Split Decision

NEW ORLEANS —  Nothing you might call J.P. Losman would come as much of a surprise. Traitor. Scourge. Pariah.

The young man knows what people back home in Southern California -- at least some people -- think of him. “I would like for them to see things my way,” he says.

But four years cannot erase the sting of Losman committing to UCLA as one of the top high school quarterbacks in the nation, the player who would replace Cade McNown, then walking away before he really got started.

When the Bruins struggled, particularly on offense, resentment festered. Losman even got blamed for the firing of Coach Bob Toledo.

Maybe Bruin fans have seen him on television this fall, behind a shaky line at Tulane, still piling up impressive numbers. Maybe they have read he is a finalist for the Johnny Unitas Award as college football’s best quarterback. Even with UCLA on a roll, they might wonder.

If only they could understand one thing, he says: “I’m not the kind of guy who turns his back on his team.”

All evidence to the contrary, right?

If only people back home could see him now. The way he put everything on the line for Tulane this summer. His ultimate loyalty.

On the other hand, that might only make them angrier.

*

The name is pronounced LOSS-man. Like what happened to UCLA.

A lifelong Bruin fan, Losman was so excited about committing that he graduated early from Venice High and arrived on campus in the spring of 1999.

Toledo was so excited to have him that he told another quarterback recruit, Kyle Boller, to look elsewhere. That’s the same Boller who became a star at California and now plays for the Baltimore Ravens.

The Bruins were set, Toledo figured. Then, shortly after spring practice, before so much as a single day of summer training camp, Losman asked for a transfer.

“It’s like a marriage,” Toledo said. “You don’t think you’re going to be divorced. He divorced us.”

The spin that came out of Westwood went like this: The freshman expected too much, too soon. He got spooked at having to compete with the other quarterbacks -- Cory Paus, Ryan McCann, Scott McEwan and Drew Bennett.

Four years later, Losman is a far cry from the lanky kid he was then. His 6-foot-3 body has bulked up to 220 pounds, hair falling in unruly black curls across his forehead.

He has no regrets about what transpired at UCLA but concedes he might have handled things better. He struggles to explain his abrupt departure.

“It wasn’t the style of offense I wanted to run,” he says. “Throw a little swing-out to the running back. Throw a little screen to the receivers. Trick plays and all.”

Of course, he should have known that before committing. He mentions feeling claustrophobic during spring workouts, family and friends crowding the sidelines. “I needed to be my own person, but they took it personally when I didn’t come home on the weekends,” he recalls.

The thing about Losman, he doesn’t talk so much as explode, words hurtling in all directions. They fly even faster and more furiously when he addresses a common perception.

“I don’t want people to think I left because I couldn’t handle the competition,” he says. “Or I just had to leave because I wasn’t going to start right away.”

Arguing against these conclusions, he points to what happened next.

*

Something people might not know about Losman when he was in high school: Even as he pledged his heart to UCLA, he made a recruiting trip to Tulane.

“I got to spend the whole weekend with him,” Coach Chris Scelfo says. “I think he really felt like he fit in here, but maybe he didn’t want to disappoint mom or family or friends, the hometown, and he couldn’t pull the trigger.”

If not for that weekend, Scelfo might have passed on a teenager who had deserted his previous team. The coach trusted his first impression and, besides, he wasn’t counting on Losman.

Tulane was coming off the best season in school history, a 12-0 run that culminated with a victory over Brigham Young in the Liberty Bowl. With quarterback Shaun King gone to the NFL, the Green Wave had a promising sophomore in Patrick Ramsey.

Not that Losman saw it that way. After sitting out the 1999 season as a transfer, he expected to move right in as the starter.

“I had this huge ego,” he says. “But a guy like Patrick, he said, ‘Uh-uh, I’m not going to let you take my job.’ ”

The quarterbacks rotated during the 2000 season and, even with limited play, Losman was the top freshman passer in Conference USA. Early the next season, however, he injured his knee and missed just enough time for Ramsey to secure the top spot.

“J.P. was frustrated,” says receiver James Dunn, his childhood friend and roommate at Tulane. Dunn knew it was serious when “he got a little quiet.”

