Pointless in Seattle, USC Sinks Lower

Washington’s Brock Huard and Rashaan Shehee finished the game on crutches. USC’s offense limped off the field too.

Huard passed for two touchdowns in the second quarter before being knocked out with a sprained ankle as the No. 7 Huskies beat the Trojans, 27-0, Saturday.

Washington lost Shehee, the Pacific 10 Conference rushing leader, because of a sprained left knee in its second series.

It was the first time the Trojans have been shut out since Washington blanked them in 1990 at Seattle.

“There wasn’t anything we did well on offense,” USC Coach John Robinson said. “Right now, we’re just not functioning on offense. You can’t win that way.”

The Huskies (7-1, 5-0 Pac-10) took another step to going back to the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1993 with their fifth consecutive league victory after losing to No. 1 Nebraska. Washington recorded its 12th consecutive Pac-10 win over two seasons.

“The ability of Maurice Shaw and Marques Tuiasosopo to come in and keep us rolling is the showing of a good team with depth,” Washington Coach Jim Lambright said of the players who replaced Shehee and Huard.

The Trojans (4-4, 2-3), who were eliminated from the Rose Bowl race, used a quarterback trio of freshman Mike Van Raaphorst, who made his first college start, and John Fox and Quincy Woods. Van Raaphorst was completed five of 18 with two interceptions for 46 yards. USC’s offense committed eight penalties.

“I threw horrible interceptions. There were dropped passes. We didn’t do anything right,” Van Raaphorst said.

Washington’s defense, led by Jason Chorak, Lester Towns and Jerry Jensen, sacked USC quarterbacks five times and the Trojans were held to 157 yards. The Trojans got no closer than Washington’s 35.

USC is 10-10 since beating Northwestern in the 1996 Rose Bowl and Robinson’s job is in jeopardy.

The Trojans lost to Washington and Washington State in the same season for the first time since 1934. It was USC’s worst defeat since losing to Notre Dame, 38-10, in 1995.

Huard, 13 of 19 for 194 yards and two touchdowns with an interception, sprained his left ankle after being tackled by Cedric Jefferson on the fourth play of the second half, one of five sacks by the Trojans.

The Huskies led, 17-0, when Huard went out--thanks to his touchdown passes of 35 yards to Fred Coleman and 21 yards to Jerome Pathon in the final five minutes of the first half.

Huard, who has thrown 18 touchdown passes and only three interceptions, was cleared to return to the game, but Washington’s coaches elected to leave him the sideline with the game in hand. After the game, Huard disputed that point, saying he didn’t feel he could reenter the game. He also sprained his left ankle in the first quarter of the Nebraska game.

“Probably not,” he said. “It was probably more pain than the Nebraska game.”

It wasn’t known after the game how long Huard and Shehee would be sidelined. Shehee’s injury is considered the more serious. He missed much of last season with a heel injury.

Without Shehee, the Huskies didn’t do much on the ground, finishing with 31 rushing yards. Shehee, who was averaging 120.9 yards per game, had 16 yards in three carries when he had to leave the game. But Huard and Tuiasosopo combined to pass for 302 yards. Tuiasosopo completed all six of his passes for 77 yards.

Tuiasosopo drove the Huskies to 10 points in the third quarter--a 34-yard field goal by Nick Lentz and a seven-yard touchdown run by Shaw. Lentz’s second field goal of the game was set up by a 41-yard pass from Tuiasosopo to Pathon.

Pathon had his fifth 100-yard receiving game of the season, a Washington school record, catching eight passes for 120 yards.

Huard gave the Huskies a 10-0 lead with his 35-yard touchdown pass to Coleman, who made a finger-tip catch while laid out in the end zone, with 4:44 left.

After Jabari Issa blocked Jim Wren’s punt, Washington added its second touchdown with 1:41 to go in the opening half on Huard’s 21-yard pass to Pathon in the end zone.

Lentz kicked a career-best 45-yard field goal in the opening quarter.

Washington recorded its first shutout since blanking East Carolina 35-0 on Sept. 25, 1993.