Huskies hope to end Bruins' dominance at Rose Bowl

PASADENA, Calif. — With rapidly changing rosters, lengthy losing streaks in college football tend to resonate more with fans and coaches than players.

So Washington's six-game, 14-year losing streak against UCLA at the Rose Bowl — which UW will try to snap today in a 12:30 p.m. game — may have its greatest impact on those wearing headsets on the sideline and cheering in the stands.

A UCLA game at the Rose Bowl has often been the place where Huskies dreams have died.

Take 1999, for instance. A UW team coming off rousing wins over Stanford and Arizona needed just to beat a struggling UCLA team and a struggling Washington State team to earn a Rose Bowl bid. Instead, the Huskies dropped a mistake-filled 23-20 overtime game to the Bruins.

Members of that team think the loss cost the Huskies a chance to go to two straight Rose Bowls. The 2000 team won the Rose Bowl, UW's only win in that venue since 1995, and finished 11-1 and ranked No. 3 in the nation.

"You think to yourself, 'Shoot, if we went to the Rose Bowl that year, who knows what would have happened the next year," said Marques Tuiasosopo, the starting quarterback for the 1999 and 2000 teams and now an assistant strength coach for the Huskies.

"The next year we were one game away from the national championship and got to the Rose Bowl. But it would have been nice to win that [UCLA] game and see how that would have changed things."

Tuiasosopo was part of the first two UW losses to UCLA in the Rose Bowl in this current skid, and has paid close attention to the next four defeats to the Bruins in Pasadena.

"I don't know if you can say it's this or it's that," Tuiasosopo said of UW's longest road losing streak against a Pac-10 opponent. "I just think we've missed our opportunities."

They don't want to make the same mistake again today.

The Huskies, coming off a bye week that first-year coach Steve Sarkisian said has re-energized the team, are 3-5 overall with four games left. Washington needs to win three more games to get to a bowl game, and given the Pac-10's six bowl agreements, a .500 record would probably be enough. Considering they play next week at Oregon State — a team that on paper looks better than UCLA — this game looks like a must-win.

"We've got to win out," says linebacker Donald Butler. "It's playoff time. This is not necessarily what you want, but if it comes down to that, you've got to go out and play."

If there has been any theme to UW's past six losses in Pasadena, it has been uncertainty at quarterback. When the streak began in 1997, Brock Huard had missed the previous game with an ankle injury. In '99, Tuiasosopo was dealing with the effects of a celebrated backside injury suffered against Stanford. In 2001, Taylor Barton got his only start for the Huskies in place of injured Cody Pickett.

This week opened like it might feature the same storyline. But Jake Locker, deemed questionable by Sarkisian on Monday due to a deep thigh bruise suffered in UW's 43-19 loss to Oregon on Oct. 24, practiced all week and Thursday was declared ready to play.

Sarkisian said he wouldn't limit his play-calling due to Locker's injury.

The game should be low-scoring. Washington and UCLA are two of the three bottom teams in Pac-10 points, and UCLA's 14 touchdowns are the fewest in the conference. UCLA's defense has done enough to keep the Bruins in most games and was the key to a 19-15 win at Tennessee. That early victory was the only positive for the Bruins in the second year under Rick Neuheisel, who coached the Huskies from 1999 to 2002, including losses at UCLA in 1999 and 2001.

The Oregon defeat was the second in a row for Washington and the fourth in five games after a 2-1 start highlighted by a win over USC.

The Ducks outscored UW 36-3 in the second and third quarters and raised questions about the mentality of Washington. But Sarkisian and UW players point to some spirited practices this week as proof the Huskies have rebounded.

"Everyone is right back where they should be," Butler said.

Even if Washington is in a place today where it has often felt a little out of place.

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com