The Jackson Sun from Jackson, Tennessee • 25

Saturday, Jan. 18, 1997 COLLEGEPRO FOOTBALL The Jackson SunPage 5C mil ps fiidw to Scouts to get last look at Wuerffel Coaches say quarterbacks still need grooming before they can make an impact in the NFL The Associated Press MOBILE, Ala. Washington Redskins coach Norv Turner was asked which of the four quarterbacks practicing for today's Senior Bowl would be ready to step in and play for an NFL team next year. "None of them," he said. Turner insisted he was just being realistic, not rude.

And he's not getting a lot of argument from Virginia Tech's Jim Druck-enmiller, Cal's Pat Barnes, Louisiana Tech's Jason Martin or Arizona State's Jake Plummer. All four QBs stayed in college as seniors, hoping an extra season would better prepare them for the next level. Still, they know that if they go high in the draft, there's a good chance they'll be asked to perform right away and that it might not be pretty. "That's not the way anyone wants it," said Druckenmiller, the Virginia Tech quarterback who threw for 2,071 yards and 17 touchdowns in leading the Hok-ies to the Orange Bowl. "Nobody wants to go to the pros knowing he's going to look bad.

But you'd rather have the chance than not." With the days of the salary cap and free agency firmly in place, the practice of grooming a high-profile, high-salary quarterback for a few seasons on the sidelines are all but over. It gives coaches who need a new quarterback two choices. The safe one is to sign an experienced free agent More risky is to look to the draft and plan on playing a rookie, knowing the-whole team will take some lumps while he develops. Kansas City coach Marty Schottenheimer, who will lead the South squad, said in all his" years of coaching, he's only seen ship, completing 225 of 394 passes for 3,931 yards and 42 touchdowns. For his career, he is the NCAA career leader in passing efficiency and is among the top four all-time in touchdown passes, touchdown to interception ratio and yards per completion.

One person who doesn't need to be reminded about Wuerffel is Bowden. Bowden tried to recruit Wuerffel out of high school for Florida State. He chose rival Florida instead. Bowden watched Wuerffel throw for three touchdowns and run for one TD as the Gators beat the Seminoles, 52-20, in the Sugar Bowl and take the No. 1 ranking away from Florida State.

Finally, Bowden gets a chance to coach the player who got away. "I'm just glad Danny is finally on my side," Bowden said. "We wanted him, but he decided on Florida. I can remember very well sitting in Danny's home and talking with his dad." Bowden, for one, thinks Wuerffel can find a place in the NFL. "Danny uses his head well," Bowden said.

"He can take three steps and make a decision boom just like that. And he's usually right on the money." While Wuerffel awaits his shot at the pros, he'll walk away from the game if it doesn't pan out. "Football is only one part of my life. Granted, it's the one everyone sees, but it doesn't come first," said Wuerffel, the son of a pastor. "I spend more time working on my relationship with God than I do football.

If I have to leave football behind, then I will." The Associated Press HONOLULU Can the king of college football Saturdays make it on Sunday? Florida quarterback Danny Weurffel was the best during the 1996 season. His final collegiate game Sunday in the Hula Bowl will give pro scouts another chance to see if he can make it in the NFL. They won't see much, however. Wuerffel won't play more than a few snaps for the South team because of a sore right shoulder. South coach Bobby Bowden said Wuerffel will start the game at Aloha Stadium.

"I imagine we won't know to what extent Danny will be able to play until pregame," Bowden said. The Heisman Trophy winner and scholar-athlete of the year will go as far as he can. "I want to play. I didn't know how much until I got out here at practice," Wuerffel said. "I thought about throwing left-handed just to see how I would do.

But I have to be careful. I don't want to do any damage." While some pro observers say Wuerffel is not a top prospect because his arm strength is suspect, others praise his intelligence and feel for the game. Wuerffel will be closely watched at next month's scouting combine. "I'm glad to have the opportunity to go to the combine," Wuerffel said. "Other than that, I can't control what people say." What no one can question is that Wuerffel's 1996 season was one of the best in the history of college football.

