Was This Really <i> Miami?</i>

Miami should have scheduled someone easy, like Notre Dame.

Instead, under a blue-gray September smog, a 3,000-mile trip resulted Saturday in a 31-8 trouncing from UCLA, which got two touchdowns from Karim Abdul-Jabbar (whose religious advisers named him that) and one touchdown from Abdul Jabbar McCullough (whose mother named him that) as the Bruins gave Miami a double whammy.

UCLA’s opponent for next season’s home opener will be Northeast Louisiana, and the 1999 season opener is against Boise State. But for this one, the foe couldn’t have been more notorious and the effort by the Bruins couldn’t have been more outstanding.

They came extremely close to pitching a shutout at a Miami program that has gone scoreless only once in its last 182 games.

No wonder Terry Donahue looked and sounded like a man who is finding some inner peace, actually saying at one point, “We had good karma today, if you will.”

Karma not being the name of any of his players, we can assume he meant the spiritual kind and not Karim.

What else hurt the Hurricanes?

Maybe the heat, said Donahue, who wore shorts for the first time to begin his 20th season as UCLA coach, looking more like a lifeguard on “Baywatch” than like Bear Bryant.

And maybe the smog, Donahue added, actually mentioning this as a factor in the losing team’s poor performance, just before putting the whole Hurricane team on the red-eye back to Miami.

Mainly, though, here’s what whipped those ‘Canes:

Each and every man on the UCLA roster, from the double Abdul-Jabbars right down to Cade B. McNown, a left-handed freshman who filled in for starting quarterback Ryan Fien for a few downs as naturally as though he was still playing some high school opponent up in Oregon.

“The game went just about exactly as we planned it,” Donahue said.

It did?

UCLA 31, Miami 8 was something a coaching staff could plan?

Obviously not. But to what Donahue was referring was the way Abdul-Jabbar rammed the ball right up the gut of the Miami line, again and again, exactly the way Donahue had instructed him to do before the game.

Karim Abdul-Jabbar for the Heisman? Hmmm. Now there’s a twist.

Then there was Abdul Jabbar McCullough, a linebacker who let people know on the game’s first play that he had come to do some hitting. He laid out the Miami kick returner to begin the game and later scored a touchdown after alertly landing on a fumbled punt.

McCullough also sent Miami home with a message:

“I think this should definitely give us more respect on the East Coast.”

And then there were the Guidry brothers, a couple of crackerjack cornerbacks, the Cerritos banditos , who really made their presence felt.

One minute, Paul Guidry was breaking free with a beautiful punt return that would have been a UCLA touchdown had the punter not bumped him out of bounds. Next minute, baby brother Javelin Guidry was busting up a would-be Miami touchdown pass with a last-second dive to strip the receiver of the ball. Good going, Guidrys.

We should also be sure to mention one Theodore Ulonnaya (Ted) Nwoke, strong safety from Westwood by way of Nigeria, who waited for a wide receiver named Gerard Daphnis to get his hands on a fourth-quarter pass, then hammered the guy halfway to Lagos, knocking loose the ball and probably a few teeth.

All day long, all the Bruins played this way.

Oh, and let’s not neglect their quarterback, Fien, who looked fine even if his passing style won’t remind anybody of Joe Montana’s. He proved he could think on his feet, making a pretty 16-yard scramble at one point, and he proved he could take a hit, after Miami’s 260-pound Kenard Lang body-slammed him as if this was Wrestlemania and sent Fien to the sidelines with blood streaming down his chin.

From what we saw of Fien in the opener, UCLA’s offense is in good hands.

Donahue said, “I don’t know how we could have played any better. Our game plan almost worked to perfection. This was a great way to kick-start the season.”

Miami didn’t see it that way, smog or no smog.