How Good Is Ogden? Don’t Ask : Bruins’ Running Game (and the NFL Draft) Should Be Answer Enough

It’s not easy getting a comment from UCLA offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden when the subject is Jonathan Ogden. He can be as formidable for an interviewer as he has been for defensive linemen over the last four years.

It’s not that Ogden is rude. He is as pleasant off the field as he is menacing on it.

It’s simply that Ogden is uncomfortable talking about his accomplishments. In an age when defensive linemen celebrate every sack as if it clinched a national championship and running backs dance in the end zone after touchdowns as if they had just been handed the Heisman Trophy, Ogden stands out as a bona fide star with genuine modesty.

Ask Ogden about the high points of his Bruin career, and he shrugs.

But ask those who have come in contact with him in any way, and they’ll do anything but shrug.

His coach, Terry Donahue, will tell you that Ogden has an honored spot on Donahue’s all-time team. That’s high praise considering that Donahue, in his 20 years, has coached such offensive linemen as Duval Love, Luis Sharpe and Irv Eatman, all of whom went on to NFL careers.

Pro scouts say they figure Ogden will be one of the top five picks in next spring’s NFL draft, perhaps in the top three.

Opposing defensive linemen cringe at the mention of his name. Bruin running backs smile.

Ogden was recently selected as the winner of the Outland Trophy, given to the player deemed the best interior lineman in the country. He won the lineman-of-the-year award from the Columbus Touchdown Club. He was United Press International lineman of the year. He was runner-up for the Lombardi Award. And he is, of course, a first-team All-American.

So who needs to brag?

Ogden may exude quiet confidence now, but, he acknowledges when pressed, it wasn’t always so. He came from St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., as a 345-pound phenomenon in need of exercising both his body and his mind to learn and excel at the next level of competition.

When Ogden first walked onto UCLA’s practice facility at Spaulding Field, he knew he was going to have to prove himself once he looked at the huge defensive linemen staring at him across the line of scrimmage. He hadn’t run into too many guys like that in the league of small private schools where he had played.

But Ogden was determined to put up a brave front.

“I was slightly intimidated, but I was not going to let them step on me,” he said. “They were big, but you can’t go out there timid.”

The defining moment in Ogden’s collegiate career, at least in his mind, didn’t come in a big stadium in front of a huge crowd with the television cameras zooming in on him.

No, it came in the relative obscurity of Spaulding Field during a practice before the start of Ogden’s first season.

Hunched over at the line, Ogden found himself face to face with defensive lineman Mike Chalenski, who would go on to play in the NFL.

“I moved him back,” Ogden recalled, relishing the moment as if it had just occurred. “I didn’t knock him down or anything. But I moved him back.”

It was a start.

Ogden also vividly recalls his first game, against Cal State Fullerton.

“I was nervous,” he said.

Not for long.

By the middle of his freshman season, Ogden was installed as the starter and hasn’t budged since. To make room for Ogden in the starting lineup, the Bruins moved Craig Novitsky from tackle to guard. That alone tells a great deal. Novitsky was a junior at that point and on his way to the NFL.

As is Ogden.

Pushed for a high and low point to his Bruin career, Ogden said the high is probably the 38-37 victory over USC in his freshman year because it was Ogden’s first win over the Trojans.

The low point, he said, would be any sack he has allowed, or any block he has missed.

In the last four years, those haven’t come much more often than USC victories over UCLA.

But that’s all behind Ogden now. He’s in Honolulu this week to close out his collegiate career on Christmas Day in the Aloha Bowl, where the Bruins will play Kansas.

Having never been to Hawaii before, Ogden might understandably figure this is paradise.

But if he thinks he’s in paradise now, wait until he sees what’s ahead of him. By April, he should be negotiating his first professional contract.

“He is going to be a very wealthy young man,” Donahue said.

It’s not surprising that pro scouts would be impressed with a 6-foot-8, 310-pounder who is quick enough to pull out from his position on the left side to lead a sweep around the right, who has given up only one sack in the last two seasons, who has a reputation for being responsive and enthusiastic in practice, and who has not been associated with a hint of scandal since arriving in Westwood.

What more could you ask for?

How about a player who began the season loaded with press clippings and showered with praise, yet didn’t let it alter his game?

“He is that rare commodity, an offensive lineman who can run well,” said Oakland Raider player personnel expert Jon Kingdon. “He came into this season playing at a very high level, and he has maintained his excellence.

“Some players get reached by agents and they are told to just make sure they don’t get hurt in their final year. They are told to just show up. And their play goes down.”

Not Jonathan Ogden. He’ll do anything he is asked to do.

As long as he doesn’t have to talk about it.

* USC: Guard Phalen Pounds will sit out Rose Bowl because he violated team policy. C9