Max Hall is growing up fast

PASADENA, Calif., — Max Hall walked out of the tunnel onto the Rose Bowl turf after fielding a barrage of questions from reporters. He admitted he took some shots and was beginning to feel it, especially a bruise on his hip that was sure to bother him after No. 13 UCLA beat BYU 27-17 Saturday.

But he didn't back away from UCLA blitzers who sacked him four times, telling them, "Better come harder than that if you are going to knock me out."

Hall had nothing to be ashamed of Saturday. The kid's growing up fast.

It's time for the smattering of BYU fans who remain bitter about Ben Olson's post-LDS mission decision to transfer from Provo to Westwood to just let it go. Release it and get on with life.

BYU has a quarterback and he ain't too shabby.

After Olson left Provo in January of 2003, the Cougars had John Beck, a 10,000-yard passer, two-time MWC offensive MVP and the second-round draft pick of the Miami Dolphins. Now, they've got Hall.

It may be totally unfair to compare the performances of Hall and Olson on Saturday because they play in two different systems, went up against different defenses and play were required to pack different loads.

But if you compare the loads they carried, Hall was the pack mule while Olson was carting home accessories from the mall. Aside from the outcome, Hall had the better day in his second start than Olson had in his sixth.

"Ben had the stat I really wanted," said Hall. "He had the win."

Hall refused to compare his performance to that of Olson. "He's a good guy, a friend of mine and we are both competitors and fought hard. My hat goes off to him and UCLA. They deserved to win."

OK, fine, Mad Max.

But I can do the comparison.

NFL scouts would look at Olson's 6-5 frame and his arm strength and glance at Hall's size and his throwing velocity and declare it a no-brainer: Olson is the man.

But if they wanted to get in a real shootout, a football game, Hall would be hard not to take seriously. If it were a playground game, or perhaps even a real game in the Rose Bowl or LaVell Edwards Stadium, I'd pick Max and it wouldn't be close.

Hall clearly out-performed Olson, 30 completions to 13. Hall had 391 passing yards to Olson's 126. Hall threw two touchdown passes to Olson's none, and his pass percentage was 57.6 to 46.43.