Final thoughts and stats

Published 11:10 pm Saturday, October 20, 2007

There were a few positives for Washington tonight, but they were all overshadowed by another brutal night for the Huskies’ defense.

For the first time since a season-opening win over Syracuse, the Huskies scored in the third quarter, outscoring the Ducks 14-7. That was, of course, followed by a fourth quarter in which the Ducks scored 24 points on the way to a 55-34 win.

The Huskies gave up 661 yards of offense, including 465 yards on the ground. Jonathan Steward (boy do Husky fans wish he had stayed home now) rushed for a career-high 251 yards, while Andre Crenshaw added 113. Quarterback Dennis Dixon was a yard away from giving the Ducks three 100-yard rushers. That’s seven players with 100-yard games against Washington in the last four games.

Jake Locker had a career-high 257 passing yards and four touchdowns, but again completed less than half of his passes (12 of 31). Some of that was him making smart throwaways, and there were a few dropped passes, but Locker will be the first to say he needs to start completing more passes.

Washington now faces a must win (actually, they’re just about all must wins now if the Huskies hope to make a bowl game) against Arizona next weekend.