Bettis was a true freshman in 1990. The last time I checked, he didn't fumble that year, given the extremely limited number of carries. What proof do you have that he fumbled three times even all of that year?
Ricky Watters, on the other hand, handed Stanford the game on a silver platter with a flourish with his two punt fumbles, and gave away the 1991 Orange Bowl when he fumbled away the ball. He almost even gave away the Miami game that year with his Butterfingered fumble.
That was the year that the joke was going around, that he tried to kill himself after those games, but kept dropping the gun...
Fast forward to today's games... Brian Kelly is certainly to blame for a lot of the problems. These are all HIS players, HIS system, and HIS development that has basically produced a defense that flat-out stinks. If they can't hold a team that was scoring fewer than 20 points a game against substandard competition to less than 35 points, then it's certainly not the offense's fault.
Deshone Kizer has done a decent enough job. Averaging 38 points a game should be plenty, even with a halfway decent defense.
On another note, Malik Zaire blew the only passing play he was in on last week, by simply curling up into a ball and taking the sack, instead of throwing the ball away. The was no need to resort to gimmick plays, given that the offense was moving the ball quite capably already.