THE FIRE WITHIN : Reigniting a Rivalry That Goes Way Back

There are some scores to settle in today’s Cotton Bowl.

Sure, there’s the one between Bob Toledo and Texas A&M; Coach R.C. Slocum, who fired Toledo in 1994 because the Aggies couldn’t beat Florida State or Notre Dame in the Cotton.

Maybe a UCLA win can exorcise that demon.

But that’s new stuff.

Skip Hicks and Branndon Stewart go back a lot further.

“I’ve never beaten him,” said Hicks, remembering his first high school game as a sophomore running back for Burkburnett High in Wichita Falls, Texas.

“I scored five touchdowns in that game.”

Stephenville 38, Burkburnett 35.

“And then we played them in the playoffs, and I scored one or two touchdowns.”

And ran for 296 yards. And lost, 46-42.

And there was a game in which he had no touchdowns--”We keyed on him,” Stewart said, “I think we had three guys on him and held him to six yards or something”--and another with one touchdown, a 10-7 loss.

Zero and four.

“I guess I owe him something,” Hicks said.

Said Stewart: “I’d love to keep that streak going.”

There could have been a fifth game, in 1994, when Stewart was a freshman backup quarterback at Tennessee, certain he was as good as the other freshman backup: Peyton Manning.

UCLA won, 25-23, “but that doesn’t count because I didn’t play,” said Hicks, who sat out with a torn knee ligament.

There won’t be another chance unless the two get together at the play-for-pay level.

“It’s important,” said Hicks, who has a long memory, and who will play his last game for UCLA today.

Despite running for 1,104 yards and 11 touchdowns as a high school senior, he was not highly recruited.

Those numbers didn’t even put him in the top 10 among Texas high school running backs in Burkburnett High’s division. Among the bigger names were Kimball High’s Delon Washington, who went to USC; Converse Judson’s Jerod Douglas (Baylor); and DeSoto’s Byron Hanspard (Texas Tech).

“We didn’t recruit him,” said Toledo, Texas A&M;’s offensive coordinator at the time.

A year later, the Aggies did recruit Stewart.

“We were playing in the Cotton Bowl game, and one time, when I called him I asked him if he was going to the Cotton Bowl,” Toledo said. “He didn’t know who we were playing, and we were playing Notre Dame.

“I said, ‘How interested are you in Texas A&M;?’ He said, ‘You guys run too much option,’ and, of course, we didn’t run any option at that time, so he didn’t really know too much about A&M; at that point. Obviously, he knows a lot more now.”

He knew enough to find refuge in College Station after sizing up the situation at Tennessee. Stewart has started the past two seasons for the Aggies, with varying success.

As a junior he threw for 1,904 yards and nine touchdowns, with seven interceptions, and was criticized for making bad choices with the ball.

This season he has thrown for 1,429 yards and 10 touchdowns, with only four interceptions, two of them against Nebraska in a Big 12 game in which Texas A&M; was blown out, 54-15.

Part of the difference was the offense, a more conservative, hand-the-ball-to-Sirr-Parker-or-Dante-Hall attack and throw it when you have to.

“One of the first things you try to do is not let your quarterback beat you,” Slocum said. “But against Oklahoma State and Baylor, he made the plays to help us win.”

Stewart completed 18 of 33 passes for 226 yards and a touchdown against Oklahoma State, 18 of 25 for 231 yards and three touchdowns against Baylor.

His UCLA counterpart, Cade McNown, already is being hyped for next season’s Heisman Trophy, but a good part of his success, which includes 2,877 passing yards and 22 touchdowns, against five interceptions, is Hicks.

Hicks has kept defenses honest with his 1,142 rushing yards in 227 carries, with 22 touchdowns, and that has given McNown an edge with play-action passes in which he fakes to Hicks, draws in defenses and lets it fly to wideouts Jim McElroy or Danny Farmer or tight end Mike Grieb.

“I don’t know how many touchdown passes came off play-action,” said Al Borges, the Bruin offensive coordinator. “I’d say conservatively, it’s 80%. I can probably name you the touchdown passes that weren’t on play-action on a couple of fingers.”

The Aggies, with smaller defensive linemen and inside linebackers, showed a vulnerability to runs between the tackles against Nebraska. Hicks and UCLA plan to see if those holes are still there.

“But we’ll still [pass],” Borges said. “We’re always going to do that.”

Particularly if Hicks can run.

The extent to which Hicks and McNown are successful opens yet another score to be settled today. Route 66 runs through Texas, but the Aggies want to make sure it’s not through Dallas.

“We saw those scores,” said Texas A&M; tackle Steve McKinney of UCLA’s wins over Texas, 66-3, and Houston, 66-10. “We want to show them that we still play some pretty good football here.”