WSU’S Leaf-Less Era Starts With Win And A Confidence Boost

Since he didn’t dash in front of the grandstands and strike a Heisman pose, it’s official.

Steve Birnbaum is no Ryan Leaf.

Of course, Birnbaum is now 1-0 as the starting quarterback at Washington State. And if memory servies, it took Leaf three outs to break his collegiate maiden.

So you could say that Rayn Leaf was no Steve Birnbaum, either.

Leaf and Birnbaum. Birnbaum and Leaf.

One thing’s for certian. It’s going to take more than just outpointing pitiable Illinois on a heat-stroke Saturday afternoon for Steve Birnbaum to get himself into a sentence he doesn’t have to share with the quarterback who ramrodded Wazzu to the Rose Bowl.

Birnbaum knows it. He knows he is not allowed to tire of it.

Heck, he misses Ryan Leaf, too.

It was Leaf who owned the Sega and, therefore, chaired the entertainment committee in the hotel room they shared on the eve of every football Saturday.

Now Birnbaum bunks before games with his understudy, Paul Mencke.

“I kind of asked Paul, ‘You have Sega?”’ Birnbaum reported. “He said no. So I said, ‘I guess we’ll have to talk football and watch movies instead.’ ” Birnbaum will have to carry the conversation this week. The cameo Cougar coach Mike Price promised Mencke never materialized - which, come to think of it, happened to Birnbaum a time or two.

While it would have been nice to see Mencke stretch his legs, it may have been more important on this day to see Steve Birnbaum go the distance.

He deserved it. He needed it.

The Cougars’ 20-13 victory over the Illini - the “Ill” is not a modifying prefix, although it could be - was equal parts Bataan and Barnum & Bailey, less of a blowout than the oddsmakers figured but perhaps a more emphatic statement than Price allowed himself to imagine.

“This game wasn’t that important nine months ago,” said Price, who was then preoccupied wtih the most important game he’s ever coached, “but the closer we got, the more important it became.”

Think of it this way: Joe Louis couldn’t let himself lose to one of those bums of the month, could he?

Well, obviously the Cougs don’t want - and probably can’t afford to lose to one of the bums of this month.

Now Price has seen his punter and an obscure defensive lineman win him a football game, so to those faiths Price holds dear you can now add serendipity.

And Birnbaum? Well, he found footing on a surprisingly firm middle ground.

If he was not larger than Leaf, he did not live down to the dreads of skeptics.

He threw for 201 yards and while that’s not the most exclusive milestone in Wazzu’s record book, a couple prominent names Drew Bledsoe and Jack Thompson didn’t reach 200 in their first starts (or need to, in all honesty).

Birnbaum stood in strong against the rush, had his patience rewarded on a couple of slower developing routes, threw one or two pretty balls and battled through the inevitable valleys.

He also locked in on his first option a few times and threw too many incompletions that would have been interceptions against better teams.

He was short on polish, but he was short on panic, too.

“I wasn’t throwing up or shaking (before the game) and I really thought I was going to be,” Birnbaum admitted. “My whole body did feel a little shaky. But after the first completion, it was all downhill.”

That first completion was a 6-yard out route to freshman Jason White. Before the first quarter was over, Birnbaum would have his first touchdown pass - another short out to Nian Taylor, whose juke to get by three Illini defenders should make a few highlight shows, or possibly a Stooges anthology.

“It wasn’t particularly a great throw,” Birnbaum said, “but I got him the ball and he did his Nian Taylor thing.”

Alas, his very next pass was an unsightly interception and so it went for most of the afternoon.

Two steps forward, maybe one step back.

“You always want to accomplish more,” he said, “but just getting a win was big enough. Not winning by 40 points doesn’t make us bow our heads.”

In fact, the margin of defeat is the narrowest Illinois has managed in 22 months. The Cougars weren’t shy about offering opportunities for it to be much more, but these Illini - like their predecessors - have neither the tools nor the concept to take advantage.

Steve Birnbaum has some tools and a pretty good concept, to say nothing of an agreeability and earnestness that is something of a departure from the breed recently at WSU.

“A real gentleman,” Price called him. “But he’s a tough guy. I’ve always said that he’s tough.”

Tough enough to weather savage pass rushes and even more savage comparisons to the guy who defined the position before Birnbaum got it.

“I don’t mind the comparisons,” said Birnbaum. “He’s a good friend of mine and I like to see him do well. You know, Drew Bledsoe is never going to be forgotten here, and neither are Rypien and Rosenbach and all those guys. And neither will Ryan.”

Leaf tried reaching Birnbaum earlier in the week and left a message on his answering machine. Birnbaum called back and missed, too.

Luckily, those incompletions don’t count.

“Maybe in the next few games, and hopefully the next couple of seasons,” said Birnbaum, “I can do something to make a name for myself, as well.”

Well, there’s always that Heisman po… nah. It’s been done.