COLLEGE FOOTBALL : THE BOWLS: 1986 : CITRUS : A Diet of 6,600 Calories a Day Is What Did Trick

ORLANDO, Fla. —  Consider this hypothesis. If eating three square meals a day will make you a big, strong football player, will eating six square meals a day make you twice as good?

As with just about every theory, there is evidence.

Witness Ben Tamburello, a puny 6-foot 2-inch, 205-pound center at Birmingham Shades Valley High School in Alabama. Well, in a sport where your linemen are supposed to look like sides of beef, there just wasn’t a school willing to offer Tamburello his own meat locker.

So Tamburello’s father, Ben Sr., decided to put Ben Jr. on a diet of 6,600 calories a day. The first meal was every day at 6 a.m. The sixth, and thank goodness final, meal was at 10 p.m.

Ben’s favorite meal was his grandmother’s banana pudding. When you consider that a banana has about 100 calories, that comes to about 660 bananas a day. You can trust, however, that there were a few other staples mixed into this diet.

Yes, Ben was struggling to do what slightly older men find so incredibly easy--gain weight, and lots of it.

One season at Tennessee Military Institute, a prep school at Sweetwater, Tenn., and a lot of 6,600-calorie days later, Tamburello checked in as a legitimate major college prospect.

Tamburello gave an oral commitment to Alabama but enrolled in January, 1983, at Auburn. He was a part-time starter his freshman year.

Now, with his last game in the Florida Citrus Bowl against USC coming up Thursday, Tamburello weighs 268 pounds. He also has grown an inch, but height was never the problem.

Along the way, Tamburello was a unanimous All-American choice this season. He also has a bevy of Southeastern Conference awards to go with being a finalist for both the Outland Trophy and Lombardi Award.

Tamburello is also at the center of potentially one of the bigger mismatches in the Citrus Bowl. He’ll line up against freshman nose guard Dan Owens of USC.

“I realize (the Trojans) have a lot of young players, but they have a lot of potential,” said Tamburello, punctuating his speech with sirs and misters.

“The strength of their defense is the linebackers,” he said. “They’ve got good pursuit. It’s going to be up to us as an offensive line to get on them and stay on them. You’ve got to play with no mistakes.”

OK, so six meals a day may not make you twice as interesting a speaker but, just maybe, with this evidence you can conclude that there is something to the original theory.

Better pass the meat and potatoes, we’ve got enough corn.

More Slaps at the USC Defense: Auburn’s Lawyer Tillman, who led the team with 35 receptions for 730 yards and 6 touchdowns, gives the USC secondary high marks, sort of.

“I rate them high,” Tillman said. “They are real physical. But I’ve been against some that were a little better than them. Right now, the best (secondary) was Florida. They were a nasty type. They would hit you whether you had the ball or not.”

Tillman says he has a strange way of getting ready for the game. He starts to think about the game by not thinking about it.

Huh?

“Sometimes I have things on my mind, but when I play I just blank everything out so I can concentrate.”

Makes sense.

What’s a Story Without a Tollner-Firing Note: The Auburn players, just like their opponents, have some thoughts on Ted Tollner’s firing as USC’s coach.

All-SEC guard Yann Cowart: “I met (Tollner) once, and he’s a real nice guy. I’m sure (the USC players) want to do a lot for him because it seems like he got bad treatment.”

All-SEC linebacker Aundray Bruce: “They are going to try to let their coach go out on a winning note. Some of the guys think he hasn’t had a chance and he has been winning.”

Another Citrus Bowl Tradition Lives: The Citrus Bowl, formerly the Tangerine Bowl, has a tradition of coaches leaving after this game. Since 1970, six coaches have exited their schools after the game.

In 1970, Frank Lauterbur went to Iowa after his Toledo team had beaten William and Mary, 40-12.

Earle Bruce, the coach of the University of Tampa in 1972, left for Iowa State after his team beat Kent State, 21-18.

Miami (Ohio) Coach Bill Mallory stunned Florida, 16-7, in 1973 and promptly stunned his alumni by leaving for Colorado.

In 1977, Steve Sloan coached the Texas Tech Red Raiders to a 40-17 thrashing by Florida State. He then left to coach Mississippi.

Charlie McClendon announced his retirement at Louisiana State shortly before his Tigers beat Wake Forest, 34-10, in 1979.

In 1981, Bobby Collins was the Southern Mississippi coach who lost, 19-17, to Missouri. Collins departed for Southern Methodist.

And this season, Tollner becomes the seventh.

Times Staff Writer Mal Florence also contributed to this story.