Wins still possible for UW

By Ben Miller

Oct 28, 2005, 12:00 AM

This is it. This is your chance to show us something. Show the fans why you think you're a good team, show us why we should support you. The schedule is easier now. For the Washington football team, the stretch of four straight top-25 teams is over. It's time to make your mark and show that the talent and ability to compete you have teased us with all year long really exists. A year that can be described up to this point as -- at best -- disappointing has a chance to get a little bit better, but the team needs to make it happen. None of the next four will be anywhere close to the polls. In fact, two of them, Arizona and Washington State, are winless in conference and tied with the Huskies for last place in the Pac-10. Coming off back-to-back weeks being throttled by the likes of Oregon and top-ranked USC, this Saturday's game against Arizona State is not only winnable, but will start a stretch of opponents more on the Huskies' level. Turning a football team around from 0-8 in conference to a team that can compete with Notre Dame and USC does not happen overnight. You have to be able to compete with Arizona and Oregon State first. Because of that, you have to throw out everything that has happened thus far. We need to judge the 2005 campaign on the next four games to decide whether they did in fact improve over the catastrophe that was last year's team. If Washington continues its wayward ways and ends the season at 1-10 again, then it will be safe to say that this team, like last year's squad, is one of the worst the Pac-10 has seen in its history. However, if they bring everything they have and leave it all on the field, they can put a few Ws on the board, and we may be witnessing a team whose solid play was masked by its tough schedule. At this point, wins are the only acceptable result. After every loss, someone always asks coach Tyrone Willingham the same question about whether he and the team could take positives out of this or that, and after every loss he always says the same thing. "We are not into moral victories or yardage victories," he said. "We still didn't accomplish the goals we set out to accomplish, and that is winning the football game." And the Huskies should be able to win the football game. They have shown flashes of talent and the ability to compete with the tough teams on their schedule. And facing lesser opponents, they have to figure out how to get it done. They have to win. This is not only about salvaging this season, but about finishing strong and building toward next year because there is no way that this kind of losing will be tolerated for a third straight season. Show us something. Give us hope that this program may start to turn around. "Every game is as important as the other," James Sims said. "Now that we're getting out of the stretch of playing four top 20 teams, it's even more important to try and play even better. Now we have to try to finish." And if they can finish this season, we might actually have something to look forward to as football kicks off next year.

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