Not much of a day for Huskies’ Pickett

By John Sleeper

Herald Writer

SEATTLE – Cody Pickett has had better weekends.

Not only did the Washington Huskies quarterback separate his right shoulder in the first half of the Huskies’ 27-24 victory against USC Saturday, but he also spent most of Friday night and Saturday morning, uhhh, enjoying the fruits (and vegetables) of stomach flu.

“He was up all night,” UW coach Rick Neuheisel said. “I told him about my bout with food poisoning, but he did not seem very interested at all.”

Pickett dragged his body to the team bus for the ride to the game, but he still wasn’t feeling very human.

“Before the game, he had a couple IVs put in him,” receiver Todd Elstrom said. “Warming up, he was looking real, real pale and fatigued and out of it. But he persevered and overcame that.”

What Pickett couldn’t overcome was a separated shoulder midway through the second quarter. He was hurt when he gained 13 yards on an option play and was hit by USC cornerback Chris Cash and linebacker Bobby Otani.

Pickett slowly got to his feet, went to the huddle and got to the line of scrimmage with his teammates. But after the Huskies were flagged for a false start, Pickett wobbled toward the sidelines, fell to his knees and lay on the turf.

“I’m just going to have to take it day by day,” Pickett said. “It’s totally separated, so it can’t get any worse. It is about as bad as it can be, so I’m going to go rest up and get back as soon as I can.”

Until he does, Taylor Barton will be the starter, with true freshman Casey Paus backing him up.

Back to Tailback U.: USC, traditionally a power-running team, came into the game ranked last in rushing offense, at 83.2 yards a game. The Trojans gained just 68 yards on the ground in their two previous games combined – 40 against Oregon and 28 against Stanford.

So it was a bit of a shock to see USC rip off 71 rushing yards against the Huskies in the first quarter alone, all by Sultan McCullough.

McCullough finished with 132 yards on 32 carries.

“We heard about them being more like SC,” UW defensive coordinator Tim Hundley said. “We hadn’t played the power run particularly well at Cal, so we assumed that they would run the ball more and try to be more efficient with the clock. The plays weren’t the same as we’d seen on film and it took the guys a while to sort it out. We did a nice job in the second half.”

Missed it by that much: The Trojans established the run on their first series, a 15-play drive that went 75 yards and knocked 6:56 off the clock. McCullough carried on 11 of the 13 running plays, for 46 yards.

But the drive stalled at the Husky 16-yard line. On fourth down and inches to go, USC coach Pete Carroll called for Carson Palmer to try to get the first down on a quarterback sneak, but linebackers Ben Mahdavi and Zach Tuiasosopo stopped him short.

Carroll said he eschewed an almost certain three points to give the offense confidence.

“At the time, I thought it was the right thing to do,” Carroll said. “I would have done it again. We needed two inches. I thought it was the right thing to do with our momentum. I want our football team to know that we are going to do it again and make the play.”

The Trojans still don’t know.

Tuiasosopo survives first start: Tuiasosopo, a redshirt freshman who filled in for Kai Ellis at outside linebacker, had nine tackles, four unassisted, including one for loss.

Once the USC coaching staff saw Tuiasosopo, they decided to attack by lining up their tight ends on him, then run McCullough at him.

Tuiasosopo said he got help from Mahdavi and others.

“We were out there as one,” Tuiasosopo said. “There’s no other way to do it. We had to contain them. They’re a very fast team. They wanted to get on top of us and beat us with their speed. All we could do was contain them.”

They did the same when inexperienced junior Houdini Jackson gave Tuiasosopo a breather.

“I haven’t seen the tape, but I know we had three more points than they did,” Neuheisel said. ” (Tuiasosopo and Jackson) held up.”

Ellis had arthroscopic surgery last week to on both knees to repair torn cartilage. He is expected to be out from two to six weeks.

Elstrom does his own thing: When Elstrom scored his first touchdown of the year on a 7-yard pass from Pickett, Elstrom improvised on the pattern and it paid off.

Tight end Joe Collier, who ran a pattern deep inside the end zone, was the primary receiver on the play. Elstrom was supposed to occupy a linebacker by stepping in front of him and leading him out of the play. Instead, Elstrom cut behind the linebacker toward the end zone, caught the pass and scored.

“I saw a little hole in there,” Elstrom said. “Fortunately, Cody saw me make that move as well and put it the only place I could catch it.”

The six points were fine, Neuheisel said. Had it not worked, however, Elstrom would have had some explaining to do.

“We were lucky,” Neuheisel said. “Cody was trying to hit Joe Collier, who would have been open had Todd done the right thing. Fortunately, Todd lived to tell about it.”

Short routes: The Huskies extended their winning streak to 12 games with the victory and hold the longest string of conference wins with nine straight. … UW is 18-0 under Neuheisel when it wins the time of possession battle (32:57-27:03 Saturday). … USC safety Troy Polamalu’s interception return for a touchdown in the second quarter was the first time the UW has allowed a point off a turnover this season. … Palmer did not throw an incompletion until 1:35 remained in the third quarter, when he began a string of six straight misfires. His only completed pass in the second half was the 58-yard TD pass to Kareem Kelly that tied the score at 24 with 3:47 remaining. … UW fullback Matthias Wilson made his first career reception in the second quarter. … Washington true freshman receiver Reggie Williams caught his first TD pass in the third quarter and had his second game with more than 100 yards receiving after five catches for 101 yards Saturday.

Herald writer Aaron Coe contributed to this story