Huskies abuse Cougars in Apple Cup blowout

As if they weren't well enough acquainted with what happened in Pullman last season, the UW football team was forced to watch videos of Washington State's 2008 Apple Cup-winning field goal in the days leading up to Saturday's game against their cross-state rivals. Over. And over. At the end of every meeting, all week. "That really got under everybody's skin from last year, and to have to see it over and over for the last five days was nerve-wracking," UW defensive end Darrion Jones said. "Last night in the meeting, coach Sark played it and everybody was like, 'will you please stop playing this?' Nobody wanted to see that again." This time, it was the Cougars whose futility seemed stuck on repeat. Washington showed just how wide the talent gap really is between the two struggling programs, recording an unlikely shutout Saturday while taking back the Apple Cup trophy in a 30-0 throttling in front of a crowd of 68,697 at Husky Stadium. It was the first shutout of any kind for the Huskies since 1997, and the first in the Apple Cup since 1964. And for the first time since 2006, the Huskies were the ones hoisting the trophy on the field afterward. "Hopefully, they can all go something like this," said UW head coach Steve Sarkisian after his first Apple Cup game. If they do, there likely won't be much intrigue to any of them. Rated at or near the bottom in almost every major Pac-10 statistical category, the Cougars (1-11, 0-9 Pac-10) proved early and often why they opened this week as 26-point underdogs. They managed only three first downs in the second half, failed to move the ball past midfield in that stretch, and never really threatened to prevent their only shutout of the season. WSU's 163 yards of total offense are easily the least the Huskies have allowed this season. "Shutouts at any level are very prideful to a defensive football team," Sarkisian said. "And I know our guys took a lot of pride in this one tonight." Washington's offense wasn't exactly unstoppable, but it did enough for the game to be over relatively early. After punting on their first two drives, the Huskies took the lead with a field goal that was set up by a Mason Foster interception. They scored on their next possession, Jake Locker finding Jermaine Kearse from 50 yards out to give UW a 10-0 lead, with 12:41 left in the first half. The Huskies (4-7, 3-5 Pac-10) took a 13-0 lead into halftime, scored on their first possession of the second half and never looked back. A huge third quarter got the UW's offense in rhythm, which allowed Chris Polk to run for 130 yards and eclipse the 1,000-yard mark for the season. He's the first freshman in school history to reach that mark. Polk's emergence is just one reason why the Huskies seemed to have separated themselves by miles from the Cougars this year. There were no similarities between this year's team and last year's 0-12 UW team that lost to a WSU squad that many had deemed as the worst in the country. Locker also made sure of that, completing 16 of 28 passes for 196 yards, and also running the ball 10 times for 94 yards. Given the chance at revenge against another weak Cougar team, the Huskies simply dominated. "Day and night," UW linebacker Donald Butler said, when asked how much things have changed. "With the new coaching staff and players really buying into what these coaches have shown us these last weeks ... We haven't won as many games as we expected, but we're still out there fighting and going at it every game." WSU seemed to roll over after falling behind 20-0. With quarterbacks Kevin Lopina and Marshall Lobbestael both exiting the game due to injury -- Lobbestael returned after halftime and finished the game - it was obvious that the Cougars weren't going to get anything going through the air. They couldn't run the ball, either. Dwight Tardy finished with 37 yards on 14 carries, and WSU finished with just 47 rushing yards as a team. Forgotten was how weak the UW's defense has been this season. No thought that the Cougars could score ever really existed. "We haven't come out like that all year," UW linebacker Cort Dennison said. "I thought we had our best week of practice this whole year this week ... to come out and hit them in the mouth like we did, I haven't seen that this whole year from us." For a team seemingly headed in the right direction, revenge has never come easier. Reach Sports Editor Christian Caple at sports@dailyuw.com.

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