Huskies Get Something Too Tough to Chew On

Cade McNown was about to bring UCLA’s offense back onto the field, in the second quarter of Saturday’s game at the Rose Bowl, when a couple of his teammates overheard a Washington guy, talkin’ some smack. A defensive player--thought by the Bruins to be Jason Chorak, a senior linebacker--kept saying, over and over, “They’re not tough. They’re not tough.”

Andy Meyers was among those who heard every word.

“I didn’t say a thing,” the UCLA right guard said later, marking the moment.

The score was Washington 14, UCLA 7. And that is when the toughest Bruin team in years sent the Huskies home with their tails between their legs. That’s when the best UCLA quarterback since Troy Aikman got busy: Air McNown to Jim McElroy, 47 yards, touchdown. Air McNown to Skip Hicks, 67 yards, touchdown. McNown self-propelled, 11 yards, hurtling over the goal line as if he were playing rugby.

By then, Washington’s players were saying something else.

“Who is that guy?” Husky flanker Fred Coleman admitted thinking to himself, at that point. “What is that guy doing out there, diving into the end zone? You don’t expect that out of a quarterback.”

Not many, anyway.

To quote UCLA sophomore receiver Danny Farmer, “He’s still the toughest quarterback I know. And he’s just getting better. Better and better.”

Near the end, a 60-yard hookup with Farmer would leave McNown with most of his 320 yards passing. It was nothing fancy, just a little inside screen, not a bomb like the ball to McElroy that hit the receiver right on the numbers. But it worked.

The coach, Gadget Bob Toledo, sent in the plays, with his staff. And McNown made them work.

He threw on the run. He ran the ball himself. He ran with a pitchout from another UCLA quarterback, Drew Bennett, and then pitched it to someone else, Skip Hicks, for a touchdown.

Cade threw long, Cade threw short.

And something else was in the air. You could sense it. You could feel it. The 1998 “Cade McNown for Heisman Trophy” campaign had officially begun. It began in that second quarter, when a large crowd of 85,697 and a larger region of TV viewers got an eyeful of Air McNown, as he brought the Bruins to the brink of a New Year’s Day home game.

UCLA led by so many points at that point, McNown took off his helmet. He stood by the bench for a couple of possessions, enjoying UCLA 52, Washington 28 to the last pop. Keith Brown ran around end for 10 yards on the game’s final play. Even then, the Bruins were still letting Washington know how tough they were.

They listened for more Husky yapping.

“No one said anything,” Meyers reported.

Washington was whipped. Whipped worse than the Oregon whipping. Whipped worse than the Nebraska whipping. It was one of those defeats that would sting for years, like the 52-0 loss to Alabama back in 1975, or that 72-3 mess against Cal way back in 1921.

McNown and the Bruins had rattled off 52 points, and it could have been worse. It could have been 55. It could have been 66. If freshman tailback Jermaine Lewis hadn’t let somebody poke a ball out of his hands a yard from the end zone--the way Leon Lett of the Dallas Cowboys had it poked away by Don Beebe in a Super Bowl game on this same field--who knows? UCLA might have scored 66 for the third time in one season.

That would have been sweet.

“We’ve been beaten up by them a few times,” McNown said of the Huskies. “We know how it feels.”

Oh, the points he is piling up. On Washington State: 34. On Texas: 66. On Arizona: 40. On Houston: 66. On Oregon: 39. Not once this season has UCLA tallied fewer than 24 points. The touchdowns keep coming and coming. Gadget Bob and his staff send in trick plays more often than the Harlem Globetrotters. So far, Toledo has called for everything but a drop kick and a hidden-ball trick.

Like everyone else, the quarterback gets a kick out of the gimmicks and gadgets.

“Sometimes, it’s the same play you’ve run in the past,” McNown said. “It’s just a new look.”

McNown is calling the signals and his backs and linemen are executing them with precision. They did it Saturday even with Chad Overhauser, probably their top guy in the trenches, smarting from an injury. McNown’s protection was excellent. Shawn Stuart snapped him the ball and guarded his body. Chad Sauter and Meyers let no one come inside. Kris Farris and Mike Grieb let no one come outside.

And the UCLA offense purred, for 565 yards.

“I’d be sitting on the sideline sometimes,” Bruin linebacker Brian Willmer said, “and suddenly think to myself, ‘Hey, I haven’t been on the field for a while.’

“We were moving that ball.”

Can they move it the same way next week against USC?

Has McNown already been giving any thought to USC?

Cade was candid. He said, “We’re always--always--thinking about them, in the back of our minds.”

And the Trojans will be thinking of them. Some will think McNown isn’t so tough, that UCLA isn’t so tough. They can think whatever they like, but they might want to keep it to themselves.