Fresh Starts

The story of head coaches lying to superiors as part of rip-roaring scandals once made for screaming headlines at each of the two schools squaring off Saturday at the Rose Bowl.

UCLA fired basketball coach Jim Harrick, of course, for his infamous expense-report doctoring.

Alabama, in a forgiving twist, gave football Coach Mike DuBose a second chance.

They don’t award a “Comeback Coach of the Year” in college football, but no man ever crawled from a deeper hole than the Mariana Trench-like depression DuBose emerged from last year in Tuscaloosa.

DuBose’s 11-12 record his first two seasons were grounds enough for dismissal; a school doesn’t win seven national titles since 1936 to become referred to as Tuscaloser.

It got worse. DuBose’s future appeared doomed in the summer of ’99 when he confessed to paying his former secretary $350,000 to settle a sexual harassment suit in the wake of an extramarital affair.

DuBose earlier had denied the charges as having “absolutely no truth or factual basis.”

It got worse.

On Sept. 18, Alabama suffered a shocking home loss to Louisiana Tech. The athletic director received the ax in the aftermath and fans all but prepared DuBose’s head for the chopping block.

But then came the astonishing turnaround.

Two weeks later, Alabama stunned Florida at the Swamp, ending the Gators’ 30-game home winning streak. The victory inspired a 10-3 finish and the Crimson Tide’s first Southeastern Conference title since 1992.

Alabama enters Saturday’s game against UCLA ranked No. 3 in the Associated Press’ preseason poll, the school’s highest poll perch in seven years.

A year after nearly being deposed, DuBose has his team on the brink of a national title run.

The excitement is such that the school returned 10,000 season-ticket requests in August.

DuBose, a star defensive lineman on Bear Bryant’s 1973 national title team, knows how close he came to losing it all.

He rehabilitated himself, patched up his marriage, sought spiritual guidance and, almost as important, landed another top-five recruiting class.

“On paper, you can say ‘Bama is back,” DuBose said in a phone interview from his Tuscaloosa office. “But we won’t know whether we’re back until the season is over. And to stay back, we have to keep the program at that level.”

DuBose doesn’t like rehashing the dark days that almost led to his dismissal, though he says he was never worried, “strange as that sounds.”

“‘I understood all the unhappiness, and the problems I created, and the fact that I lost a game we shouldn’t have,” he said, “but because of where my faith was at that particular time, I knew there was a greater plan for me.”

Few men have better understood the lifeblood that is Alabama football. DuBose is the first home-grown coach to lead the Crimson Tide in the modern era, and is the only man other than Bryant to have been a player, assistant and head coach at the school.

DuBose is well-versed in Alabama’s Rose Bowl history too, although he makes clear he was not a roster member during the Crimson Tide’s last visit to Pasadena, a 34-14 victory over USC in the Rose Bowl after the 1945 season.

“So much of our history, legacy and tradition is tied to the Rose Bowl,” DuBose said. “The majority of us have only read or heard about it.”

Alabama went 4-1-1 in six Rose Bowls from 1926 to 1946, losing only the 1938 Granddaddy to California.

Saturday’s game is a critical first step for DuBose’s team, loaded with talent but needing to overcome the loss of two first-round NFL picks on offense: tailback Shaun Alexander and tackle Chris Samuels.

Funny how things change. Two years ago, Alabama was 4-7 and UCLA was a national title contender.

“There is an awful lot of excitement,” DuBose said of expectations, “but playing UCLA is the defining part of it. We were 4-7, the players know the difference a few plays can make here or there.”

LOW TECH

Imagine, two years ago, if UCLA had elected not to play Miami in a December rematch after the Sept. 26 game was postponed because of Hurricane Georges.

The national media would have torn West Coast UCLA to shreds and the Bruins, just maybe, would have won the national championship.

Remember? Had UCLA not played Miami, the Bruins would have ended up playing Tennessee in the Fiesta Bowl for the national title.

Yet, UCLA had a moral obligation to play the game and did the right thing, even in the wake of a crushing 49-45 loss.

So where is the hue and cry against Georgia Tech, which on Wednesday officially backed out of a proposed Dec. 1 makeup game against Virginia Tech?

