The Week
WEST
Call it parity or across-the-board mediocrity, but whatever it is, it's time to ask, "What gives in the Pac-10?" While Southern Cal's hard times got even harder against Notre Dame (page 30), UCLA evened both its own record and Cal's at 3-3-1 with a 20-16 comeback victory. Stanford, which hadn't won a game this year, switched to a spritely three-step-drop-back-and-throw offense and upset Arizona 31-22. Cardinal freshman John Paye completed 22 of 28 passes for 280 yards. Washington State thought up a whole new playbook to stun previously unbeaten Arizona State 31-21. "They did things we hadn't seen before," said Sun Devil Coach Darryl Rogers. "They kept us confused." The Cougars got 132 rushing yards from Fullback Kerry Porter, picked off three passes and executed a fake punt to run their record to 3-4. In a return to the old order, Oregon—hitherto 2-0 in Pac-10 play and dreaming of a Rose Bowl bid—lost 32-3 to conference leader Washington.
One might have wondered why, with Brigham Young leading 40-12 in the fourth quarter, Cougar Quarterback Steve Young was still in the game. San Diego State Coach Doug Scovil, formerly an assistant under BYU Coach LaVell Edwards, certainly didn't understand what was going on. "Why run up the score?" he asked afterward. "Maybe they wanted to get 66." The final score was 47-12 as Young threw for 446 yards and Gordon Hudson caught four passes to break the NCAA career reception record—172—for tight ends.
MIDWEST
With 12 seconds to play and Iowa and Michigan tied at 13 all, Wolverine Coach Bo Schembechler yelled at his bench, "Bergeron! Bergeron! Where the hell are you?"
"I didn't know where he was," Schembechler said later. "He's sort of small [5'8" and 145 pounds]. He got lost among all those big guys." Though Schembechler couldn't see him. Kicker Bob Bergeron, a senior walk-on who pays his own tuition, room and board, was where he was supposed to be, on the field, and he did what he was supposed to do, which was hit a 45-yard field goal to give Michigan a 16-13 win. The snap was low, as was the kick—it barely cleared the crossbar—but the boot left the Wolverines tied with Illinois for first place in the Big Ten.
Last Thursday, Illini Athletic Director Neale Stoner talked with his football team to ease concerns over an ongoing NCAA inquiry into improprieties that may have taken place when two junior college prospects visited Champaign in January 1982. "Coach Mike White wanted me to explain what is happening so the players won't become confused by rumors and get shook up," said Stoner, who told the squad that a recent campus visit by NCAA investigators "isn't going to affect our current season or a possible bowl bid."
Two days later against Purdue, White switched back and forth from his one-back (passing) to his two-back (running) attack in the first half, and at intermission the score was 14-14. In the second half the Illini came out running and got 21 points to the Boilermakers' seven. "Hey, I knew I could run against these guys," said Running Back Dwight Beverly, who rushed for 179 yards and scored three touchdowns.
Colorado surprised Nebraska by scrapping its I formation and split backfield alignments for ones with one running back and two tight ends. "We shouldn't even have practiced this week," said Cornhusker Defensive Coordinator Charlie McBride. "We should have given the players the week off. What Colorado did was unexpected." Still, after leading only 14-12 at half, the Huskers scored 48 points in the third quarter to win 69-19.
When Oklahoma Coach Barry Switzer was asked whether Marcus Dupree's picture should be deleted from the Sooner program for the rest of the season, he replied, "Leave him out." When told the revision would cost $7,000, Switzer said, "Leave him in." During his Thursday evening pregame TV show, Switzer introduced his guests, Spencer Tillman and Earl Johnson, as "a fullback-turned-tailback and a freshman sensation/part-time starter or, what the hell, let's just call them the ones who stayed." The next day they ran for 124 and 110 yards, respectively, in Oklahoma's 49-11 defeat of Iowa State.
EAST
A sidelight to Penn State's 41-23 victory over West Virginia was the return to form of senior Tailback Jon Williams. With the flashy performances of freshman D.J. Dozier, Williams had found himself on the bench, and teammates had told him that worrying about his situation was affecting his play. Dozier, nursing a bruised left shoulder, was to be used sparingly against the Mountaineers, and Williams, awaiting his chance to shine, was nervous. "Before the game [Tackle] Ron Heller came over to me and said, 'Hey, look baby, you're going to have the best game of your life,' " said Williams. "And that picked me up. I thought everybody had given up on me." He carried 24 times for 106 yards and caught five passes for 58 more. Meanwhile Dozier, who played only three downs, went 47 yards on a screen pass for the touchdown that put the game away.
The Nittany Lions' strategy against West Virginia Quarterback Jeff Hostetler was to force him to throw, a seemingly unusual plan for a team that had been giving up 279 passing yards per game. On the other hand, Hostetler had run for four first downs against Boston College and three against Pitt. The plan worked. Though Hostetler threw for 273 yards, he ran only six times for a total of four yards as the Mountaineers lost to the Lions for the 25th straight year.
Lehigh beat Army 13-12 to gain its first victory over the Cadets since 1893. Said Coach Jim Young, now 2-5 in his first season at West Point, "This is frustrating, because Lehigh is a team we should have handled." Holy Cross got three touchdowns from Fullback Chuck Doyle in defeating Brown 31-10. The 7-0 Crusaders are off to their best start since 1945.
