Cardinal leave no doubt in Husky blowout

Sunday is Halloween, but on this night the Husky football program probably wants to put on masks after a 41-0 blowout at the hands of Stanford in front of an announced crowd of 69,020 although it appeared only about 45,000 were actually in the stadium.

Stanford put up 28 points and 318 yards in the first half and pretty much ran Washington off the field with their size and play-calling as the Huskies looked listless and powerless to stop the visiting Cardinal squad.

Washington’s offense managed only 35 yards in the first half as QB Jake Locker completed just 4 of 9 attempts for 35 yards and RB Chris Polk managed just 8 yards on 11 carries before the teams headed to the locker room.

After Stanford forced Washington to punt on their opening drive, Andrew Luck, a third-year sophomore, raced 51 yards untouched for the first score of the night on 3rd-and-1 and the visitors never looked back.

With Washington’s offensive ineptitude, Stanford enjoyed good field position most of the night and got two rushing touchdowns from RB Stepfan Taylor, from two and three yards out, and added a touchdown pass from Luck to WR Tyler Gaffney to give them all the points they needed to come away with the win.

The second half wasn’t much better for Washington as the defense got a stop early, but Locker was picked off and Stanford took over at the Husky 22. Five plays later, K Nate Whitaker, who missed from 40 yards out in the first half, hit from 21 yards to give the Cardinal a 31-0 lead.

Stanford added a three-yard touchdown pass from Luck to TE Zach Ertz and 39-yard field goal by Whitaker to finish out the scoring.

The Cardinal finished the night with 470 yards of offense while Washington managed only 107 and the Huskies were shut out at home for the first time since 1976 when they lost to California 7-0 and is the biggest loss, point-wise, since UW lost to USC on the road 56-0 in 2008.

Washington's low output on offense is the worst since they went for just 102 yards versus Oregon in Eugene in 1973.

The Huskies, now 3-5 overall and 2-3 in conference play, don’t have the luxury of wallowing in self-pity as they now must prepare to face and Oregon team that currently leads the conference in points and yards per game.