Booming Sooner

The squat, muscular ball carrier atop the Heisman Trophy conveys the very essence of the purposeful, straight-ahead backfield powerhouse. As a rule, however, the award that designates the country's best college football player goes to a man of flashier stripe--the fancy-Dan quarterback, the breakaway halfback. Not this year. In Tailback Steve Owens of Oklahoma, the Heisman electors tapped a man little given to subtlety afield. "Oh, he can fake people," says one of his coaches, "but more often he just splatters 'em."

Splattering people on the football field has meant shattering records, and keeping track of Owens' statistics would challenge a computer. Going into the final game of his three-year career last week, he had carried the ball more times (850) for more yards (3,606), more touchdowns (54) and more points (324) than anyone before him in the history of major-college football. He also had a string of 17 straight games in which he gained at least 100 yds. against defenses invariably keying on him.

Owens gets the ball deep in the backfield, and the idea, he says, "is to get to the line quick. You go pitter-patter-in' up there and they'll be waiting for you with a smile. Then pow! And the lights go out." They rarely go out for Owens, even though he operates in heavy traffic--from tackle to tackle. There have been times, however, when his savage, slashing style--quick start, high knee action, body leaning forward --proved embarrassing. More than once, he has burst through into the secondary, only to have his own momentum carry him helplessly forward and pitch him head first and untouched onto the turf. "It was humiliating," he says. "Just imagine shaking loose with all that grass in front of you and then falling down. Some of the guys kidded me about it. 'Show Owens daylight,' they said, 'and he doesn't know what to do with it.' "

He does now. Says Iowa State Coach Johnny Majors (against whose Cyclones Owens rolled up 248 yds. and four TDs): "Owens keeps everyone honest. When he just pounds and pounds that middle, he opens them up for the outside game and the passing game."

No Preference. Owens grew up in Miami, a dust-blown town in northeastern Oklahoma, and he always wanted to play for the Sooners. He was six years old in 1953, when Oklahoma started its 47-game winning streak; he was ten when Notre Dame snapped it. "I can't think of anything that brought as much glory to the state as those teams did," he says. "Everybody followed them. When I was working at Hub's Bootery on Main Street, we didn't sell many shoes between noon and 4 on Saturdays."

Dedicated, disciplined, durable, Owens is the kind of runner professional coaches dream about. And in an age when many highly touted rookies turn up at contract negotiations with some high-flying salary demands, he sounds like the answer to a general manager's prayer. "I have no preference," says Owens. "I'll be happy with any team that happens to get me."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.