Dan Weber's USC Football Notes

USC's Wright will start if he gets medical clearance

By DAN WEBER
The Press-Enterprise

LOS ANGELES - Coach Pete Carroll said junior cornerback Shareece Wright, with an Oct. 29 court date and facing a felony charge of resisting an officer at a Labor Day weekend party in his hometown of Colton, will start Thursday against Oregon State if he gets medical clearance.

Wright has a pinched nerve in his neck that kept him from full-contact work with the first-team defense Sunday.

"We won't know until Wednesday's practice," Carroll said of Wright, who must be cleared for practice before he could get game clearance. "He'll play if he can."

Galippo Ready to Practice

Redshirt freshman linebacker Chris Galippo was ruled "100 percent medically ready" for full-contact practice this week, but he still may not play Thursday because of the short week of practice.

"They don't want to throw me in there," said Galippo, whose July back surgery to remove a ruptured disk, his second such operation since entering USC, will have been 12 weeks ago to the day Friday.

But he's not been ruled out, and if he gets game clearance the next two days, Carroll said the 245-pound middle linebacker from Corona will be used on special teams at the very least.

"If something catastrophic should happen like Rey (Maualuga) getting hurt," Galippo said, "I would step up and give it a go."

But to do that, Galippo must be cleared soon enough to be included on the 64-man traveling squad allowed for Pac-10 games and a Wednesday afternoon charter flight to Eugene.

Green in QB Mix

Part of it was getting Garrett Green up to speed Sunday after a special teams knee injury took him out of practice for the most part last week.

And part of the reason for having the senior quarterback taking all of the second-team snaps Sunday, in a fast-paced workout in full pads, was that the competition to be backup quarterback has been expanded to include Green with Mitch Mustain and Aaron Corp.

"We're giving Garrett a good look," Carroll said. "He'd have played last week against Ohio State if he hadn't been injured" when he "tweaked his knee" on kickoff coverage.

"It's the right thing to do," Carroll said of elevating Green, who could have gone to Harvard out of high school but chose USC, where he's played wide receiver, safety and now quarterback, his high school position.

No Stopping Turner

With one tough catch in traffic after another, wide receiver Patrick Turner was the star of the fast-paced Sunday workout that replicated a normal, heavy contact Tuesday despite two days off over the weekend.

"He's more confident," Carroll said of the 6-foot-5 senior. "He makes adjustments. He's one of the old guys now."

Carroll talked to Turner about how he should feel like "an eighth-grader playing against fifth-graders" or "a 12th-grader playing against ninth-graders."

"I told him to understand that and utilize it," Carroll said. With six catches for 105 yards, a 17.5-yard average and one touchdown -- second-best on the team to Damian Williams -- Turner has realized that, Mark Sanchez said.

"He's the senior leader," Sanchez said. "He's stepped up and this year there's no stopping him."