UW Football | ASU game key to bowl hopes

There was really only one goal for the Washington Huskies this season, in the words of coach Tyrone Willingham, and that was to be "a bowl victory team."

But before they can win one, they've got to get there, a task that suddenly looks a lot harder than it did three weeks ago when the Huskies were basking in the glow of a 4-1 start.

Three defeats later, including their excruciating 31-24 overtime defeat Saturday at California, and the Huskies are 4-4. If the season ended today, they wouldn't qualify for one of the six bowl games that have agreements with the Pac-10.

To qualify for a bowl, a team has to merely finish 6-6. But teams that finish at .500 can only get into one of those six bowl games, meaning if UW finishes 6-6 but outside of the top six in the Pac-10, it could be left home for the holidays.

Washington can all but rule out getting one of the conference's top two spots that contractually go to the Rose Bowl (if that team doesn't qualify for the national title game) and the Holiday Bowl.

But only one game separates the next five teams in the standings, with the Huskies being at the bottom of that list at 2-3 in conference play.

The Pac-10 bowl lineup after the top two looks like this — third place to the Sun Bowl, fourth, fifth and sixth to the Las Vegas Bowl, Emerald Bowl and Hawai'i Bowl, with Las Vegas having the first choice.

All of which means Washington's game with Arizona State at Husky Stadium is pretty much must-win if UW wants to play past November.

ASU is 1-3 in conference play and a spot behind Washington in the standings in eighth place, but the Sun Devils won all their nonconference games, and are 4-3 overall. Losing to ASU on Saturday could put UW in eighth place ahead of only woeful Arizona and awful Stanford. And that would mean the Huskies would need to win at either Oregon or Washington State (as well as a probable win versus Cardinal at home Nov. 11) just to get to six wins.

That was a message Willingham apparently gave his team after the defeat at Cal.

Asked 15 minutes after the game if the close defeat was a moral victory, UW's Carl Bonnell said "not at all. We need to go to a bowl game, and losing doesn't help. We've got Arizona State next week and that's what we are focusing on."

The Huskies haven't been to a bowl since 2002.

Their 2003 season showed the dangers of simply hoping 6-6 will be good enough to get a bowl. UW finished 6-6, but was left home when the Silicon Valley Bowl opted for a UCLA team with the same record due in part to the Bruins having beaten the Huskies during the season (another reason the ASU game this week is critical).

The Cal game showed again that UW is capable of playing like a bowl-worthy team.

The game slipped away in overtime, though the Huskies kept fighting to the end, epitomized by Johnie Kirton tracking down Cal's Desmond Bishop 79 yards downfield after the final interception.

Notes

• There was no update on the status of running back Kenny James, who suffered a sprained right ankle in the first quarter and didn't return.

• Willingham said after Saturday's game that quarterback Carl Bonnell had been "bruised up" during the game. It was clarified Sunday that Bonnell hurt his left, non-throwing shoulder, apparently on a scramble in the second half. Willingham said true freshman Jake Locker likely would have been the replacement had a change been made.

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com. Read his blogs on Washington football and basketball at www.seattletimes.com/huskies.