USC Makes a Point About Getting Tie After a Big Rally : College football: Otton bats out of rotation as Trojans score 21 points in fourth quarter to catch Washington, 21-21.

A play called Chicago, an explosive halftime tirade by John Robinson and some on-field confrontations pitting USC players against one another helped the Trojans stay a leg up in the Rose Bowl race Saturday.

It wasn’t a victory, but to everyone in a joyous Trojan locker room afterward, the 21-21 tie with Washington might just as well have been a 50-0 victory.

Before a roaring mob of 74,421 that was stunned into silence at the finish, Washington’s Huskies had a 21-0 lead after three quarters and appeared ready to claim the pole position for the race to Pasadena.

USC was playing abominable football--even worse than it had last week in the 38-10 loss at Notre Dame.

By halftime, with the Huskies leading, 13-0, here’s how ugly it was: USC had run 17 plays for 66 yards, and 53 of those were on four receptions by Keyshawn Johnson. Washington had run 44 plays for 288 yards. USC’s rushing total: 10 yards.

Then came halftime, and a scorching oration by USC’s 60-year-old coach, a tantrum unlike anything seniors on the team had heard. Frequently used words: character and courage.

Said senior center Jeremy Hogue: “Coach was mad, he was yelling at us. He said a lot of stuff about our character. He said he was tired of watching us stand around, watching things happen instead of fighting back and making things happen.

“That was as angry as I’ve ever seen him.”

It worked. The Trojans scored 21 fourth-quarter points, tying the score with Adam Rendon’s conversion kick with 33 seconds left, after Brad Otton engineered a 13-play, 79-yard drive.

The tying touchdown was a two-yard pass on third and goal to tight end Johnny McWilliams.

Going for the one-point conversion required no thought.

The points formula that determines the Pacific 10 Rose Bowl representative awards four points for conference victories, three points for nonconference victories and two points for Pac-10 ties. A loss is worthless.

USC is 4-0-1 in the Pac-10, 6-1-1 overall. The Huskies are 4-0-1 and 5-2-1. If both teams win the rest of their games, USC would go to the Rose Bowl because Washington would have one more nonconference loss.

The Trojans’ surge was led by a player unfamiliar with fourth-quarter football, Otton. Robinson and his offensive coordinator, Mike Riley, for the first time in eight games, broke from the two-quarterback rotation, allowing Otton to lead three late touchdown drives.

Kyle Wachholtz, normally the second- and fourth-quarter quarterback, sat out the second half.

Wachholtz: “Riles came up to me and said we were finally in an offensive rhythm, and that they wanted Brad to stay in there and keep it going. Obviously, it paid off and I couldn’t be happier. I’m happy for Brad, because he had a lot of family and friends here.”

And perhaps happiest of all was Sid Otton, the quarterback’s father and his high school coach, at Tumwater, Wash.

“Brad loves that kind of tough game,” Sid Otton said. “When I had him in high school, he never had a close game. I’m so proud of what he did today.”

Otton sparked the Trojan comeback with a drive that began late in the third quarter.

The nine-play, 57-yard drive, capped by a one-yard score by Rodney Sermons on the first play of the fourth quarter, made it 21-7. Otton threw an interception on the next Trojan possession but made it 21-14 with a 16-yard touchdown pass to fullback Terry Barnum, finishing a 10-play drive.

The Huskies mustered only one first down on their next possession and with 2:18 left, Otton launched the 79-yard march that for the only time Saturday would turn down the volume on the biggest crowd ever to see a USC-Washington game.

A huge play was a fourth-and-one run by Sermons that barely got the first down. A pass to Barnum got nine, and then came Chicago, from the Husky 30.

“We run Chicago when we think the other team will bring everyone at the quarterback, and they did,” Barnum said of the first-down play.

“As I went down the sideline, all their guys blew right by me, after Brad. I was all alone.”

Barnum ran all the way to Washington’s five, and three plays later Otton found McWilliams in the end zone. Rendon, a walk-on freshman from Encinitas, kicked the tying point.

Afterward, Robinson sounded like a man sprung from purgatory.

“We spent a game and a half in hell,” he said. “We talked at halftime about having the courage to show we’re capable of competing for a championship. And I think this team can win the next three [against Stanford, Oregon State and UCLA] and go to the Rose Bowl.”

On sticking with Otton in the fourth quarter, Robinson said: “We felt we’d gotten into a rhythm at that point, that Brad had gotten our feet under us.”

Otton, on a day when USC rushed for only 50 yards, completed 21 of 36 passes for 251 yards. Robinson’s team became so emotional in the second half he nearly had to call stadium security. One on-field confrontation was between Otton and his fullback, Barnum.

“I took a sack and Terry couldn’t understand why I hadn’t thrown it away,” Otton said, grinning. “He was pretty hot, but that was good.”

Then, Keyshawn Johnson was into it, and with two of the biggest guys on the team--offensive linemen Phalen Pounds, 310 pounds, and Norberto Garrido, 330.

“We stalled out on one series, and Phalen was kind of moping around and I got into his face a little bit,” Johnson said. “Then Garrido got into it with me too, and we wound up in a tug-of-war.”

USC was penalized 13 times for 100 yards (Washington had 11 flags for 103), and one player who twice jumped offside, offensive tackle John Michels, blamed the crowd.

“I could barely hear our signals,” he said. “The sound was incredible. I kept confusing Washington’s defensive signals with Brad’s.”

In the end, freshman Daylon McCutcheon said, the team refused to lose.

“We all agreed coming out after halftime they had no right to be even close to us, let alone that far ahead,” he said.

“We’re just better, we have too many good athletes.”