Related Links: Game summary Washington invited to Holiday Bowl Forum: Is Washington to best team in the Pac-10?
	T O P   N E W S

Those two words will serve as the lingering memory of the 1999 version of Washington Husky football.

Two weeks ago, the Huskies were celebrating in the sunny confines of Arizona Stadium in Tucson, with roses in their arms and delusions of a spot in the Bowl Championship Series in the Rose Bowl against Wisconsin.

They made it to the Rose Bowl all right. It just happened to be last Saturday in a stunning 23-20 overtime loss to UCLA. So when the annual cross-state rivalry with Washington State unfolded Saturday afternoon on a typically cold, blustery and rainy November day in Husky Stadium, their only hope was to handle the rival Cougars and hope Cal upset Stanford.

Well, they held up their end of the bargain with a 24-14 victory over the Cougars. It just didn't matter since Stanford rolled over Cal 31-13 and earned the Cardinal a spot in the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1972. The Huskies (7-4), meanwhile, have been offered a spot in the Holiday Bowl, where they could face Texas.

"We're the champions of the Northwest (also beating Oregon and Oregon State), and I'm looking forward to a bowl game. ... I just don't know who we'll play and where we'll play," Husky coach Rick Neuheisel said. "It's just one of those situations where we'll look back and think about what might have been. Given from where we started, we have a lot be excited about with the future of Husky football.

"I'm glad we did taste at least some measure of success, especially given an 0-2 start."

Consequently, the maiden season of the Neuheisel regime could hardly be termed as a colossal bust. Considering he was hired Jan. 9, it isn't as if the expectations were to win the Pac-10, or anything so lofty. But the Huskies improved rapidly after dropping their opening two games of the season to Air Force and Brigham Young -- needing only victories over Pac-10 bottom-feeders UCLA and Washington State (2-9) to reach the Rose Bowl.

The development of quarterback Marquis Tuiasosopo as a legitimate star was an unexpected bonus, setting a single-season total offense Washington record with 2,762 yards. But even he wasn't up to the task against UCLA.

The celebration after beating Arizona was their death knell. The Huskies never did match the intensity of the Bruins last week, despite the added incentive of it being the alma mater that shunned Neuheisel when their most recent head-coaching vacancy went to Bob Toledo instead of him.

Rick Neuheisel can only wonder what might have been had his Huskies beaten UCLA last week.(AP)

"That to me was garbage," Neuheisel said. "That to me is Husky football. We have great fans who travel with us. Our fans brought roses, threw them to our players, and they picked them up. That's ridiculous to think that's premature celebration. The facts are we didn't play well enough at UCLA. That's just the way it goes and that's football."

And so it goes Neuheisel would emphasize the victory Saturday.

Sure, it was the Apple Cup, giving Washington 59-27-6 advantage and eight of the last 11. They finished the decade with a 58-21-1 conference record, the best in the Pac-10. It even served as a prelude to future Husky teams early in the fourth quarter when highly recruited freshman running back Paul Arnold exploded around left end for an 80-yard touchdown.

More important, it serves as a reminder about the preference to roses over apples in the Pac-10 pecking order. Even the announcement of the final score at Cal didn't draw so much as a peep out of the 72,973 loons in attendance.

"I'm very proud of the way our players played," Neuheisel said. "Given what took place a week ago at UCLA and given what it meant for our season and championship hopes, it would be difficult for anybody to rally back from that kind of disappointment."

Evidently, Neuheisel learned enough about his team to prevent the PA announcer to refrain from relaying any scores from Berkeley until the game was over.

"I had a guy set up on the sideline set up to tell me when there were updates," Neuheisel said. "When he started staying away from me like the plague, I knew it wasn't good news. The players didn't know, all that was important was beating Washington State."

As for the roses in Arizona? Maybe Neuheisel thought it was garbage ... ridiculous ... whatever he wants to say and however he wants to perceive the players' reaction, doing the dance before the music starts, regardless of where the dance began, just doesn't work.

Premature jubilation will get you every time.