Big Kat Has Lost Some of His Roar

Andy Katzenmoyer isn’t talking much this season, which is fine because there isn’t much for him to talk about.

He was all-this and all-that in 1997. The Butkus Award winner as the nation’s top linebacker. First team All-American. And he was only a sophomore.

There was some talk that he would turn pro. He should have.

The 1998 year, beginning with the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, has only seen a devaluation in the Katzenmoyer currency.

He became the butt of jokes across the nation when it was revealed he risked missing the season if he didn’t get his grades up--with a curriculum that included golf, AIDS awareness and music.

Sports Illustrated put him on the cover of its college football preview edition, with the prediction that if he remained eligible, the Buckeyes would go to the Fiesta Bowl and win it all. He did, they didn’t.

Katzenmoyer had 69 tackles this season, down from the 97 he accounted for last season. He dropped to third team All-American, second team All-Big Ten. And he was not among the finalists for the Butkus Award, which went to USC’s Chris Claiborne.

The folks at Ohio State say Katzenmoyer is a victim of the system, that he has to do the dirty work, fight off double-teams and clog the middle so other players can make the big hits.

“Andy has been a better linebacker this year than the last two seasons,” fellow linebacker Jerry Rudsinski said. “When you are at the top of the nation in run defense [giving up 67.4 yards a game], your middle linebacker is doing something right. Andy is doing his job and even more this season. It’s frustrating when people question his play this year.”

“I’m prejudiced, but I think he’s the best linebacker in the country,” defensive coordinator Fred Pagac said. “Teams scheme him. When they put two blockers on him, that means they are worried about No. 45.”

Ah, that number. Those are sacred digits at Ohio State. The last person to wear the number before Katzenmoyer was Archie Griffin. Griffin won two Heisman Trophies. So the least Katzenmoyer could have done was win two Butkus Awards, right?

Griffin always said Katzenmoyer represented that number well. But another ex-Buckeye, former coach Earle Bruce, ripped Katzenmoyer on the air during his radio talk show.

“I’m just going to say something: He’s not making the plays,” Bruce said in October. “He’s not making tackles and he’s not making plays. Middle linebacker should make more plays than Andy Katzenmoyer has been making.”

The closest any current Buckeye will come to acknowledging a Katzenmoyer slide was Coach John Cooper’s comment that: “Maybe he didn’t play as well this year as he did a year ago, but Andy had a good year for us.”

Cooper said part of the problem is Big Ten teams are passing more, instead of running at guys like Katzenmoyer. Buckeye opponents averaged 30 passes a game last season and 38 this season.

In one of his rare interviews this season, Katzenmoyer told the Columbus Dispatch that his critics should: “Come in and watch the films, it’s as simple as that. They watch the games from a spectator’s standpoint. They may know more than the average person, but they’re not in there grading the film. They’re not calling out the defense.”

But the guys facing him weren’t too impressed either. Katzenmoyer was nonexistent for most of the 1998 Sugar Bowl game against Florida State, finishing with four tackles. After Claiborne went to Tallahassee in September, flew all over the field and made 14 tackles, the Florida State coaching staff raved about Claiborne and how he was so much better than Katzenmoyer.

Katzenmoyer, although fast for a man 6 feet 4 and 255 pounds, doesn’t have Claiborne’s range. He is a good blitzer, but mostly his specialty is tackling people who run his way. That doesn’t always translate into pro success.

He reminds me of Dana Howard, who played linebacker at Illinois in the early 1990s. He racked up huge numbers of tackles and was the first name people mentioned when they talked about the Illinois defense. And he hasn’t been heard from since.

Three guys who played in his shadow at Illinois are much more recognizable names to NFL fans today: Arizona Cardinal sackmaster Simeon Rice, Jacksonville Jaguar standout Kevin Hardy and John Holecek, who was the Buffalo Bills’ leading tackler this season before suffering an injury.

It might be that we’ll hear more about Ohio State linebacker Na’il Diggs, a sophomore from Dorsey High, and cornerback Antoine Winfield than Katzenmoyer.

Meanwhile, the linebacker I’ll be focusing on in tonight’s Sugar Bowl is Texas A&M;’s Dat Nguyen.

Nguyen called Katzenmoyer “the best player in the country at his position,” even though Nguyen finished ahead of Katzenmoyer as a Butkus finalist and won the Lombardi Trophy.

“I’m just a little guy that runs around,” the 5-11 Nguyen said. “He’s more physical.”

Still, Nguyen ran around enough to make 147 tackles this season and 517 for his career.

Sorry, Big Kat. I’ll take Dat.

J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com