “But you know I’m not afraid to roll backs.”

Rolling them produced a 1993 season in which six players gained more than 200 yards, but only Hicks and Ricky Davis had more than 500. Still, there were only three 1,000-yard backs in the Pac-10--Napoleon Kaufman at Washington, Mario Bates at Arizona State and Lindsey Chapman at California--and none played in the Rose Bowl.

Whoever lines up behind Cook will be given an opportunity to catch the ball. Only 18 passes were caught by backs, for 85 yards last season. Barring misfortune, there will more before conference play rolls around, in the season’s fourth game.

It’s the product of Toledo’s emphasis on the short-passing game, which has a partial goal of increasing Cook’s completion percentage from 55% a year ago.

There is concern up front, where Ogden returns, but where Craig Novitsky and Vaughn Parker, both all-conference players, became NFL draft picks. James Christensen, last year’s starting center until the second game, when he injured a knee against Nebraska, steps in for Novitsky at left guard, and Mike Flanagan returns bigger and stronger at center. Matt Soenksen, the team’s strongest player, is the right guard, and junior Mike Rohme or senior Paul Kennedy replaces Parker at right tackle.

Sean Gully is the most experienced reserve, and he is a redshirt freshman who is being called on to back up several positions.

Brian Richards is the most experienced tight end.

Defensively, holes abound, but so do replacements. The holes were created when pass-rushing linebacker Jamir Miller and safety Marvin Goodwin went to the NFL after their junior seasons.

Experience on defense is up front, where lightweight nose guard George Kase, listed at 255 pounds but probably lighter, will be outweighed by everybody he faces. He is being pushed by Travis Kirschke, also a lightweight last season but now 20 pounds heavier at 275.

The tackles are 310-pound Sale Isaia and Gary Walton, with London Woodfin rehabilitating a leg injury but able to play. Grady Stretz also provides depth.

Sophomore Phillip Ward is being asked to replace Miller and rush a complete roster of returning Pac-10 quarterbacks. Anthony Jones, a transfer from Notre Dame, is pushing Ward and could supplant him.

Ward and Jones will be able to rush the passer because Donnie Edwards returns at the other outside linebacker and handles pass coverage. He is the leading returning tackler, with 63 last season.

The inside backers are Shane Jasper and Rod Smalley. Jasper played much of the 1993 season behind Carrick O’Quinn, coming in on the game’s second series and playing most of the rest of the way. Smalley is moving to the middle after playing behind Miller, which means he is experienced because of Miller’s injuries and off-field problems.

The secondary was a problem as preseason camp began, but might be less so because of the emergence of some talented freshmen.

The veterans are cornerbacks Carl Greenwood and Teddy Lawrence, and the new safeties are Abdul McCullough, a sophomore who likes to hit, and Paul Guidry, a speedy sophomore who was second in the Pac-10 in punt returns last season.

Andy Colbert, Ted Nwoke and Aaron Roques provide depth and will play a lot in the specialty coverages in the pass-happy Pac-10.

The kicking is in good hands. All-American Bjorn Merten was successful on 21 of 26 field-goal tries as a freshman in 1993. Darren Schager was all-Pac-10 as the punter.

The schedule includes Nebraska at Lincoln, and most of the tougher Pac-10 games are also on the road, including those at Berkeley, Seattle and Tucson. USC will be played at the Rose Bowl, which is twice as far from Westwood as the Coliseum.

The Bruins open at the Rose Bowl with Tennessee and Southern Methodist, a good-news, bad-news lineup, before heading for Nebraska.

“If I had my druthers, I’d play three teams we could dominate and play a lot of players to get ready for the conference season,” Donahue said. But Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State are out of the football business, so it’s Tennessee, SMU and Nebraska.

And then the Pac-10.

And then?

What’s enough? After UCLA had lost, 21-16, to Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl, Stokes turned to Cook and said, “We’ll be back next year and this time we’ll get a ‘W.’ ”

Then Jones talked to them both to learn about the importance of Pasadena and New Year’s Day. He wondered about the T-shirts and slogans and other motivational memorabilia surrounding the UCLA program, extolling the Bruins to the Rose Bowl, as though it were the Holy Grail.

Jones, calling upon his Notre Dame experience, started selling a different line. There’s more, he told Stokes and Cook, the UCLA leaders.

They’re buying.

“We want to win all of our games this year,” Stokes said.

You mean, you want to go back to the Rose Bowl.

“We want to win all of our games,” he repeated.