Bellotti has seen turnover

PULLMAN – Mike Bellotti has seen them come and go.

In his 14 years as the head football coach at the University of Oregon, there have been 26 head coaching changes in the Pac-10 Conference. The 26th came Monday, when Washington announced it would be parting ways with Tyrone Willingham.

“It has been amazing,” Bellotti said of the turnover Tuesday during the Pac-10’s weekly conference call. “I can’t explain that other than the impatience of some people, on both sides. I mean, some guys leaving for better jobs, other guys leaving because they didn’t do a good enough job.”

Willingham’s dismissal came about because of the latter, and it is the topic of conversation this week throughout the Pac-10. Surprisingly, the coaches aren’t avoiding it.

The slightly unusual aspect of Willingham’s departure is he will finish out his fourth year, despite the Huskies’ 0-7 record.

“I’m glad he’s going to finish out the season,” said Arizona coach Mike Stoops, who came into this season under fire. “I understand the situation very well because I’ve lived it. I understand how difficult it is. I understand Washington has to do what’s best for its program.”

Such a midseason change may have the most effect on this week’s Washington opponent, seventh-ranked USC.

“It doesn’t affect us at all, (but) I think it’s going to affect them considerably,” Trojans coach Pete Carroll said. “Their players that have been recruited by the coach are going to give everything they’ve got and … we’ll probably get a heck of an effort from these guys.”

Willingham hopes so, but he’s not really sure how his team is going to react.

“There’s so much we don’t know,” he said. “It would be wonderful if I could tell you exactly how all of our players, even what the majority, is thinking right now. Those guys have probably done a couple of flip-flops with a lot of things in their minds over the last 24 hours.”

The explanation of that is simple.

“You cannot, in any stretch of the imagination, believe this is business as usual,” Willingham said.

But it gets back that way, in one regard, Saturday. There won’t be any sympathy coming UW’s way from the Trojans.

“Right now is not the time for me to be looking back,” said Willingham, who has an 11-32 record at UW. “We’ve got five football games to go and obviously playing the best football team in the country, in our opinion. We better be looking face forward. If not, we’ve got real problems.”

As much as his Pac-10 brethren sympathize with Willingham and as much as they profess to respect him, they all understood the reason behind the change. It had nothing to do with academics or discipline or effort.

“As he said himself, if you don’t win enough, it’s not going to matter,” Bellotti said.

Around the conference

Stoops couldn’t find much to fault in his Arizona team after the 17-10 loss to USC last week. “Their defense really was the difference, the way they made it extremely difficult to move the football,” he said. Stoops said the Trojans made it impossible for the Arizona offense to develop a rhythm, though he didn’t feel USC manhandled the Wildcats as Stanford did a couple of weeks ago. … Arizona State was one of the conference’s favorites, but the Sun Devils have lost five consecutive games to put a pitchfork in their chances for postseason play. “It’s discouraging when you lose five games in a row but you’ve just got to fight through it,” said coach Dennis Erickson, who professed no thought the season would start this way. “You look at the guys you have returning and you look at your strengths and weaknesses. There were some areas where we had some weaknesses, and we had to have some guys step up. We haven’t gotten there yet.”

•Oregon State has built its success on players not recruited by the nation’s top teams, players like Sammie Stroughter and James and Jaquizz Rodgers. “There’s no magic to it,” OSU coach Mike Riley said. “You hit and you miss.” One thing Riley and his staff look for is players who will fit in a small town. “This isn’t Los Angeles,” Riley said of Corvallis. … Riley’s team is the only one in the Pac-10 that controls its destiny. Win out and the Beavers win the conference. But Riley doesn’t want his team to be looking too far out and forget the game in front of them. ASU this week is “a dangerous game,” he said. “This is a team that had high expectations and has played some tough teams in this stretch.”

•UCLA quarterback Kevin Craft struggled against California last week, throwing four interceptions, and was replaced for a while by Chris Forcier. But as UCLA enters a bye week, coach Rick Neuheisel has no plans to replace Craft. “When you say open competition, it sounds as if we’re going to go out and have contests and things of that nature,” Neuheisel said. “That isn’t the case.” The Bruins’ problems on the porous offensive line – the Bruins rushed for just 22 yards and yielded three sacks – are more pressing for Neuheisel. “There are no other bodies,” he said when asked if changes would be made.

Cougars notes

The bye week – and the accompanying days off – rejuvenated the Cougars, according to a brief poll of the players as they headed out to practice. It also allowed coach Paul Wulff to raise the intensity at practice, pitting the starters against each other most of the session. The final drill was a best-of-5 on third-down plays between those two groups. The defense won four of them, forcing the offense to run. … Starting quarterback Kevin Lopina took about three-fourths of the snaps with the starters Tuesday. Taking the rest was backup J.T. Levenseller, whom Wulff has said will play Saturday.

•Running back Dwight Tardy (knee) and offensive tackle Vaughn Lesuma (shoulder) healed up during the bye week enough to be probable for Saturday, but tight end Devin Frischknecht (high ankle sprain) and running back Chris Ivory (hamstring) are out. … If you think things couldn’t get worse for WSU on the injury front, think again. Freshman Cory Mackay, who is redshirting this season, will have knee surgery this week. It’s more of a cleanup procedure, so he will be ready for spring practice. … Quarterback Marshall Lobbestael reports to Pullman Regional Hospital this morning for surgery on his knee and its torn ACL and MCL. The prognosis is for Lobbestael to be ready in the fall. “Knowing Marshall and his competitive nature … I think he’ll be ready by the beginning of summer,” Wulff said. … With Frischknecht out, redshirt freshman linebacker Marshal Pirtz took snaps with the offense at H-back.

•It wasn’t a good day to be a helmet. Defensive lineman Matt Eichelberger left his in the locker room and it had to be collected and then, during a blocking drill, center Kenny Alfred, unhappy with his performance, fired his into the turf, sending it flying about 10 yards. … As the tuba players from the Washington State band leave their practice, they walk past football practice on the catwalk of the library. They decided to play while they walked Tuesday, pumping the Jaws’ theme out across the practice field. A couple of Cougars players did the shark-bite action with their arms.