"It was stupid," said Columbia Quarterback John Witkowski. "Dumb. I didn't think it could happen on a quarterback sneak that close. But it did." Witkowski had thrown three TD passes—one of them for a school-record 93 yards—to put the Lions up 28-20 against Bucknell and had driven Columbia to a second-and-goal at the Bison one-yard line midway through the fourth quarter. As Witkowski pressed the ball to his side on the sneak, the ball slipped off the hard plastic surface of his flak jacket and popped into the air, and Bucknell recovered. The teams went on to play to a 31-31 draw, and Witkowski wound up completing 21 of 39 passes for 423 yards, with one interception. "I was lousy," said Witkowski afterward. "Mentally, I didn't have it today."
Princeton's Doug Butler also threw for a boatload of yards—424—but his three interceptions did in the Tigers in their 28-26 loss to Harvard. Earlier in the week junior Alix Coulter played her second game at safety for Harvard's Lowell House. As the first woman in the school's history to participate in intramural tackle football, Coulter had been asked to sign a waiver absolving Harvard of any responsibility if she were injured. Because her teammates hadn't been required to sign such a release, she refused and played anyway. Taking part in about one-third of her team's defensive plays, the 5'11", 160-pound Coulter had one tackle as Lowell lost 16-0 to Winthrop House. The athletic department later decided that asking for the waiver had been a mistake, adding, "There is no policy against women participating in intramural sports at Harvard."
SOUTHWEST
The showdown between Texas and Southern Methodist began early last week with a battle of boosters. First, SMU backers circulated bumper stickers around Dallas that read THE LIES OF TEXAS ARE UPON YOU! Many Mustang fans believe that officials at Texas turned in Southern Methodist for the alleged recruiting violations now being investigated by the NCAA. The Longhorns deny that charge. Texas alumni countered with a sticker—SUPPORT PRO FOOTBALL: WATCH THE SMU MUSTANGS—that spoke for itself.
Fueling the intensity of the rivalry was the fact that this would be the first time the teams had met with perfect records since 1947, when Doak Walker led Southern Methodist over Bobby Layne and the Longhorns. This year's game came down to a two-point conversion attempt. With SMU trailing 13-12 and 2:47 remaining, Mustang Quarterback Lance McIlhenny sprinted to his right and, under a heavy rush, aimed a pass at Tailback Reggie Dupard, but Texas Safety Jerry Gray broke up the play. A safety accounted for the Longhorns' last two points in their 15-12 win, which broke the Ponies' 21-game unbeaten streak. "It was an absolute street fight," said Texas Coach Fred Akers, whose team survived despite six turnovers.
According to Tulsa Coach John Cooper, the key to his team's 59-20 victory over Texas Tech was that "we kept our tight end moving all night to force them into defensive adjustments." Red Raider Defensive Tackle Brad White admitted, "Our defense did a lot of shifting to adjust to that, [but] we knew what we were doing. It wasn't confusion." Nevertheless, Tulsa tailbacks Bobby Booker and Michael Gunter scored four and three touchdowns, respectively, as Tech allowed the most points in its history.
"I have a trivia question," said Baylor Coach Grant Teaff after his Bears had beaten TCU 56-21. "Name me a walk-on freshman running back who scored three touchdowns the first college game he ever played in and before a homecoming crowd." Give up? He's Baylor's Derrick McAdoo, a 5'10", 170-pounder from Houston. "That McAdoo is a little fireball," said Teaff. Added TCU Coach Jim Wacker, "It was a bad day at Black Rock. It looked like a racetrack out there."
It was also a bad day for Wacker's former team, the Bobcats of Southwest Texas State. Coming into their game with Stephen F. Austin, the Bobcats, whom Wacker had guided to the Division II national championship in 1981 and '82, had won 22 consecutive games, the country's longest winning streak. Southwest Texas led 17-0 at the half and 24-10 in the third quarter, but the Lumberjacks rallied behind the passing of Quarterback Tod Weder to win 27-24 on a 37-yard field goal with 44 seconds remaining.
SOUTH
"I think we did pretty well," said East Carolina Coach Ed Emory, "considering we flew down here and didn't have a place to work out." His upstart Pirates had lost 24-17 in the rain at Florida, but in Emory's eyes it was his hosts who were all wet. "The Gainesville Airport put us on hold because of all these single-engine planes that folks were flying to homecoming in," he said. "Then we had to work out in a parking lot." As for the Gator crowd: "Wayne Peace [Florida's quarterback] raises his hands, and the place is so quiet you can hear a pin drop. Our guys can't hear the signals all afternoon. I mean, is that sportsmanship?"
In the good-old-football part of Tulane's game at Southern Mississippi, the Green Wave, led by former third-string Quarterback Wade Elmore, upset the Golden Eagles 14-7. For the daytime TV audience, however, many questions remained unanswered. Will Jon English, Tulane's No. 1 quarterback until three weeks ago, take his eligibility case against the NCAA to the Supreme Court? If he does, will his case be heard? If it is, what will Wally, who's Jon's father and the Green Wave coach, say? Will the young and the restless Marcus Dupree find happiness in his Coaching Tennis class at Southern Miss? Or will he miss Oklahoma, where he apparently went to no classes at all? Will he sue the NCAA, too? Or will he throw it all away to teach tennis? And what of Bubba Brister, Tulane's erstwhile second-string quarterback, who moved to Northeast Louisiana to get away from Jon and Wally? Tune in for the next episode of General Training Room, when the USFL visits Hattiesburg.
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PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
OFFENSE: Quarterback Tod Weder led Stephen F. Austin to a 27-24 upset of defending Division II champion Southwest Texas State. He completed 20 of 36 passes for 277 yards and three touchdowns.
DEFENSE: SMU Safety Russell Carter made eight unassisted tackles, assisted on five others, recovered a fumble, broke up two passes and picked off two more in the Mustangs' 15-12 loss to Texas.