Keeping the FATE

He completed passes for 1,698 yards and seven touchdowns, and UCLA went 7-5 and played in the Aloha Bowl.

That was 1995 and Cade McNown, freshman quarterback, got much of the credit.

He increased his yardage and touchdown passes by almost 50%, but the Bruins went 5-6 and stayed home for the holidays.

That was 1996 and Cade McNown, sophomore quarterback, got much of the blame.

McNown often speaks in bromides, but one of his favorites shows more than a little of his naivete:

“I always believe that in order for the spotlight to shine on one person, it’s got to shine in the general direction in the first place. The light’s got to be on the team before anybody’s going to get hyped up.”

The spotlight always shines on the quarterback, at UCLA and everywhere else, and whether it illuminates accomplishment or casts a harsh glare on failings is up to the man in it. Throw a touchdown pass, and there is a warm glow. Throw an interception and feel the heat . . .

From fans . . .

From reporters . . .

From your own coaches.

McNown has felt varying degrees of heat, and he understood he had to react by growing up or giving up.

He has grown up.

“I guess that adds fuel to me,” he says. “If I get criticized, I don’t let it get me down. I’m like, ‘They don’t appreciate this or that’ and that’s fine. You always expect people to point out the bad things. You just expect your mother to point out the good things. That’s where you get your sympathy.”

Certainly not from the coaching staff, whose jobs often depend on the performance of young men who can’t yet vote.

“I believe in giving a kid confidence, but I don’t believe my job is to stroke him all the time,” says Al Borges, the Bruins’ offensive coordinator and the coach closest to McNown. “I believe my job is to tell him when he does it wrong and reassure him when he does it right. I leave his girlfriend and his mom and his friends to tell him how good he is.”

Says Coach Bob Toledo, “I brought Cade in before the season [last year], and I told him, ‘You’re the quarterback, and there’s going to be some good times and there are going to be some bad times.’ And I said, ‘The good times, that’s easy, but the bad times are going to be tough.’

“And I said, ‘I’m going to get after you, but I still want you to know that I love you and I care about you, and nothing’s going to change there. But let me tell you, there’s going to be a time when I’m going to have to get after you, and that’s when I want you to be a man about it and I want you to accept it.’ ”

That lecture was delivered again in the spring. The lecture doesn’t change, because the situation doesn’t change. But the listener now is no longer a kid but a 21-year-old man, and he knows, bromides notwithstanding, that as he goes, so goes UCLA football. Nobody can say it, but everybody knows it. For better or worse, he is the quarterback, with no backup who has taken a college snap. If he fails, the Bruins fail. If he is injured, it’s probably a lost season.

If he succeeds, good things can happen for him and his team. And he has been put in a position to succeed. He has had a year now, under Borges, to learn the intricacies of the West Coast offense, which requires knowledge of the planned pass routes of as many as five receivers, all of whom can adjust those routes in mid-play. And it requires figuring out the defense, particularly the defensive backs.

In effect, the quarterback must read about 15 minds and make a decision without really thinking about it, because there isn’t time. All this in the two to four seconds available before a house falls on him.

It’s a college version of the offense Green Bay used in winning the Super Bowl.

“And I heard [Packer quarterback] Brett Favre say the other day that he’d been running it four years and he’s just beginning to understand it,” Borges says.

“I tell them, ‘This is going to be tougher than your toughest chemistry class. This is going to be tougher than your toughest accounting class.’ Not only do you have to take the test--because I give them a written test every week--but you also have to go out and prove you’re capable of executing in front of a crowd of people.

“And you have to deal with the pressure, and deal with the scrutiny, not only from the coach, but from the media and everybody.”

McNown has done it as a lost freshman and as a bewildered sophomore, playing well last season against Arizona State and USC, poorly against Michigan and Stanford.

He’s on a high because of the 48-41 overtime victory against the Trojans, in which he led UCLA back from a 24-7 halftime deficit, throwing a 52-yard touchdown pass to Danny Farmer, running 10 yards for a touchdown and leading the two-minute offense that had failed so miserably only three weeks before, against Stanford, to two touchdowns in 2 minutes 10 seconds in the fourth quarter.

“It’s a carry-over for the offense, knowing we can do it,” McNown says. “We were able to come from way behind and put together two two-minute drills and do it well and score touchdowns both times. For me, knowing I can do that . . . Well, I knew I could do it before, but I needed an opportunity to show I could do it. It’s a total carry-over because of that.”

The uncertainty is behind him, and now he’s a cocky junior, with 20 starts on his resume, more than any other Pacific 10 quarterback.

