Cody Pickett’s world is black and white.
You either play well or you stink. If you play well, enjoy it for a day or so and prepare for the next game. If you stink, you forget it and move on.
It’s pretty simple. No excuses. The University of Washington quarterback lives coaches’ mantra of playing the cards you’re dealt. Forget about injuries. Everybody’s nicked up to some extent.
You just play. Period.
It is Pickett’s mentality that allowed him to rip the Washington State Cougars’ vaunted pass defense for 371 yards after a horrid outing the week prior against Oregon State.
“I think it’s fair to allow a guy who is playing his first year as a quarterback to have an off day,” UW coach Rick Neuheisel said. “I don’t know if we need to make any more of it than that. His shoulder has not been 100 percent. It is exciting to see what he is capable of. Ultimately, we are very pleased with his progress. Disappointed in last week, but that’s behind us.”
To Pickett, each game is a separate entity. While many purple-and-gold faithful covered their eyes in horror at what went on in Corvallis and dreaded what the high-flying Cougars may do, Pickett went about his business of fixing what went wrong.
“This is a big win for us,” Pickett said following Saturday’s 26-14 victory over the Cougars in the Apple Cup. “You’re never going to get rid of last week’s loss, but this helps get the bad taste out of your mouth.”
Pickett did a masterful job of taking advantage of a curious WSU game plan that had its cornerbacks and safeties try to cover Washington’s receivers one on one. That may have worked fine against Boise State, Idaho and Montana State, but it didn’t have a hope against Washington’s Reggie Williams, Paul Arnold and Todd Elstrom.
As great as the Cougar defensive backs are, the plan was cocky and doomed to fail.
The idea was to mug the receivers at the line of scrimmage and disrupt the pass routes before they started. Trouble was, you don’t jam Williams, at 6-foot-4, 215 pounds. Or Elstrom, at 6-3, 200, or Arnold, 200 pounds and quicker than an Eddie Van Halen guitar lick.
It was a physical mismatch and a painful miscalculation by the WSU coaching staff. Corner Jason David is 5-9, 165. Corner Marcus Trufant is 6-0 and has a cast on his arm that looks like a reservoir.
Over the course of the game, the Huskies were going to exploit it.
After feeling out the WSU defense for a series, Pickett pounced. On the first play of the Huskies’ second offensive thrust, he found Williams for a 58-yard gain after Williams swatted away 5-10 Erik Coleman.
Later, Williams leaped over Trufant for a 26-yard gain to the Cougar 1, which led to a UW touchdown.
In the fourth quarter, Elstrom beat David for a 48-yard gain that led to another touchdown.
“The receivers did a great job of getting open,” Pickett said.
And Pickett did a magnificent of finding them.
It didn’t remind anyone of the OSU debacle.
Pickett has much to enjoy in his first Apple Cup as a starter – 25 completions in 38 passes for 371 yards, a touchdown and an interception.
Starting today, that’s gone. It’s time to prepare for top-ranked Miami.
That’s just the way it works in Pickett’s black-and-white world.
John Sleeper is the Herald’s college football writer.
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