Wuerffel led Florida (12-1) to the national champion The Associated Press North squad quarterback Jim Druckenmiller of Virginia Tech loosens up at practice Friday in Moblie, before today's Senior Bowl. ON TV The Senior Bowl in Mobile, can be seen at 1 p.m. today on TBS. you can't discount Plummer, who has started for the Sun Devils since his freshman year and has a knack for the big play. If anyone knows about the unpredictability of young quarterbacks, it would be Turner, who will lead the North team Saturday.

Everyone thought Tennessee's Heath Shuler would turn the Redskins around after being picked third in the 1994 draft. He sat the bench this season after Gus Frerotte, the 197th choice in the same draft, won the starting job in the preseason. "You either have the instinct to do it or you don't," said Martin of Louisiana Tech, probably a mid-round pick like Frerotte. "But it's not something that should scare you. Dan Marino did it.

It's just a matter of getting in somewhere and understanding." And adapting. Schottenheimer said even a week of practice with the best players in college isn't enough to prepare this week's quarterbacks' for the changes they'll see in the NFL. "The entire game is played much faster," he said. "It's evident in the coverages. The secondary is much closer to the receivers.

"Then there's an experience factor. It's difficult to give a young guy a better understanding of what he'll see in the NFL unless you put him in the game. But you've got to be ready for him to suffer through it." one quarterback who was able to produce a prolific first season in the NFL. "That was Dan Marino," Schottenheimer said. "He had talent, the ability to adjust and a great group of people around him.

But he was an exception." On paper, Druckenmiller would seem to have the best chance of making a quick impact in the NFL. He's 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds. He loves to lift weights and has the kind of arm that makes pro scouts drool. But Favre sharpens wit for homecoming Packers' fans adding names to 'The List' I tZ. i Green Bay's quarterback ready to kick up his heels in New Orleans before the Super Bowl.

The Associated Press GREEN BAY, Wis. Brett Favre is ready to take New Orleans by storm just as his backup, Jim McMahon, did 11 years ago. The Green Bay Packers quarterback will, however, do it with words and not actions. McMahon was the starter for Chicago in the 1986 Super Bowl, when he turned the Big Easy into his personal playground, mooning a helicopter, wearing banned headbands, parading down Bourbon Street at all hours and finally leading his team to a 46-10 rout of the New England Patriots. Don't expect Favre, the two-time NFL MVP who has overcome a year of turmoil on and off the field, to tear up the French Quarter in the days and nights leading up to the Super Bowl against New England on Jan.

26. Favre's NFL-imposed alcohol ban, part of his drug aftercare for his addiction to painkillers, will prevent that. But the teetotaler won't be abstaining from all the fun. "We're going to go out and have fun," said tight end Mark Chmura, one of Favre's best friends. "But we know where to draw the line." Favre is going home to the Louisiana Superdome, a mere hour's drive from his hometown of Kiln, "going the speed limit, of course." Favre, Green Bay's quickwitted prankster, is really enjoying all the fuss over the Packers' first Super Bowl trip in 29 seasons.

He was in rare form this week, wowing all with his wit in a tuneup for New Orleans. Asked what advice McMahon had given him, Favre said: "He's kind of filled me in on how to moon a helicopter, how to talk about the women down there. I know exactly what not to do, talking to him." Will the Packers be on their best behavior? "We'll go down and act just like every other hoodlum down The Associated Press Brett Favre autographs teammate Eugene Robinson's helmet Friday after practice. next to his Packers helmet. Then, his number was 12,934.

"Maybe by the time he's 30, he will have four tickets," Sue Adriansen said. "Then, he will take his mom and dad." At the current rate, if no other names were added, it would take 6,000 years to empty the list But there is some wiggle room for more optimism. About 150 names came off the list last year for a variety of reasons, said Carol Edwin, the Packers assistant ticket director. Some people told the team the $238 seven-game cost for the most expensive sideline seat in Lambeau Field was too pricey. "I can remember when we were losing, it was nothing to take 500 names off the waiting list," Edwin said.

