Washington gets run over by Stanford

After being so high following their emotional, last-second win over USC last weekend, the fear was that there might be a let down by the Washington Huskies. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened as Toby Gerhart and the rest of the Stanford football team ran circles around the Dawgs on their way to 34-14 drubbing in Palo Alto.

Gerhart had a career night rushing for 200 yards and one touchdown, a 60-yard romp for a touchdown in the first quarter, while helping lead the Cardinal to first place in the conference with the win. On the night Stanford rushed for 322 yards and finished with 426 yards of total offense.

Husky QB Jake Locker had by far his worst game of the season, completing just 16 of 31 passes for 191 yards, while hitting one touchdown and throwing two interceptions. Locker was harassed the entire night by the aggressive Stanford defense and the running game didn’t fair much better with RB Chris Polk only managing 72 yards while Locker added 20 more.

Stanford got the scoring started quickly as WR Chris Owusu, one of the most dangerous return men in the entire country, took the opening kickoff 91 yards for a touchdown racing untouched through the Husky coverage unit.

The Huskies then drove down the field, but Locker threw the first of his two interceptions at the one yard line, trying to force a pass to WR D’Andre Goodwin.

Washington’s first score came on a mistake by Stanford QB Andrew Luck, when the redshirt freshman threw a backwards pass on a broken play that was scooped up by Husky S Justin Glenn and returned 50 yards to bring the score even at 7-7.

After Gerhart’s 60-yard touchdown run and a 40-yard field goal by K Nate Whitaker, Washington showed a little life with Locker driving the Dawgs 62 yards in four plays, ending when he found WR Jermaine Kearse along the sideline for a 19 yard touchdown.

That however was the end of the good news for the Huskies as Stanford scored right before half to send the teams into the locker room with the Cardinal leading 24-14 and then added the only points scored in the second half, a 25-yard field goal from Whitaker and a nine yard touchdown run by Luck to end things.

Washington (2-2) will now head home to lick their wounds this week before heading to South Bend, Indiana to take on Notre Dame (3-1) who got a last-second 24-21 win over Purdue on the road.