THE NORMAN NIGHTMARE : Oklahoma Linebacker Brian Bosworth Makes Opponents’ Hair Stand on End

NORMAN, Okla. â€”  As horrific as Brian Bosworth is on the field, baying at the midday sun like a crazed coyote with visions of decapitation and disembowelment in his feral mind, he is possibly even more frightening off it.

He is 248 pounds of upper-body strength, newly acquainted with karate, and as fierce a visage as anything this side of the Neanderthal age.

Look at him. Your primal fear finally forces you to acknowledge the awful possibility. If he is willing to do that to his own head, which he might have at least some affection for, what might he do to yours?

Because that’s the first thing you notice, his head. Brian Bosworth, who is taking the lunacy of being linebacker into a new and strange territory, has a kind of Commando haircut that is not only an affront to high coiffure but is quite possibly a signal the end of Western civilization is at hand. The sides are trimmed tight, the top trimmed flat with a sort of tail trailing down to his neck. Sometimes, depending on what post-season game Oklahoma is invited to, he dyes the whole mess.

Now you know why they root for the Orange Bowl every year.

It’s your worst nightmare, this hairy spike of spite. It’s not even a mug a mother could love. Seeing this blond bristle of burry blight, Kathy Bosworth said, “Well, at least he wasn’t wearing an earring.�

Of course she’s hundreds of miles away in Irving, Tex., somewhat unmindful of the terrible fact that the Boz had long since punched a gold 44 through his left lobe. “We got kinda crazy one night,� he said, but that’s another story. Break a mother’s heart, what he’s done.

Still, it’s the hair they talk most about. Even on a loosey-goosey team like Oklahoma, where the free spirits sport outrageous enough hair styles to make picture day seem like a cross between “Night of the Living Dead� and “Mad Max Beyond the Orange Bowl,� the Boz buzz stands out.

Worse yet, for some reason, chalk it up to being 18 and away from home for the first time, the loony look has caught on with the student civilians. “Gimme the Boz,� is what Norman’s barbers, sadly, are hearing more and more.

What can you do? As far as shear lunacy goes, there is nothing like it. The coonskin cap had a nice run in the ‘50s but it was nowhere near as offensive as this. It’s like, what if Mr. T were suddenly the nation’s taste maker?

In these parts, you have to understand, there is a lot of pompadour and circumstance about the Boz, leader of the nation’s top defense, not to mention top-ranked team. He’s so visible, tooling around town in either his Corvette or Jeep.

Mothers, hide your children and all that.

Likely, though, the rest of the nation will be spared the vision of this hirsute holocaust. Not that he’s any walk on the beach with his helmet on, you understand.

Brian Bosworth, already anointed as the nation’s top linebacker when he was presented the Butkus Award after his sophomore season last year, is now being talked up for the Heisman Trophy. That’s a longshot, but it gives you an idea of his repute in college football circles.

Coach Barry Switzer, himself a one-time linebacker and an eerie look-alike for the Boz--but with a normal head of hair--calls Bosworth “the best that’s ever played the game.�

He’s got it all, the size, the speed and, most of all, the reckless abandon that would indicate psychotic behavior anywhere but on the football field. If it’s not scary enough to look at the Boz, just listen to him for a while:

“In the middle of a play, I go crazy and don’t realize what I’m doing. I’ll snap back to reality and I realize, ‘Hey, I just ripped that boy’s helmet off,’ or, ‘I’m over here twisting this guy’s knee.’ �

His oft-printed resolve this season: “I’d like to improve on running plays. I want to see if I can hurt some more people. To me, I don’t think I’m out there hurting enough people. I should hurt a lot more people than I do. I’d like to hurt someone on every play.�

The Boz is somewhat slyly into self-promotion. He’s passive enough about it, but he seems content, even happy, with the myths that are springing up about him.

On this particular day, he is begrudgingly sitting down with a reporter over a piece of cooked meat, presumably glaring hatefully at the reporter, although the black sunglasses hide the presumed malevolence.

It’s a grim interview and the reporter is careful not to make any sudden movement that could be mistaken for the snap of a football, so as not to trigger some kind of flashback and doom himself. “Uh, about your dog . . . “ the reporter ventures, unsure where this will take them.

