Driven to succeed: Gesser, Pickett each hope to lead their teams to Rose Bowl

The assignment was daunting, something like threading a ball to a wide receiver on a deep out in the face of a six-man pass rush.

This was the deal: Jason Gesser and Cody Pickett had to be at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena for an 8:15 a.m. photo shoot with Times photographer Mark Harrison, and get back to their hotel near Los Angeles International airport by about 9:30, to entertain a considerable number of radio and TV interview requests on Pac-10 football media day.

First, there was the matter of appearances: What might it look like to have the quarterbacks of Washington State and Washington posed in front of the most hallowed citadel of football in the land? To those of dissenting persuasions — Trojans and Ducks and Beavers — would it seem that they felt they owned the place, that it was their birthright in 2002?

"We know there's a lot of great teams in the Pac-10," said Pickett, the Washington quarterback. "We've got a long road ahead of us and a lot of great teams to play."

But they shrugged off those concerns and appeared in their hotel lobby before 7 a.m., wiping sleep from their eyes.

Sustenance was the next order of business. Jim Daves, the UW publicist, was ready with McDonald's. Gesser, the WSU quarterback, had told him exactly what he wanted — No. 3 with a couple of apple pies. But that's experience — he's a fifth-year senior. Pickett said he'd make do with just about anything.

On one count, Daves had to disappoint them. McDonald's doesn't do milkshakes — they'd each requested chocolate — at 7 in the morning, even for two of the best college quarterbacks in the country.

Jason Gesser: By the numbers Games played: 11 Comp. percentage: 54.9 Yards passing: 2,729 Avg. yards passing per game: 248.1 TD passes: 25 Regular season record: 9-2

Now came the tough part, negotiating the 105 freeway east to the 110 north and on into Pasadena during L.A.'s morning rush hour. You'd easier try to scramble for a first down on third-and-21 against the USC defense.

Not to worry. With Daves at the wheel of a cramped Ford Escort and his counterpart, Rod Commons of WSU, riding shotgun, they breezed the 30 miles to the Rose Bowl in scarcely more than half an hour. Along the way they exchanged good-natured barbs, discovering that yes, there is enough room for Huskies and Cougars to live in the state.

"He was a cool guy," Pickett said, talking about Gesser.

Gesser's words exactly, describing Pickett.

"He kind of lets things happen around him," Gesser said. "I was amazed to see how similar he is to my personality. Everybody I've told that to was, 'Oh, why are you talking to him?' I said, 'He's a cool guy.' "

Great expectations

You don't even need to look it up. At no time in the history of college football in the state of Washington have the composite possibilities been so pregnant for the Huskies and Cougars. Imagine them, Cougars and Huskies, picked 1-2 by the media covering the Pac-10. Never has the bedraggled stepchild, WSU, been selected higher than fourth, even on the four occasions in the past 15 years when it won nine games or more.

Ah, you say, it doesn't matter. What counts is how they finish, not how they start.

Many of those expectations, of course, are borne by Pickett and Gesser, who are amply equipped.

All Pickett did in Washington's 8-4 Holiday Bowl season of 2001 was throw for the third-most yardage (2,403) in the school's considerable quarterbacking history, the majority of it starting Oct. 20, when his right arm dangled at his side like an unscrewed table leg.

Gesser, on the way to a Sun Bowl victory, threw for 3,010 yards in 12 games and made second-team All-Pac-10. Another 2,396 yards gets him past Timm Rosenbach, Drew Bledsoe, Ryan Leaf and abreast of Jack Thompson at the top of the WSU career passing list.

Numbers are one thing, but the ability to command is another. In mid-October, the Huskies were at a crossroad, having been roundhoused by UCLA, 35-13. Pickett missed the game with a third-degree shoulder separation incurred Oct. 6 against USC.

The next week, he began to practice, eyed skeptically by his coaches. Saturday morning at the team hotel, offensive coordinator Keith Gilbertson confronted Pickett.

"I'm ready to roll," Pickett said. "Let's go."

"We're going to wing it," Gilbertson said, in what was part warning, part promise.

With Arizona stacked against the run, Pickett threw for a preposterous 455 yards, the school record.

"There's no way I can tell you what a courageous thing that guy did," Gilbertson says, describing what Pickett endured the rest of the season. "You can't sleep at night. You can't eat. You can't drink a glass of water. The guy took a week off and came back and threw for 455."

Cody Pickett: By the numbers Games played: 10 Comp. percentage: 56.1 Yards passing: 2,403 Avg. yards passing per game: 240.3 TD passes: 10 Regular season record: 8-2

Pickett was only doing what he was taught to do, what he'd observed Marques Tuiasosopo doing when he bruised his backside in 1999.

"It would have been easy for him to fold his hand and walk away and everybody would have understood," said Pickett's backup, Taylor Barton. "He wouldn't do it.

"He told me there were times when he didn't think he could go anymore, but he knew I was on the sideline waiting to come in and play, and he didn't want that to happen. I respect that."

As the most important player on the field, as the example, quarterbacks are always trying to find that tiny crease between chutzpah and prudence. Gesser, shorter and lighter than Pickett, has wrestled with it throughout his career, often leaving himself vulnerable while straining for the extra yard.

"The absolute biggest thing is choices," says Thompson, the "Throwin' Samoan," who is close both to Gesser and the WSU program. "You've got to ask yourself the question: Is getting the extra yard, the one that took you out of the game, worth it? It's realizing it's not a sin, or your manhood, to slide."

Last year, Gesser took a shot on the sideline and rose, groggy. The telephone rang at Thompson's house. It was Robbie Tobeck, the Seahawks center, WSU alum and close follower of the Cougars.

"What the hell is going on?" Tobeck asked Thompson. "Are you going to call him and talk to him? He doesn't want me calling him."

Easy for them to say. Gesser is the anti-WSU quarterback, a guy who grossed 350 yards rushing last year, something unthinkable for traditional pocket passers like Thompson, Bledsoe and Leaf.

"The closest I can compare Jason to is Timm Rosenbach," Thompson said. "Timm was feisty in that way, but bigger. He could have been a linebacker."

As Gesser ducks ill-tempered linebackers, Pickett will try to suppress the urge to hit a home run with every pass. His facility for the deep ball, and a roll-the-dice mentality, sometimes can cause him to abandon caution. Indeed, his intercepted passes outnumbered touchdown passes, 14-10.

"There were lots of times when I'd try to force it to my first receiver, and it really wasn't there," Pickett says. "If I'd just gone from one to two, two was standing wide-open."

Former Huskies quarterback Hugh Millen, an avid Washington watcher, said he thinks Pickett has a leg up on that skill. He believes Pickett is more advanced at the same stage than his predecessor, Tuiasosopo, in the tricky art of the intermediate throw against a zone defense.

Friendship forged

Photo shoot over, Pickett and Gesser had time on their hands. They drove by the Tournament House in Pasadena, the Victorian-style mansion that hosts official Rose Bowl functions. They wondered how it might look in late December.

They were left with each other's friendship. Pickett and Gesser exchanged phone numbers, and they've already talked a couple of times. As the season develops, they'll chat about the heat Oregon State likes to bring, and how to look USC's safety off the pass route.

Says Gesser, "We were like, 'Let's both go undefeated and make the Apple Cup real fun.' "

Until then, there's only one thing for a college-football fan to do in the state of Washington: Enjoy.