WSU Armed For The Future -- Freshman Quarterback Drew Bledsoe Hopes To Fire Up Cougar Offense

PULLMAN - Drew Bledsoe should have known he was bound for Washington State University when he watched last year's Apple Cup football game as a guest of the Washington Huskies.

Bledsoe, one of the state's most coveted high-school players in years as a Walla Walla quarterback, sat with other recruits at Husky Stadium when Cougar quarterback Brad Gossen's first pass of the game was returned for a Husky touchdown.

``Everybody in the box was cheering except me,'' he said. ``I guess I could have figured something out from that.''

Bledsoe won't have to hide his allegiances Saturday. In his fifth game since Coach Mike Price made him WSU's starting quarterback,

Bledsoe, 18, will play in his first Apple Cup game against Washington.

Which school Bledsoe's father, Mac, will root for isn't so obvious. The elder Bledsoe was a three-year UW letterman and a Husky co-captain in 1967.

But father, like son, says he hopes for a Cougar upset.

``When it comes to family or school, blood is a lot thicker,'' said Mac, an English and speech teacher at Walla Walla High School. ``I will be wearing my purple-and-gold undershorts, though.''

Drew knows his father is on his side but said, ``There's still the element of my school against his school.''

The Bledsoe name is well known in state politics as well as athletics. The quarterback is the grandson of the late Stu Bledsoe, the respected and popular state legislator from Ellensburg who died of cancer in 1988 at age 65.

Drew has fond memories of sailing and spending time at his grandfather's Olympia home with his brother, Adam, now a seventh-grade quarterback, and his two cousins. ``We'd go over and build models at his house and sail his catamaran,'' Drew said.

After Bledsoe's death, Times columnist Richard W. Larsen wrote: ``Stu Bledsoe was that rare character on the public scene who added a great dash of zest, color and focus to many of the complex, often-gray `big issues' that rolled through an era of Washington politics.''

People are writing nice things about the grandson, too.

On a 3-7 team with more problems than a

Central American government, Bledsoe represents slim hope in the Apple Cup contest and more hope in the future.

``In Drew Bledsoe, the Cougars have the next cover-boy quarterback of the Pac-10, and this kid may well be a Heisman Trophy candidate in the near future,'' wrote a Tucson columnist after Bledsoe passed for 385 yards in a 42-34 loss to Arizona.

The Cougars' quarterback of the present and future might never have become a signal-caller if one of his best friends hadn't moved from Walla Walla in eighth grade.

The year before, Tommy Knecht was the better quarterback and Drew played tight end. But Tommy's father, Gary, the Walla Walla Community College coach, joined the Oregon State staff, and the family moved to Corvallis, Ore.

Today, Tommy is a freshman quarterback redshirting at Stanford. Before the Cougar-Cardinal game, Knecht spent the week imitating Bledsoe for the Stanford defense.

When the Knecht family moved, Drew was switched to quarterback. He started to blossom at the position in the ninth grade.

Throughout his career at Walla Walla High, Drew honed his skills working with his father, the offensive coordinator at the school.

``We were able to discuss a lot of things at home, such as different offenses and (defensive) reads,'' Mac said. ``Things you otherwise wouldn't have that much time to talk to your quarterback about.''

Some parent-as-coach relationships can get uncomfortable, but the Bledsoes enjoyed it.

``On the field, he didn't call me Dad and he didn't call me Mr. Bledsoe,'' Mac said. ``He called me coach.''

As a senior, Drew passed for 2,560 yards (481 in one game) and 24 touchdowns and was intercepted only six times.

The ability to avoid interceptions has continued. His first Pac-10 interception came last week, in his fourth start, after 111 passes. It was thrown on fourth down against Arizona State when there was no sense in keeping the ball or throwing it away.

Overall, he passed for 274 yards and three touchdowns, all to another Cougar freshman, Phillip Bobo, in a 51-26 loss to the Sun Devils.

Bledsoe is 6 feet 5, 220 pounds and somehow looks older than he did five weeks ago when he was named the starter over Gossen and Aaron Garcia. The controversial move by Price sparked some team dissension, but Bledsoe's ability to move the ball - for 911 yards and eight touchdowns - and to get along with older teammates kept a brush fire from turning into a forest fire.

He has earned praise for his arm and toughness.

Paul Glonek, an Arizona defensive lineman said, ``We blitzed him, sacked him and everything else

possible to discourage him. But he hung in there. We put him on his back, and he'd just get back up. He never gave up.''

Off the field, Bledsoe likes the Western novels of Louis L'Amour, the movie Caddyshack, mother Barbara's homemade tacos, and skiing. If magically given the power to do two things, he would like to know how to play a guitar and fly jet airplanes.

What he likes most about football is ``the competition, trying to outsmart the opponent and the focus and intensity.''

What he doesn't like about football is ``how important it is to so many fans. It gets blown out of proportion. It's just a game. We play it because we love it.''

He's playing it pretty well, too.