The Boz has to smile, appreciating the anecdote that establishes, beyond doubt, his savage sensibility. “Ah, Raider,� he says. Now we’re getting somewhere.

“Is, uh, Raider, is he really scared of you, like they say?�

“It’s a she. . . . Well, she is getting better, although whenever I go to touch her she crawls into a corner. That’s pretty weird for a Doberman, they tell me.�

Clearly, the Boz does little to discourage the aggrandizement of his awful image. He seems to like it, else he wouldn’t bark--first in little yips and then in curdling howls--during practice or, well, look the way he does.

When this kind of publicity starts to get out of hand, however, he will offer a weak disclaimer or two. This from last year when it was more or less suggested that he descended directly from the Visigoths:

“I don’t go around throwing deer heads through windows like a lot of guys.�

Yeah, really, that’s got to stop.

Other times, though, he tends to let the legend unfold on its own. Like when the guy offered the Boz drugs at a party this summer. The story ranges from a polite no all the way to involuntary manslaughter with a fire-ax, and all without the Boz offering so much as a public comment.

Here’s how it is: When a researcher from Sports Illustrated called the Boz to check on some of these Paul Bunyan-gone-bad tales, so grotesque and unbelievable were they, he seemed secretly pleased. “Sometimes stories get expanded a little bit,� he said. “You know how it is.�

Exactly.

But he’s not all PR, even though he is keenly disappointed by the NCAA ruling which prevented him from appearing on the David Letterman show this summer. What he does on the football field pretty much speaks for itself. He’s the genuine article.

Against hated regional rival Texas last year, the Boz made 14 tackles, intercepted a pass and sacked the quarterback twice. The year before, he saved a 15-15 tie with the Longhorns, making a dozen tackles, one of them for a loss on fourth down when the Longhorns were on the one-yard line.

Against Big Eight archrival Nebraska in his All-American season last year, he made 14 tackles and recovered a fumble. The Cornhuskers, trying to come back from 14-0, decided to send all-world back Doug DuBose at him. The Boz popped him for a two-yard loss. End of ballgame.

He gets up for the big games, get the picture? Of course, the way he talks, so do opponents, you imagine. When he’s not called the Boz, he’s called Bulletin Board, for the inspiration he gives the opposition.

Switzer has tried to muffle him somewhat in this regard but has mostly given up. “He’s tried to change,� Switzer said understandingly. “But it’s not in him.�

Here’s what he said as a redshirt freshman before his first Texas game two years ago: “I hate Texas, I hate Freddie Akers and I hate that burnt orange color. It reminds me of people’s vomit.� Ah, Brian’s Song.

Do you think Akers might have posted a few bills in the Texas dressing room. Do you think he might have papered the town with the clip?

“Immature,� the Boz admits. And you have to agree, he’s come a long way on this score. Last year before the Texas game it was a simple, “I’d kill to beat Texas.�

Sooners at Texas, Oct. 11: Whatever you do, buy a newspaper, see how far the Boz has come this year.

As it turns out, it might be your last chance because, although he’s a junior in eligibility, this may be Bosworth’s last college season. He’s that rarity, a football player who not only will graduate but may graduate on time.

See, for all his primitive charm, there is a working brain in that stone-age skull. It might be his final put-on, but the Boz is actually a B-plus student in management information systems, a curriculum somewhat elevated above physical education. You look at him, you talk to him, you say: “The only room this boy visits on campus is the weight room.� Not quite.

Lest this news stunt his image as the terminator, he quickly adds: “I hate going to class.� He hates it so much that he is enrolled in 18 hours--15 is considered a full load--during the football season and expects to graduate this spring.

But don’t tell anybody. Somebody might get the wrong idea, think he’s smart or human or something. The wizard of Boz. Can’t have it.

Presumably he’ll graduate into the NFL draft, where he can make his violent bravado available to the Raiders, his dream team. He can just see himself wearing that skull and crossbones, duking it out with whomever’s at hand. But in the meantime, he’ll be gracing football fields, perhaps some near you, with his rambunctious violence, baying at the midday sun from the sidelines, ripping helmets off players between the sidelines and terrifying civilians off the football field with his high-tech glowering. All in good fun, of course.