ROSE BOWL : Analysis : First, USC Stopped Byars, Then It Went to Work on the Pass

It was like old times for the USC football team in the Rose Bowl Tuesday.

Whatever their other problems, the Trojans can usually win on New Year’s Day in Pasadena.

This time, they were just good enough to beat Ohio State the only way it probably could have been done.

They had to stop the Buckeyes’ powerful running threat, Keith Byars, and make the Big Ten team pass. Then they had to stop the pass.

In the end they got the job done by three points, 20-17.

Like a boxer with a clever trainer, the Trojans made a good impression on the judges in the early rounds, opening a 17-3 lead with two touchdown passes by quarterback Tim Green before halftime. Next they gave up a few rounds--grudgingly--but finished with enough toughness, courage and skill to get a close decision on points.

The key to Coach Ted Tollner’s successful game plan was containing Byars, a 6-foot 2-inch, 232-pound junior who is already running for the 1985 Heisman Trophy.

He is a strange kind of runner, resembling, in some respects, the Washington Redskins’ John Riggins. Apparently lacking explosiveness or much cutting ability, Byars is an athlete with enormous strength. That strength isn’t typical of a good running back, or at least it wasn’t Tuesday.

It was the strength of a dray horse, or a longshoreman. He could pick up a big load and carry it. But, in this game, not far.

Byars ran 50 yards on his first carry--USC safety Tim McDonald pushed him out of bounds on the USC five-yard line, possibly saving the game right there--and after that the entire Ohio State team, including Byars, showed a net gain of only 63 yards on its last 33 runs.

Briefly, the Trojans disposed of Byars by calling a team meeting on the line of scrimmage every time he tried to run.

It was impossible to estimate his speed. After his first carry, he didn’t move long enough to be clocked, gaining only 59 more yards in 22 more carries.

With their ground game in limbo, the Buckeyes had to throw the ball, which isn’t their style. Although they played catch more artistically than any other Ohio State team ever has in the Rose Bowl, this was still Ohio State.

Tollner’s plan paid off the way he wrote it.

The irony of the 71st Rose Bowl game was that although Tim Green won it for the Trojans with well-thrown scoring passes to tight end Joe Cormier and flanker Timmie Ware--on plays of 3 and 19 yards--the Buckeyes introduced the afternoon’s most gifted receivers.

They are split end Cris Carter and flanker Mike Lanese, two of the best catchers the Big Ten has sent here.

Carter, a 6-3, 184-pound freshman, showed the body control and eye-hand coordination of an NFL receiver along with the willingness to jump in a crowd and take the ball away from everybody.

Ohio State quarterback Mike Tomczak, moreover, has the ability of the better Pac-10 passers. He creamed Green in the statistics.

An Ohio State passer, however, can’t throw 37 times without throwing interceptions. Tomczak threw three of them. Worse, this was a game in which the Buckeyes didn’t have much luck. Penalties and other kinds of misfortune struck them at the most inopportune times. With a break in the breaks, they might have won.

In any case, their freshman linebacker, Chris Spielman, played well enough to win. During one stretch in the second half, he wrecked every USC play for nearly 10 minutes.

Thus the Buckeyes are heading into 1985 with at least three possible All-Americans--Byars, Spielman and Carter.

As for the Trojans, their offense showed more in the first half than the second. By reputation, Green is erratic, but against Ohio State he did the things good college quarterbacks do, throwing effectively, for example, when he had to throw off the wrong foot, or with Buckeyes climbing on him.

The strengths of the Trojans are their offensive line, which is an NFL-type line, and their linebackers, including Jack Del Rio and Duane Bickett. Then there is McDonald, the strong safety who in this game came up with three plays that influenced the result.

And what is one to make of Big Ten teams now? They lost the Holiday Bowl, in which BYU beat Michigan; the Cherry Bowl, in which Army beat Michigan State; the Hall of Fame Bowl, in which Kentucky beat Wisconsin; the Peach Bowl, in which Virginia beat Purdue, and now the Rose Bowl. Iowa was the only Big Ten bowl winner, whipping Texas in the Freedom Bowl, 55-17.

The Pac-10 and the Southeastern Conference have emerged as the toughest leagues in college football.