Sunday’s game between the schools was postponed because of lightning.

The Yellow Jackets say they only scheduled the preseason game to help break in a new quarterback, George Godsey.

They are worried that if their team is 6-5 at the end of the season, a December game could cost them a bowl berth.

There are differences, yes, between then and now. UCLA vs. Miami was part of each school’s 11-game schedule. Virginia Tech-Georgia Tech was a 12th, additional game.

Still, the outcome would have counted as an official win or loss for both schools.

Virginia Tech has taken the high road; it wants to play Georgia Tech. At least, Georgia Tech officials should wait to see whether the game will have an impact on Virginia Tech and the national title race.

Why should Georgia Tech play?

Because it signed a contract saying it would.

MORE TECH

Not making up the game could also affect Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick’s chances of winning the Heisman Trophy.

Vick was primed to unleash his skills Sunday to a national cable audience.

“It was a big letdown, a big disappointment,” Vick said Monday in Blacksburg, Va. “All the preparation after an eight-month layoff, the preseason camp, all the Georgia Tech film study, countless hours in the film room. All that’s gone to waste, thrown aside.”

THE KENTUCKY KID

Mumme is not the word in Lexington, Ky., where people are talking nonstop about Kentucky redshirt quarterback Jared Lorenzen, who is getting rave reviews despite not having thrown his first pass in a Division I-A game.

Lorenzen, who stands like a Douglas fir in the pocket at 6 feet 4 and 275 pounds, was so impressive in the spring Coach Hal Mumme named him the starter over last year’s starter, Dusty Bonner, who promptly transferred to Valdosta State.

Lorenzen is already drawing comparisons to Tim Couch, the former Kentucky All-American and maybe the best college quarterback of the 1990s.

“I think that even Tim will tell you that Jared’s arm is stronger than his,” Mumme says. “Jared is able to do what other quarterbacks can’t.”

Lorenzen said he was more than surprised when Mumme named him the starter over Bonner.

“I was speechless,” Lorenzen says. “Happy, very happy, but still speechless. All I could do was say ‘thank you.’ ”

Linebacker Marlon McCree says of Lorenzen, “He’s got great arm strength and he has the potential to be better than Tim Couch.”

We’ll find out soon enough.

Lorenzen makes his debut Saturday at Louisville, which pinned a 56-28 loss on Kentucky last year in Lexington.

HURRY-UP OFFENSE

* Stanford is noted as an athletic institution of higher learning, is it not?

Well, your not going to believe this.

Check out the picture on Page 52 that accompanies a story on Stanford Coach Tyrone Willingham in the Aug. 21 edition of Sports Illustrated.

Willingham is pictured lecturing his players in the locker room. On the blackboard behind him someone has scribbled in chalk an inspirational message that states: “UCLA Your Next.”

The scholars over at Cal could tell you the bulletin-board statement should have read “UCLA, You’re Next.”

* Texas Christian plans to spend $90,000 to market tailback LaDainian Tomlinson’s run for the Heisman Trophy, roughly $88,000 more than Wisconsin spent last year on winner Ron Dayne.

To get out the vote, TCU has enlisted the help of Dan Jenkins, one of the school’s most famous alums.

Jenkins, the noted sportswriter and novelist, recently mailed a letter to national media writers to tout Tomlinson.

Jenkins: “LaDainian is the real deal, folks, a coach’s dream, and I’ve been watching great running backs from Doak Walker to Ricky Williams. LT can sidestep a gnat, outrun a pickup truck and bench-press two of his offensive linemen.”

If Tomlinson runs as well as Mr. Jenkins writes, he’s a Heisman shoo-in.

* Sportswriters who tabbed Washington to win the Pacific 10 Conference last month may want a recall vote.

The season-ending left knee injury to receiver Chris Juergens has left the Huskies’ receiving corps in shambles. Juergens had 42 catches for 516 yards last season.

Washington is already without speedster Ja’Warren Hooker, likely to miss the season because he is competing in the Olympics as a member of the U.S. 400-meter relay team.

The Huskies’ top returning receiver is now junior Todd Elstrom, who last year had 11 catches for 234 yards.