CAL'S BARNES IS NEW QUARTERBACK : IMPROVED SENIOR READY FOR USC.

Byline: Kevin Acee Daily News Staff Writer

It was late in California's 61-0 loss to USC at the Coliseum two years ago when Bears coach Keith Gilbertson turned to 19-year-old backup quarterback Pat Barnes.

The starter was ailing and flailing, so Gilbertson approached Barnes and said, ``We want to go with you, but if we go with you, we're going to go with you the rest of the year.''

It sounded like the words every young quarterback wants to hear. But there was a catch.

Barnes thought about how Gilbertson had robbed him of his redshirt freshman year the previous season by having him start at Arizona State. This was not fair, he thought.

Then he thought about what his teammates and coaches would think of him if he declined. He would lose their respect.

``Sure, I'll play,'' he told his coach.

As he sat in a Berkeley restaurant last week, he looked ahead to today's 12:30 p.m. matchup with the Trojans at the Coliseum. And he looked back to those few moments on the Cal sideline when he realized he never would have the redshirt season he probably needed.

``I mean, what guy is going to say no?''

Barnes was one of the most highly recruited quarterbacks in the nation in 1992 after a successful career at Trabuco Hills High School in Orange County. His brother, John, had been a starting quarterback at UCLA.

Barnes doesn't blame Gilbertson, replaced after last season by former Green Bay Packers quarterback coach Steve Mariucci, who mentored NFL MVP Brett Favre for four seasons.

Barnes simply recounts the facts as he remembers them.

``The worst part,'' he said, ``was that I didn't feel like I was getting better. I felt like I was just hanging out.''

Barnes sometimes thinks about how great it would be to be a junior this season, ``to have two years with this staff.''

This is the story of a quarterback who grew up faster than he wanted. But part of his renewed commitment to the job was not to second guess his decision. At times, it is difficult.

``Yeah, I got screwed,'' he said. ``But, oh well. I've got to go forward.''

The crowd today will see he is not the same Barnes who has lost to the Trojans the past two years.

He certainly is not the kid who came in that day in 1994. He is not even the unimpressive quarterback from last year's unremarkable 26-16 USC victory at Cal.

He is better even than the quarterback who led the Pacific-10 with 2,685 yards passing last season, his first full year as a starter.

The Trojans will see a bigger, stronger, smarter, more confident Barnes leading the 4-0 Bears. They will see a quarterback who has been thinking nonstop about this game since he dove 3 yards for the winning touchdown in overtime last Saturday against Oregon State.

Barnes was intercepted four times and fumbled twice against the winless Beavers, who lost 46-17 to USC three weeks ago.

For the season, though, Barnes is 74 of 124 for 1,078 yards, 11 touchdowns and five interceptions.

``He's got some Brett tutored to him,'' USC coach John Robinson said. ``He's a wide-open guy, can make big plays. He can be really hot, put 15 in a row on you, and then go cold. He's a dangerous quarterback.''

Hue Jackson told Barnes last spring he could be the best quarterback in the nation. Barnes humored Cal's new offensive coordinator.

``OK, OK,'' he thought.

But eventually it occurred to Barnes that this was, indeed, going to be his last year.

When he went home for spring break his mother quizzed him on the seemingly hundreds of formations he had to learn to run Mariucci's West Coast offense.

Spring break with mom - studying. Gilbertson would not have recognized Barnes.

With financial help from his parents, Barnes was able to skip the summer job he'd held the previous two years picking weeds and cleaning pools. Instead, he became a permanent fixture in the Cal football complex.

He immersed himself in the darkness of the film room. For the first time, he really studied defensive tendencies and thought about what he might do to take advantage of certain alignments.

He embraced the weight room as a second home. He speaks with pride of setting the bench-press record for a Cal quarterback. Barnes was one of more than 50 Cal players who stayed around Berkeley for the summer. The group grew close as it practiced together without coaches twice a week. Barnes felt like a family was forming, and he wanted to be the dad.

Commitment and dedication, two words a lot of people are using to describe the Cal quarterback these days. They were never used to describe Barnes before.

He has given up partying until the season is over. He spends much of his day bugging Jackson or Mariucci, usually going to practice about two hours early.

His friends defend Barnes, saying he wasn't exactly a party animal before. But Barnes admits he never heard of a party he didn't want to attend.

Barnes on Barnes, 1993-95: ``There's something going on? Sure, I'm there.''

Barnes' girlfriend Kris Thorig on Barnes, 1996: ``He'll call me at 11 o'clock at night - after he's done watching film.''