RAISING CADE

Cade McNown was struggling.

And frustrated.

And the more he struggled, the more frustrated he became.

The scene was the Coliseum. The year was 1995. The event was the UCLA-USC game.

For McNown, who spent much of his youth in Oregon, it was his first exposure to the biggest annual date on the Bruins’ football calendar and the freshman quarterback seemed out of sync.

Finally, Bob Toledo, then UCLA’s offensive coordinator, called McNown over on the sideline to talk about the quarterback’s troubles. Terry Donahue, then the head coach, listened but kept quiet.

Suddenly, with Toledo in mid-sentence, McNown reached over, grabbed Donahue by the shoulders and started banging his helmet against Donahue’s forehead while yelling, “I can do this! I can do this!”

Donahue, making allowances for youthful exuberance, calmed his 18-year-old quarterback, allowed him to stay in the game and McNown led the Bruins to a 24-20 victory.

Three years later, with Donahue in the CBS broadcast booth and Toledo the head coach, McNown is still at it, leading the Bruins into today’s Rose Bowl against Wisconsin to cap one of their most successful seasons.

But despite having etched his name into the UCLA record book in nearly every significant passing category, McNown is right back where he was on that Coliseum sideline three years ago, needing to prove himself again.

Except this time, he might have to grab the entire NFL by its shoulders and start banging foreheads.

Come springtime, McNown knows he will be picked in the NFL draft.

He also knows that at least four other quarterbacks could go higher. According to many NFL scouts, the best McNown can hope for is a low first-round or a second-round slot despite his third-place finish in the Heisman Trophy balloting.

What’s the problem? Oh, nothing other than:

* His height.

* His speed.

* His arm.

Unfair? Donahue certainly thinks so.

“Some guys can just play football,” Donahue said. “He [McNown] can just play football. He’s got game, as they say. He’s going to have to go through the normal transition to the pros, but he’s blessed with talent and the intangibles needed for success. He can play on my team any time.”

Pro scouts, coaches and general managers, however, can be extremely conservative. They punch into their computers the height and weight and 40-yard dash speed and arm strength of quarterbacks and match them up. It’s not so easy, though, to punch in character and toughness and field vision and heart.

But the message does get through, according to Billy Devaney, director of player personnel for the San Diego Chargers.

“When you look at tapes,” Devaney said, “it doesn’t say what a player’s height and weight are. But what jumps out of the tape is if a player is making the plays. The tape doesn’t lie.”

McNown is listed at 6-1 1/2 and 209 pounds. In the draft, he’ll be compared to Daunte Culpepper of Central Florida (6-5, 250), Donovan McNabb of Syracuse (6-3, 220), Akili Smith of Oregon (6-3, 215) and, if he comes out, junior Tim Couch (6-5, 223) of Kentucky.

With the defensive linemen getting bigger all the time, coaches like to know that their quarterbacks can see more than the tops of the helmets of those charging in their direction.

“It’s not like I’m 5-6,” McNown said. “There are other quarterbacks that are bigger, but it shouldn’t be an issue.”

No argument from Donahue.

“He knows where guys are supposed to be,” Donahue said, “and he knows how to get them the ball. That won’t change if you are 6-4 or 6 foot. You look at a shorter guy like Doug Flutie [5-10] and a taller guy like Troy Aikman [6-4]. They both get it done, just different ways.

“I think the guy [McNown] can play at any level of football. I watched what he did in high school when I was recruiting him. I watched what he did in college. And I’m looking forward to watching what he will do in the pros.”

McNown is often compared to Jake Plummer, the former Arizona State star now with the Arizona Cardinals. Plummer has more speed, but McNown has compensated by developing a wider vision of the field, enabling him to stay out of harm’s way as he searches for a friendly pair of open arms.

“I think he can be a Steve Young kind of guy,” Toledo said, “even though he does not have Steve’s speed. But he moves with the pocket and he has great vision. He’s hitting the fifth option now. Finding the first, second and third guy can be tough enough, but he’s now seeing the fourth and fifth guy.”

As for McNown’s arm, nobody expects him to throw bone-rattling spirals like John Elway and Brett Favre. But then pro scouts once turned up their noses at the arm of a third-round draft choice named Joe Montana.

Ask Alan Borges, the Bruins’ offensive coordinator, about whether McNown’s arm is good enough for the pros and then stand back while Borges relates in great detail one of McNown’s five touchdown passes against Miami in UCLA’s last game, the pass he rifled into the end zone while falling out of bounds with a Hurricane defender in hot pursuit.

“It was incredible, amazing, unbelievable,” Borges said, “to make a throw like that with a guy nibbling at your back. He uses his athleticism. Steve Young and Mark Brunell use their athleticism as well as their arm.

“There are not enough great quarterbacks out there. They’ve got to give [McNown] an opportunity.”

The problem, according to Toledo, is a pro attitude.

“I think the NFL people sometimes look too closely,” he said, “and find too many negatives and not enough positives. They don’t look at the heart.”

McNown figures to get his opportunity with a team that runs some form of the West Coast offense, a team looking for a quarterback who can scramble and throw a lot of medium- to short-range passes to a variety of receivers.

“Guys that have a cannon for an arm, those kinds of guys come along once in a lifetime,” Devaney said. “The way the game is now, it’s better suited to guys like McNown and Plummer, guys who can run around and make plays. You wouldn’t expect to see McNown in a vertical passing game. But more and more, they are getting away from that.

“McNown seems to thrive under pressure. The intangibles are there. But from what I understand, the guy eats, sleeps and dreams football. He’s a tireless worker, so it’s not surprising.”

McNown also has two other qualities valued by the pros--confidence and toughness.

“He’s got that swagger everybody’s looking for,” Devaney said.

As for toughness, people around the UCLA program still remember McNown’s second game in his freshman season, which came against Brigham Young. On a double reverse, McNown, enthusiastically leading interference, took on opposing middle linebacker Shay Muirbrook, springing Derek Ayers loose for a 30-yard touchdown run.

McNown has since learned to save his body. He doesn’t even bang heads with his head coach anymore.

But he figures he’s still tough enough for the pros.

“I can play,” he said. “There’s not a whole lot I haven’t seen.”