CHRIS CODUTO/Arizona Daily Wildcat Reciever Biren Ealy breaks away from TCU's Jerome Braziel during the second quarter of Saturday's game.

Arizona football will be on the field for the first time since the firing of head coach John Mackovic when the Wildcats head to Pullman, Wash. tomorrow to face one of the hottest teams in the nation.

The positives the Wildcats pulled out of their 13-10 overtime loss to TCU were one of the few highs of the year, as they fell to their fourth straight top-25 opponent.

The team opens the heart of the Pacific 10 Conference schedule against a Cougar team that pummeled the previously No.10 Oregon Ducks last week, 55-16.

CHRIS CODUTO/Arizona Daily Wildcat Running back Beau Carr breaks a tackle during Saturday's game against TCU. Carr finished the game with 13 yards on nine carries.

"I just want to come out and improve on (our) last performance," senior safety Clay Hardt said. "(I want to) help our team improve and want to get us more attention."

Last Sunday's events led to increased publicity this week in the media, but the Wildcats know that they only way to get away from it is to get on the field.

This week, Arizona will stay with true freshman quarterback Kris Heavner ÷ the first freshman to start for the UA since 1987 ÷ who went 14-of-29 for 276 yards against TCU.

Heavner beat out redshirt freshman Ryan O'Hara and sophomore Nic Costa for the job last week after showing ex-head coach Mackovic that he would work harder for the starting postion than his competitors.

Costa believes this week will be a tough test against a Washington State team that destroyed the same Ducks that beat Arizona 48-10 three weeks ago.

"I expect their defense to be good," Costa said. "They whooped up on the Ducks last week and I expect them to blitz every play."

The distraction of the Mackovic firing has brought a black cloud over Tucson this week, but the players believe getting out of the town will help bring normalcy back into the Wildcats' schedule.

Last week, Hardt lead the team with 13 tackles and a sack as the defense put on its best performance of the year.

But TCU's overtime field goal was the nail in the coffin ÷ and that nail has continued to be hammered throughout the Wildcats' season.

Costa said Washington State could be preoccupied by thoughts of Arizona's recent turmoil, and that could help the Wildcats pounce on the potentially blindsided Cougars.

"They think we might be down because we don't have (our) coach," Costa said. "They will expect to jump on us early and try to do whatever they can to get us out of our game and out of our rhythm."