COLLEGE FOOTBALL DAILY REPORT : USC : Boselli Should Play Saturday

Offensive tackle Tony Boselli, arguably USC’s best player, returns to practice this week for the first time since dislocating his kneecap during the Oct. 2 game against Arizona.

Boselli, a 6-foot-8, 295-pound junior, said he looks forward to playing at Washington on Saturday, and tried to quash rumors that he will forgo his final year at USC to make himself available for the NFL draft. “I’ll be back next year,” Boselli said. “It might have been different if I’d been out all year, but this was just a freak accident.”

The two weeks after following the injury were the worst, he said.

“It took two weeks just for the swelling to go down,” he said. “And I was in the hospital four days after the Arizona game--I bled a lot into my calf and I got an infection there.”

Coach John Robinson said Boselli will probably should play “a half game” against the Huskies.

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For what it’s worth: USC has beaten Stanford, 45-20, California, 42-14, and Oregon State, 34-9, by bigger margins than Washington. The Huskies beat Stanford, 31-14, Cal, 24-23, and Oregon State, 28-21.

USC senior fullback Rory Brown has been awarded a $5,000 grant by the National Assn. of College Directors of Athletics.

The organization awards grants to one player from each of the four schools who played in the Kickoff Classic and Disneyland Pigskin Classic games to open the season. Brown, who is in USC’s mechanical engineering masters program, and has a 3.31 grade-point average.