THE RIVALRY: Saturday at the Coliseum, 12:30 p.m. : Shootout Was Better Than OK : Maddox Did Everything He Could but Came Up Three Points Short

Homer Smith sat in the gloom of the near-empty UCLA locker room after an agonizing 45-42 loss to USC five years ago when a statistician informed the Bruin offensive coordinator that Tommy Maddox had set a UCLA single-game passing record with 409 yards.

“I remember being with [Coach] Terry [Donahue] and thinking how meaningless that record seemed at the time while we were sitting there in that misery,” Smith said from Alabama, where he is now the Crimson Tide’s offensive coordinator. “The pain was enormous.”

Bigger now, however, is the memory of Maddox, Smith said.

The former first-round draft pick of the Denver Broncos can be seen carrying a clipboard on the sidelines for the New York Giants. But for Smith and UCLA fans, Maddox is captured in the mind’s eye as a slender 19-year-old redshirt freshman from Texas, slinging passes all over the Rose Bowl field, leaving his mark on the highest-scoring shootout in the cross-town series’ 64-game history.

“The disappointment of losing has worn off now,” Smith said. “What dominates now is Tommy Maddox. A picture of the ball in the air and him flying around the field.”

And he wasn’t even the hero of the game. That honor went to USC’s Todd Marinovich, a left-handed sophomore who threw the game-winning touchdown pass in the closing seconds. With little more on the line than city bragging rights--UCLA was a .500 team, USC was 7-2-1 and Washington already had clinched the Rose Bowl berth--Maddox and Marinovich proved why they were rated among the country’s top young quarterbacks.

A national television audience and 98,088 at the Rose Bowl saw the teams combine for 42 points in the fourth quarter. The lead changed hands six times, four times in the final period.

Colorado Coach Rick Neuheisel, a UCLA assistant in 1990, called the game a classic, and Jim Bonds, who lost his starting job to Maddox earlier that season, said even from the sideline that it was exhilarating.

“If both teams were going for the Rose Bowl [berth], that would have been the greatest game of all time,” he said.

At the center of it stood Maddox, the most influential player in the game--for both sides.

While setting UCLA passing and total yardage records (445), he accounted for all but 34 of UCLA’s offense. He completed 26 of 40 passes, including three for touchdowns, and also ran for a score.

But he also threw two interceptions that USC returned for touchdowns, and his other interception came at the USC three-yard line, thwarting a Bruin scoring drive before halftime. His fumble at the UCLA 29 led to a first-half Trojan touchdown.

“His stamp was all over that game,” Neuheisel said.

The game’s basketball pace was ideally suited for Maddox, a former sharpshooting guard on his high school team. He took nearly every snap from the shotgun formation that featured three wide receivers--Sean LaChapelle, Scott Miller and Reggie Moore.

With those receivers and Maddox’s right arm, Smith figured a wide-open attack was the team’s best approach. But there was another reason for getting Maddox out from under center.

“He looked so bad dropping back,” Smith said. “He had no experience in high school as a drop-back passer so we just decided to put him back there.”

Maddox started the game in the shotgun and promptly helped set a USC-UCLA game record: fastest touchdown. On the second play from scrimmage, he floated a pass to his left that defensive back Stephon Pace intercepted and returned 27 yards for a touchdown. Only 52 seconds into the game, UCLA trailed, 6-0.

The teams traded scores through the first three quarters with USC taking a 24-21 lead into the final period. Still, with 15 minutes left, the game was only heating up.

Maddox started the final quarter as he started the game--giving away a touchdown. Pace tipped a Maddox pass to Moore, who juggled the ball into the hands of USC defensive back Jason Oliver, who ran 34 yards down the sideline for a touchdown. USC led, 31-21, but Maddox recovered quickly.

“In the heat of battle, you can’t worry about it,” he said. “I wanted the ball back and the great thing was I knew I was going to get the ball back.”

He knew exactly what to do with it. Four plays after the interception, he threw to Miller for a 29-yard touchdown pass to cut the deficit to 31-28. The Bruins barely had time to celebrate when defensive back Dion Lambert recovered Scott Lockwood’s fumble at the USC 38.

On the next play, Maddox again found Miller, who made a juggling catch in the end zone. With two scoring passes in about 90 seconds, UCLA led for the first time since the first quarter.

Six minutes later, Marinovich’s 21-yard scoring pass to Johnnie Morton gave USC a 38-35 lead that lasted only a little longer than it took Maddox to return to the field. When Kevin Smith scored on a one-yard run with 1:19 left, UCLA thought it had a 42-38 victory, but Marinovich led a last drive and found Morton on a 23-yard scoring pass with 16 seconds left.

Maddox got the ball back one last time. But with 11 seconds left, not even his hand was hot enough to burn the Trojans.

While the stadium emptied, Maddox lingered on the field as though he were hoping for a little more time.

“I was crushed,” he said. “I wanted another shot.”

Fans looking forward to future battles between the two quarterbacks also were disappointed. Marinovich was drafted by the Raiders that spring, and Maddox, after passing for 5,363 yards in two seasons, was picked by the Broncos the year after.

For Maddox, fans keep the 1990 USC game fresh in his mind. Even though he calls his UCLA career highlight the previous week’s game in which the Bruins upset second-ranked Washington in Seattle, 25-22, everyone asks him about the Trojan war.

“That’s the game that everyone associates me with,” he said. “Everywhere I go, that’s the first thing people say to me.”

Maddox has only one objection. “I wish I could have found a way to win that game,” he said.

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How They Fared

TOMMY MADDOX

* 26 of 40 passing, 409 yards, 3 TDs

* Key plays: Two fourth-quarter touchdown passes and 75-yard scoring drive to give Bruins lead with 1:19 remaining.