There are no immediate plans to add more seating at capacity Lambeau Field, a stadium erected in 1957. The Packers predict it will be the team's home for 50 more years. Some families can trace their season tickets back to 1935 a testament to the extreme loyalty fans in this city of 100,000 give to the team, owned under a unique arrangement by 1,915 shareholders, none with majority control. Ten years ago, in the middle of losing seasons, the general waiting list for season tickets had 8,000 names, Edwin said. Two years ago, it swelled to 18,000, and at last count had skyrocketed 29,685 not including the stack of letters waiting to be processed.

"We do get a lot of letters from grandparents who say, 'I want to have my grandchildren on the Edwin said. "It's getting to be a prestigious thing to say they are on this long waiting list" At least two families have requested that an unborn baby be added, sort of like reserving a slot, she said. The team did, using a fictitious name like "Baby Scott" until a real name could be penciled in. The Associated Press GREEN BAY, Wis. In NFL lore, "The Drive" is the thrilling comeback John Elway engineered in leading Denver to a dramatic playoff victory over Cleveland in 1986.

Pittsburgh has its "Immaculate Reception," Franco Harris' miraculous touchdown off a deflected pass in the 1972 playoffs against Oakland. In Green Bay, folks call it simply "The List" a ranking of nearly 30,000 rabid Packers fans, some of them babies, some yet to be born, wanting to buy season tickets. Just the five top names got tickets last year as only 16 became available in this football-crazed city. Packers ticket administrators guarantee some people languishing at the bottom of the list can't possibly live long enough to get tickets. Still, the list, already containing people who have been on it 30 years, grows daily.

Kathy Kohlbeck's letter adding her 8-month-old son, Luke, arrived at Packers' ticket offices Friday, joining a stack of about 600 others in recent days. "We are hoping by the time he is 30, if he isn't playing for the Packers, he will at least be able to go to Lam-beau Field and experience the excitement first-hand," the Sheboygan, mother said in a telephone interview. For 5-year-old Michael Ad-riansen of Green Bay, his name is No. 11,458 thanks to a present his godfather gave him when he was 2. The godfather, Rob Coleman of Green Bay, got on the list when he was in high school in 1975.

He's up to No. 1,640. "I figure my first Social Security check will be made out to the Packers, hopefully," Coleman said. The March 1993 letter Michael received from the Packers verifying his addition to the list sits framed on his bedroom dresser, right of ticket and travel arrange- ments: "Guys are worrying about their wives. How do they get them down there? How do they not get them down there?" On how nervous he expects to be at kickoff: "I'll probably throw up before this game." On how that excitement might affect his game: "I may throw one up on the third deck the first play." On his 5-0 mark in the Superdome, including two victories in college and three in the pros: "But we're not playing the Saints or Tulane." Favre said he couldn't wait to get to New Orleans, where his stage will be bigger than ever.

"I'm packed and ready, man," he said. "I was packing and my wife said, 'Would you just chill It's like 1.000 below zero outside and I call back home today and ask what's the temperature and my mom says it's pretty cold outside, 58. I'm like, 'It's 58 below "I'm coming off that plane in sandals. T-shirt, hat backward. Really, I'm excited." On resentment early in his career over the $42 million contract Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe signed in 1993: "I'm still playing for less money than he's playing for.

It's not fair; where's (general manager) Ron Wolf?" Regarding negotiations between the Packers and his agent, James "Bus" Cook, who is seeking a contract extension that would pay Favre about $7.5 million annually: "With every win, Bus goes up more money. And I tell Bus, 'C'mon, Bus, let's be realistic. They're not going to pay us $150 million for three On whether it would bother him if a deal isn't reached before the Super Bowl: "I won't be out at 4 o'clock on Bourbon Street crying about it." BOn how different the Super Bowl is from his college days, when he guided Southern Mississippi to the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, "Nobody cared; I couldn't give away tickets. The Poulan-WeedEater Independence Bowl? Shreveport?" On the players taking care NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA SUPERDOME there," Favre joked. "Of course, I won't.

I'll be in my room, studying my playbook." Favre had a one-liner for just about everything asked of him this week: Recalling his trade from Atlanta to Green Bay in 1992: "I remember I was eating crawfish and drinking a cold beer. God, the good ol' days." Commenting on how the Packers live with the constant reminders of the glory years of Vince Lombardi: "I don't think any guy on our team feels he's playing against a ghost or with a ghost or seeing ghosts.".