Sophomore running back Mike Bell was rewarded yesterday for his efforts in leading the Wildcats to their first Pacific-10 Conference victory of the season Saturday.

The Phoenix native was Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Week for his 222-yard, three-touchdown performance against Washington, becoming the first Wildcat of the season to earn the weekly honor.

"Mike Bell had a great game," interim head coach Mike Hankwitz said. "He has established himself as one of the best running backs in the league."

Bell ran for three scores of 69, 67 and 37 yards on his way to the second highest rushing total in the Pac-10 this season. Only Oregon State's Steven Jackson, who ran for 227 yards against California earlier in the year, has had more.

Bell's yardage was also the fifth best rushing performance in Arizona history.

Behind a career-high 26 carries, Bell averaged 8.5 yards a run and finished his third straight game with over 100 yards on the ground. On the season, Bell has 811 yards and has two games left to reach the 1,000-yard plateau.

"If we could get him to 1,000, that would be a great accomplishment for him," Hankwitz said.

Locker room morale much better following victory

More than six weeks ago, the Arizona athletic department decided the football program needed a change and fired head coach John Mackovic.

In the following weeks, players talked about how much better morale was. But with four more losses after the dismissal of Mackovic, that wasn't apparent to people outside the program.

Saturday night, the Wildcats showed how different things were.

"Things have changed so much for the better around here," senior safety Clay Hardt said. "Things are going good and, even when we don't win, it's just a whole different feeling around here."

Several of the players attributed the win to the coaching style of their interim head coach, saying he finally made them believe they could get a win after a school-record eight straight losses and a home Pac-10 losing streak of 13.

"The things that Coach Hank has been driving into us repeatedly - people just started to buy into it," senior safety Darrell Brooks said.

"(Hankwitz) never lets us give up and that's what I respect most about him," Bell said.

Close home losses to TCU and UCLA drove the Wildcats to believe they could finally get the much-needed win they had been looking for against the Huskies.

"We put ourselves in position against TCU and UCLA where we were one play away from winning the game, and I said, 'Let's do that again, only this time we can make the play,' and we came out and made the play," Hankwitz said.

Cats' schedule features many teams in AP, coaches top-10

The new AP and coaches' poll came out Sunday, and, if the top-10 looks familiar, it's probably because it resembles Arizona's schedule.

After the Wildcats play USC this weekend, they will have played five of the top ten teams in the USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll. USC is No. 2, Louisiana State is No. 3 and Washington State, TCU and Purdue round out the top-10.