A disheartening loss to Stanford last may have been the last straw for Washington football coach Tyrone Willingham, whose team’s poor play this year has many declaring this season to be over.

The Huskies are desperate to prove that it’s not.

They’ll have to do it without their starting quarterback and as 20-point underdogs, traveling to Tucson this weekend to face an Arizona team that is heading in a different direction.

The Wildcats are looking to go 4-1 for the first time in coach Mike Stoops’ tenure, which has been a tumultuous one. Stoops himself has been on the hot seat since last season, but has cooled it considerably by finishing strong last season and having his team in a position to make a bowl run this year.

Washington, meanwhile, will be breaking in Ronnie Fouch as quarterback after Jake Locker broke his thumb against Stanford, and trying to solve its defensive problems at the same time.

The UW still hasn’t recorded a sack, and ranks 118th in the nation in total defense. So it’s no surprise the Wildcats, led by a spread passing offense starring senior quarterback Willie Tuitama, are heavy favorites to roll in this one.

“What I see this year is that he seems to be more knowledgeable about what his own offense is,” Willingham said of Tuitama, who has thrown for 1,014 yards this year and has engineered 11 sub-two-minute touchdown drives. “He’s got two pretty good weapons, [Nic] Grigsby and also [Mike] Thomas. Those guys are playing extremely well right now. Any time you have players playing at that level it helps everything that you’re doing, so it’s not just his play but also the play of his two stars and the team.”

If there is anything for Husky fans to be optimistic about, it is that the UW has played well in Tucson recently. Washington won its last two games at Arizona Stadium, coming away with a 21-10 win in 2006 and knocking off the ‘Cats 38-14 in 2005 as double-digit underdogs.

Arizona — which had a bye Saturday after beating UCLA 31-10 the week before — spent the week preparing for Locker, but must now tailor its game plan to suit a Husky offense that will likely rely more on its passing game with Fouch under center.

Fouch completed 13 of his 27 pass attempts for 186 yards and one touchdown in Saturday’s loss to Stanford.

“I have to be more prepared for Arizona and get in with my head coach and watch film and learn the game plan,” Fouch said. “I just have to get my timing down with the receivers, be a leader in the huddle and get these guys ready to go to beat Arizona.”

It’s also somewhat of an important outing for the Wildcats, considering their past struggles in the month of October. Arizona is just 3-14 in October games under Stoops.

Still, it’s going to take a near-perfect effort for the Huskies to notch their first win of the year. UA’s offensive style doesn’t allow teams to get a lot of pressure on the quarterback to begin with, and the UW has been exceptionally bad up front this year.

“I don’t know, it’s almost like luck,” defensive coordinator Ed Donatell said of the UW’s zero sacks. “There has been pressure on the quarterback, but not enough. … We all know and believe in our formulas, and we’ve been at the top of the charts and it’s really a neat puzzle to say ‘gosh how do we do this?’ There are a lot of different ways.”

Reach reporter Christian Caple at sports@dailyuw.com.