Worse, Losman fell into a habit of trying to outdo Ramsey in practice. If the starter completed a 20-yard pass, the backup tried to force one from 40 yards. His game suffered accordingly.

Here is where Losman makes his point. As tough as things got, he never balked or complained, never thought of quitting.

If anything, coaches and teammates said it was the best thing that could have happened to him. A little disappointment smoothed the edges off that arrogance.

“He got better as a quarterback and as a person,” says Frank Scelfo, the offensive coordinator and brother of the head coach. “His workouts in the weight room, the amount of film he watched, even his classroom work got better.”

Not that there weren’t dark moments. Scelfo recalls pulling the young man aside.

“Hey, J.P., you’re not a failure,” he said. “Patrick is really good.”

“How good?”

“He’s going to be a first-round draft pick someday.”

“Really?” Losman asked. “I’m not that far off.”

*

Sure enough, the Washington Redskins selected Ramsey in the first round of the 2001 NFL draft and eventually made him their starter. Losman got a boost from that.

“Not like he needed a lot of confidence in the first place,” says Angelo Gasca, who coached him in high school and remains a close friend.

Finally ensconced as a starter last season, Losman completed 57% of his passes for 2,468 yards and 19 touchdowns, leading his team to a 36-28 victory over Hawaii in the Hawaii Bowl. But the point of this story is what happened afterward.

Last spring, word got around that university administrators, upset about the athletic department losing millions of dollars annually, were thinking about cutting football.

Though no change would have taken effect until 2004, players weren’t thrilled about sticking around for a final, lame-duck season. Chris Scelfo says “the not knowing obviously was a weight on all our shoulders.”

In the two weeks before the matter came to vote, coaches from other schools made it known they would be interested in taking Losman as a transfer. Agents whispered that he could declare himself eligible for the NFL supplemental draft.

J.P. the freshman might have jumped at the chance. J.P. the senior did not.

“Everyone was like, ‘Maybe I’ll do this or maybe I’ll do that,’ ” offensive lineman Jimmy Kosienski recalls. “J.P. was the only one who said, ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stick it out.’ That meant a lot to the rest of us.”

The quarterback and some of his teammates taped a commercial asking for community support. Losman, who was taking a speech class, huddled with the professor to prepare a last-second plea to the team.

Even if the school voted to cut football, he was going to ask his fellow players to stay for the last season.

“If I was just looking out for myself, I could have gone to some highly ranked school so I could go out as a winner,” he says. “But I’ve been with these guys for four and five years.... I didn’t want that taken away.

“I wanted us to stick together.”

*

The turncoat-turned-patriot on a far-off campus. Losman has not spent much time pondering this irony -- he has been too busy with matters on the field.

Though two scouting services project him among the top quarterbacks in the NFL draft this spring, the question is: Will he survive till then?

“With us blocking for him and as many times as he’s been hit this year?” lineman Kosienski asks. “He has to be tough.”

Tulane started the season with a nationally televised game against Texas Christian in which Losman got pummeled. He guided his team back from a 31-7 deficit but had a critical pass intercepted late in the game.

The Green Wave lost by three points and coaches watched to see how Losman would react.

Five days later, he threw a game-winning touchdown pass in overtime against Northwestern State. The week after that, he led a 17-point comeback in the fourth quarter as Tulane defeated Mississippi State.

Not everything has gone so well. Tulane is 3-5 and, in last week’s loss to Memphis, a banged-up Losman struggled through his worst performance of the season.

Still, he ranks as the No. 17 passer in the nation. Compare that with UCLA quarterback Drew Olson, who stood at No. 68 before getting benched last week. Losman has thrown and run for 25 touchdowns, or six more than the entire Bruin team.

Back in Venice, Gasca can hear a change in phone conversations with his former student. Losman doesn’t ask for advice on every little thing like he used to. He has, in Gasca’s opinion, grown into a young man who can decide on his own.

And that ego?

Wisdom and experience have brought a certain amount of restraint but, as Gasca says, “with J.P., there’s not really a middle ground

So the kid who jilted UCLA has become a man who wishes there weren’t hard feelings. He wants people back home to understand.

But, either way, he won’t lose sleep over it.

“Hey, we all make our choices,” he says. “I can’t worry about what other people think.”