With four-and-a-half minutes left in the game, a hobbled Luke Falk trotted out to the field with a five-point lead and a chance to put the Arizona State Sun Devils away for good.

The redshirt junior quarterback then led the Cougars on an eight-play, 15-yard drive that ate away any remaining life ASU had in the game and sealed a 37-32 victory on Saturday.

The Cougars (5-2, 4-0) came out on top, but leaned heavily on a battered Falk to stave off the second-consecutive fourth quarter comeback attempt by an opponent.

WSU encountered fourth quarter struggles in the past two games, and allowed UCLA and ASU squads to combine for 25 points in the final frame of their respective games.

“I think we relax a little bit and have a general shortness of focus,” Head Coach Mike Leach said. “I think we are a team that is still battling to play our best game, we haven’t played our best game yet.”

Tied with No. 4 University of Washington atop the conference standings and in the thick of the race for the Pac-12 North Division title, the Cougars cannot afford to drop another game, and the last two weeks featured heart-stopping late pushes from opponents.

In a conference as wide open as the Pac-12, lack of focus on one play potentially ends a team’s hopes to reach a ‘New Year’s Six’ bowl game.

A five-game winning streak for WSU does not warrant a license to overlook opponents despite playing struggling teams like UCLA on Oct. 15 and Oregon State University this Saturday.

“I look at playing Oregon State the same way I would look at playing Alabama,” junior safety Robert Taylor said. “I feel like that’s the mindset we all need to have on this team.”

Players and coaches feel that many, if not all, of WSU’s wins have been incomplete, as the Cougars netted minus-52 rushing yards and allowed eight sacks against Arizona State on Saturday.

Despite the occasional shortcomings, the team compensated during this winning streak by excelling in other areas of the game.

In Saturday’s game, Falk threw for nearly 400 yards and Taylor took a kick return to the end zone for a score that changed the complexion of the game. Against UCLA, redshirt junior kicker Erik Powell shook off a 0-5 start to the season on field goal attempts and drilled two field goals that made the difference in the game’s final score.

Redshirt senior wide receiver Gabe Marks has been with the program for the entirety of Leach’s tenure, and explained that no matter how the team fares in the win-loss column or who the team’s opponent is on a given week, there have been no real differences in preparation.

Even with shaky and inconsistent performances in the past two weeks, the Cougars still find themselves with a zero in the loss column in conference play and atop the standings.