The Good and the bad in Huskies’ win over Arizona

All week, Pickett said he felt fine. He didn’t, however, feel fine after linebacker Kirk Johnson laid a helmet on said shoulder and sent Pickett into a crimson-faced tirade of verbiage unfit to repeat in a family newspaper.

Still, it didn’t stop Pickett from laying a hit on Mike Wells after the Wildcats linebacker intercepted him in the fourth quarter. Nor did it stop Pickett from running the ball into the end zone for the winning TD with 13 seconds left after a six-play, 55-yard drive.

Forget the four interceptions, at least for now. To throw three TD passes, to give up his body for the team, to stay in the game when his shoulder had to feel as though it was on fire, that’s brass.

“I thought it was a sensational effort,” UW coach Rick Neuheisel said.

So if the 2001 edition of the Washington Huskies has anything in common with its predecessors, it is that it plays its guts out and that it never stops playing hard until three zeros flash on the scoreboard.

This is one scrappy, resilient team, which are highly desirable qualities that 90 percent of college teams wish they had.

However, it must be said that the Huskies need to be resilient to compensate for many other areas.

The above exploits came against Arizona, losers of four straight games and losers of the previous three by a combined 149-52. Washington also beat winless California by the identical 31-28 score, in much the same astonishing fashion.

What does it say about a football team that needs a jolting comeback to beat the dregs of its conference? Yes, it did the same in the opener against Michigan, a class program. But even the victory against Michigan followed a similar pattern, one of coming back from virtual extinction to pull out a win.

The bet here is that if the Huskies and Wolverines played 10 times, Michigan would win seven. Seven, because a team can’t rely on touchdowns produced by a blocked field goal and an interception to carry it through in the long haul.

You don’t think the Wolverines gave the game away?

Sometime, somewhere, you have to play at a high level for 60 minutes. Not 30. Not four. Sixty.

The Huskies haven’t done that against anyone not from Idaho.

You can’t have a punt returner fumble because he was run over by one of his own guys. You can’t have your quarterback, sore shoulder or not, throw four picks. You can’t have your running game average 2.9 yards a carry. You can’t have your defense give up 354 yards a game.

Not if you want to get into a high-profile bowl game, you can’t.

After UCLA dismantled Washington 35-13 nine days ago, Oregon coach Mike Bellotti caught a snowstorm of flak for saying, “I guess their luck finally ran out.”

While it’s true that Bellotti should have worried more about his Ducks – is it karma that they lost to Stanford Saturday at home? – the implication was clear and, like it or not, right on.

Yes, the Huskies are 5-1 and still are in the hunt for the conference title. Yet, they have been living on the edge. They have been getting away with sloppy execution, mindless penalties, cheesecloth defense, inconsistent offense, next to no running game and a slew of injuries in key spots.

And they’ve done it all season, with little or no noticeable improvement.

The Huskies were lucky that Michigan, Cal, USC and Arizona let Washington off the hook. In the weeks to come, will Arizona State? Stanford? Oregon State? Washington State? Miami?

Guts and determination, while admirable qualities, can go only so far.

The quality of bowl game the Huskies visit this season, however, depends on one thing: The Huskies desperately need to lose the slop and turn up the quality of play a notch.

Sooner, rather than later.