A pair of defensive linemen have a Hawaiian history, and they'll reunite in the Great Northwest on Saturday.

Dulan, a junior, even watched a little bit of extra UW film this week just to see his old pal who's a year older.

"I watched their game against Oregon," Dulan said. "It was good to see him. The defense did really good."

Pointing out the obvious to him, that UW surrendered 44 points and lost by 34, Dulan sheepishly looks like he was just trying to be politically correct.

"They tried their best," he said. "That's all you could ask for."

That's hardly the mood in Seattle, where coaches may be sleepless and fans are most definitely restless.

Nationally ranked Oregon, at home, turned a 14-10 halftime margin into a blowout by scoring the final 30 points -- 23 in the fourth quarter.

A dicey season to begin with, considering the health of the star quarterback, the fragility of the head coach's tenure and a schedule that is downright nasty appears suddenly on the brink of utter peril as No. 15 arrives with the nation's longest active winning streak (11 games).

"It's one game," said UW quarterback Jake Locker, who's the on-field leader of a team that has won two of its last 12 and senses the heat on Willingham. "I really don't think there needs to be any panic amongst anybody, any kind of extra stress on anybody. Like I've said before, he's our head coach, he's our leader, we look to him, and he doesn't it let it bother him -- and we treat it the same way. He's here to win games and so are we. We all understand that and we know that, and that's our main focus. We don't worry about all that other stuff."

Traditional media that cover UW have pointed out since last Saturday's blowout, that Husky Internet chatboards and e-mail boxes to sportswriters and editors are being flooded with venom directed at Willingham. He's 11-26 at UW in his fourth season. Locker battling a hamstring injury hasn't helped.

The scene is reminiscent of the bitterness that grew around Cougar Nation as BYU followers wanted the four-year reign of Gary Crowton to end, which it did after his teams went 26-23 (remember, he won his first 12 games to start 2001). That era, too, came with a nefarious formula of hurt quarterbacks, too-tough scheduling, some downright bad luck and a fan base looking for someone to blame.

In Willingham's last season at Notre Dame, 2004, his team lost the season-opener at BYU. Could this game with the Cougars be the start of something big, or send a louder signal again of his demise?

Willingham acknowledges that alumni tempers are flaring. But he believes Locker's wounded leg is healing, and the offensive line will improve, along with myriad other parts of UW's season-opening foibles.

"I'm aware of it and I'm as disappointed as they are -- as I think our entire football team is," said the coach who went 1-1 against the Cougars during his Notre Dame days. "We felt we could go down (to Oregon) and win the football game, even with as good of a football team as we played. We're disappointed."

Te'o-Nesheim (who doubts he's related to fellow Hawaiian, and a recruit the Cougars desperately want, Manti Te'o) said the defense needs to clean up its tackling. Last year's team MVP said the Huskies allowed a lot of unnecessary yards.

"We were expecting others to make tackles and it wouldn't happen," he said. "But we can't go into this game crying about last week."

When they competed in high school, Te'o-Nesheim was the track and field star who graduated, then he said Dulan took over the throwing dominance.

Now, they're on opposite footing. Dulan, who has battled a shoulder injury, is fighting for playing time.

But wins are coming a lot easier. And UW still has to play Oklahoma and Notre Dame, along with Pac-10 members like USC.