“Oh, yeah, he thinks he knows what he’s doing,” Borges says. “And, you know what? I think he does.

“He’s got a pretty good feel for it now. He’s got some small things in his game he’s got to iron out now, but before, I think the things were much bigger. [They are] little things, like a couple of decisions on a couple of different plays, but nothing that jumps out, nothing that’s horrible.”

It’s apparent on the practice field, where McNown shows that time in the weight room has put a couple of miles per hour on his fastball, and where passes that used to be tardy are arriving on time and in the one-foot area, often 40 yards downfield, where they need to be.

“He’s developed a whole lot,” receiver Jim McElroy says. “His freshman year, he was just this little, chubby, fat kid that came out here with a good arm, and he developed into a starting quarterback. He made some bad decisions, he made some good decisions. . . . I think over the years, he’s really matured and become more of a quarterback. . . . He’s more patient, and he thinks a whole lot better on the field.”

Some of that is age and experience. He has taken some knocks, physically and mentally, and he still stands there, swinging away, trying to take the offensive, seeking to punch instead of counterpunching.

“The more times you’ve done something, the better you can do it,” he says. “You know where to step, and you throw with confidence. And when you throw with confidence, you can get the ball there correctly . . . and you can know you’re going to put the ball on their chest.”

And in the end zone.

It’s his job now for the third season, not given but earned.

“He came in as a freshman and was playing right away and had a little success, and all of a sudden he thinks, ‘It’s going to be easy,’ ” Toledo says. “And I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I knew it was going to be tough. He’s the glue holding the thing together, and he wasn’t going to be good all the time.

“I think the key there was how he responded when he wasn’t going good. He got down on himself and got upset, but when he got upset, he went out and performed.”

McNown threw for 395 yards against Arizona State, 356 yards against USC. But he also had an eight-for-27 day at Michigan, passing for only 39 yards and throwing three interceptions. And his work in the final-minute non-comeback against Stanford was forgettable.

UCLA had an up-and-down season in 1996, never winning two games in a row.

McNown had an up-and-down season in 1996, throwing 12 touchdown passes, but 16 interceptions, many because an immature quarterback was trying to make something out of nothing.

“It’s conceding,” McNown says. “But that’s what the coaches try to pound into your head. Sometimes [the defenders] win and it’s best to get rid of the ball. Don’t take a sack [inside the opponents’ 20-yard line]. Don’t make a stupid decision. Just pick up your weapons and move on. You don’t get a second chance when the ball’s in their hands.”

It’s the kind of thinking that will smooth out McNown’s peaks and valleys in 1997, the kind of thinking that indicates experience and maturity.

He was rated 10th among Pac-10 quarterbacks who got significant playing time last season, and four above him return. But none of those above him are at UCLA.

He had been told he was No. 1 in Westwood last season. No one has to tell him now.

“At times, I knew in my heart [he was No. 1 last season], but sometimes what people are saying about you, you wonder,” he says. “I know now I’m the best quarterback here, and there’s no dispute on that. The coaches know it and the players know it. I like that.

“Now, it’s not as much concern about being the best on the team as being concerned with being the best in the conference or the nation or something. When you get beyond being best on the team, you’re expanding your horizons.”

On those horizons are a completion percentage nearing 60% after last season’s 52.4%. Touchdown passes far outweighing the interceptions.

And winning. And with winning, the spotlight, comfortably warm this time and lasting longer than the season’s final game, against USC, on Nov. 22.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Cade’s Corner

STATISTICS

Cade McNown’s year-by-year statistics:

*--*

Yr. PA PC YDS Int TD Fr. 245 122 1,698 8 7 So. 336 176 2,424 16 12 Total 581 298 4,122 24 19

*--*

Where McNown ranks on UCLA career charts:

PASSING (by completions)

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No. Player (Years) Att. Comp. Yards 1. Tom Ramsey (1979-82) 751 441 6,168 4. Wayne Cook (1991-94) 612 352 4,723 5. Cade McNown (1995-) 581 298 4,122

*--*

TOTAL OFFENSE

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No. Player (Years) Plays Rush Pass Total 1. Tom Ramsey (1979-82) 1,055 87 6,168 6,255 5. Wayne Cook (1991-94) 746 -185 4,723 4,538 6. Cade McNown (1995-) 740 369 4,122 4,491

*--*

* USC

Sophomore Fox may have earned starting quarterback spot in scrimmage. C7

* ROSE BOWL

Penn State, Washington appear to have the inside track to Pasadena. C6