USC Doesn’t Have Quite Enough in Reserve, 17-10 : College football: No. 1 Washington takes an early 14-0 lead, then hangs on after Trojan quarterback Johnson leaves the game because of a concussion.

USC has closed the gap on Washington considerably since losing by 31 points two years ago, but not enough to beat the No. 1-ranked Huskies with a third-string quarterback.

The Trojans gave it a shot Saturday at Husky Stadium before falling short, 17-10, before a sellout crowd of 73,275.

With his starting quarterback, Rob Johnson, knocked out of the game after suffering a concussion during the second quarter and Johnson’s backup, Reggie Perry, ineffective during the second half, USC Coach Larry Smith called on second-year freshman Kyle Wachholtz with 9:07 to play.

And Wachholtz, who hadn’t played since enrolling at USC last fall out of Norco High, moved the Trojans to within 28 yards of the Washington end zone with less than two minutes left.

“I thought we were going to go down and score,” Wachholtz said. “We were moving it real well, and I thought they were tired.”

But on a first-down play, Wachholtz threw a pass into double coverage and cornerback Walter Bailey stepped in front of flanker Travis Hannah in the end zone to preserve the Huskies’ 18th consecutive victory.

Washington, which moved to the top of the polls last week after Miami struggled to defeat Arizona, is 4-0 overall, 2-0 in the Pacific 10 Conference.

USC is 1-1-1 overall, 0-1 in the Pac-10 and a loser of six consecutive conference games.

“I just lofted it up to see if he could run under it,” Wachholtz said of the last of his six passes, “but the ball was not thrown very well. It was pretty much to the (defensive back), and he caught it.”

Bailey’s play ended a long struggle for the Huskies, who opened a 14-0 lead in the first 5 1/2 minutes and then hung on for the last 3 1/2 quarters as USC put together another solid defensive effort.

“We could have won it with any of our quarterbacks,” USC linebacker Willie McGinest said. “They just got some lucky breaks.”

Washington led, 14-0, before ABC, which also televised the Miami-Florida State game from Miami, finally switched to Seattle for the second game of its nationally televised doubleheader.

On the first play of the game, Johnson lofted a pass to flanker Curtis Conway along the left sideline.

Safety Shane Pahukoa intercepted and returned the ball 31 yards to the Trojans’ one-yard line. On the next play, Husky quarterback Billy Joe Hobert combined with fullback Matt Jones on a one-yard touchdown pass, and Washington led, 7-0, after only 19 seconds.

“It was a terrible pass by me, and I knew I shouldn’t have thrown it,” said Johnson, who was still so groggy after the game that he twice told reporters, in slurred speech through a cut lip, that he was “droggy.”

Pahukoa said that Johnson hadn’t disguised the play well.

“There was only one receiver, so I figured I’d have Walt (Bailey) hammer the receiver and I’d roll over the top,” said Pahukoa, who had a cast removed from his broken right hand only last week.

Would he have caught the ball if was still wearing a cast?

“Probably not,” Pahukoa said.

Johnson drove the Trojans inside Washington’s 40-yard line on their second possession, but after catching a short pass that might have resulted in a first down, Conway fumbled when hit by safety Tommie Smith.

Linebacker Dave Hoffmann recovered, setting up another touchdown by the Huskies. They drove 68 yards behind Hobert, whose 18-yard touchdown pass to flanker Joe Kralik made the score 14-0 with 9:40 to play in the first quarter.

After that, the Huskies’ offense all but shut down.

“Our defense played extremely well,” Smith said.

USC outgained Washington, 332 yards to 271, despite giving up six sacks for 57 yards and losing Johnson during the second quarter.

On a first-down play with 8:36 to play before halftime, Johnson was knocked unconscious when he was hit by defensive end Jamal Fountaine and linebackers James Clifford and Jaime Fields as he dropped back to pass.

“We were in a spread formation, so we didn’t have enough guys in there for protection,” said Johnson, who had positioned Cole Ford for a 27-yard first-quarter field goal that cut Washington’s lead to 14-3. “I dropped down to protect (the ball) and got hit right in the head.”

He was helped off the field, not to return on this day.

On came the eager Perry with a chance to erase memories of last season, when he was the starting quarterback in all but one game as the Trojans compiled a 3-8 record, their worst in 35 years.

And, with 1:52 to play in the half, Perry sidestepped a charging Clifford and combined with Conway on a 53-yard touchdown pass play.

It might have been an interception, but Pahukoa, who probably had the best chance of catching the pass, mistimed his jump and tipped the ball. Conway, behind Pahukoa, grabbed it and carried it five yards into the end zone to cut the Huskies’ lead to 14-10. “We had the momentum going into halftime,” said Perry, whose pass gave the Trojans their first touchdown against Washington in three games since 1989. “We were just hoping to build on that and come out in the third quarter and get something going. We weren’t that far behind.”

But they got no closer.

Under constant pressure from the Huskies, Perry couldn’t move USC. His third-quarter fumble, on a sack by Hoffmann, set up the only score of the second half, a 40-yard field goal by Travis Hanson.

Smith finally called on Wachholtz.

“We saw that we were going to have to throw the ball more, and Kyle is the better pocket passer,” Smith said of the move.

But when USC forced a Husky punt and got the ball back for the last time with 5:10 remaining, it stuck mainly to the ground, driving from its 22-yard line to Washington’s 28 on six runs for 42 yards by tailback Estrus Crayton--who finished with 105 yards in 25 carries--and one eight-yard pass completion by Wachholtz, for eight yards.

Then came the final pass, and Bailey’s interception.

“We’d been running a lot on first down, so we went with the play-action deep,” Smith said of the Trojans’ last play. “We gambled and we lost. It’s that simple. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

And nothing to show for it but a loss.

Said Smith, holding his right thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart: “In college football nowadays, it’s just that much difference between No. 1 and No. whatever.”

* ALLAN MALAMUD

The top-ranked Huskies don’t play up to their lofty standards in extending their winning streak to 18 games. C6