SEATTLE — The boos came out a day early.
On the eve of Halloween, a University of Washington team that began this season disguised as a Pac-10 contender got only 13 minutes into Saturday’s game before the home crowd turned against it.
Already trailing 14-0 to 13th-ranked Stanford, the Huskies had to call a time out when Justin Glenn forgot to run onto the field in punt formation. And the fans let UW have it.
If only the heckling could have stopped there.
During Saturday’s 41-0 loss to Stanford, the only thing that quieted the home crowd was the ghost-like attendance that remained in the stands midway through the third quarter. The Huskies’ first home shutout loss in almost 24 years chased most of the UW faithful away.
“We obviously hit rock bottom today,” Huskies coach Steve Sarkisian said after UW was outgained 470-107 in the second-worst loss of his two-year tenure. “It’s a very disappointing performance. I feel for the fans. They deserve better than that.”
Washington was shut out at home for the first time since losing 7-0 to California in 1976. The Huskies’ 107 yards of total offense was Washington’s worst output since managing just 102 yards at Oregon in 1973.
In a short, terse, post-game press conference, Sarkisian called the game “definitely the worst offensive performance I’ve ever been associated with.”
The Huskies had just seven first downs, averaged less than one yard per carry on running plays and didn’t get closer than the Stanford 42-yard line.
Quarterback Jake Locker, who completed just 7 of 14 passes for a season-low 64 yards and two interceptions, was at a loss for words after the performance.
“I don’t know what happened,” said Locker, who echoed Sarkisian’s sentiment about it being the worst offensive performance in which he’d been involved. “I thought we had a great week of preparation; I thought we were ready to play. For one reason or another, it just didn’t come together today. … I don’t know where to begin. We weren’t very sound everywhere. I know I made a few mistakes.”
The loss leaves Washington (3-5 overall, 2-3 in the Pac-10) needing to win three of its final four games to become bowl eligible. The first of those games comes Saturday at No. 1 Oregon, so a season filled with high expectations appears to be on a fast track to bowl ineligibility — for the eighth year in a row.
“We’re low, obviously,” Sarkisian said. “Confidence is low. That doesn’t mean it can’t be built back up.”
The Huskies will wake up this morning feeling as vulnerable as ever, having lost two consecutive games for the first time since last November. It was a humbling performance, to say the least.
“Obviously, it’s hard,” linebacker Cort Dennison said. “They beat us in all aspects of the game. You’ve got to give them credit: they’re a good football team and a very physical football team.”
The Cardinal (7-1, 4-1) scored touchdowns on each of their first four possessions — converting their only four third downs along the way — and led 28-0 at the half. Along the way, Stanford had 318 total yards to UW’s 35 through 30 minutes of play. The only first-half highlights for the home crowd came when Stanford kicker Nate Whitaker missed a 40-yard field-goal attempt and UW safety Nate Fellner intercepted a fourth-down, Hail-Mary pass in the end zone after time expired — resulting in the Huskies’ first two “stops” of the day.
The only time the boos were replaced by rousing cheers came with about five minutes left in the first half, when the crowd gave mock applause following a UW tackle behind the line of scrimmage.
Things didn’t get a whole lot better after halftime, with well over half the announced crowd of almost 70,000 already having left the building. Stanford’s lead swelled to 38-0 by the end of the third quarter, while UW’s Locker intercepted twice — on the opening drive of the third and fourth quarters.
Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck, having already completed 19 of 26 passes for 192 yards and a touchdown and run 51 yards for another score, came out of the game with 81⁄2 minutes remaining. Three minutes later, with backup quarterback Alex Loukas running the offense, Stanford added a field goal for the final blow.
Afterward, while the Huskies moped in their own locker room, Stanford’s players gathered around behind a thin curtain inside Hec Edmundson Pavilion and broke into an all-too-audible “Who’s house?!” cheer.
A few minutes later, the UW players tried to keep a stiff upper lip despite the humbling loss.
“We can’t do anything about it now,” Dennison said. “We’ve got to keep our heads up … and keep fighting.”
If the 2010 Huskies have any fight left in them, they’d better start showing it.
“We’ve got to get back up on Monday and get ready for practice,” Locker said. “We still have four games left in our season. We’ve got to remember that, and we’ve got to approach it that way.”
Locker was then reminded that the Huskies spent most of the early part of the season talking about how they’ll be playing 13 games this season — an obvious attempt at promising that they would be involved in the bowl season.
When asked whether the postseason is beginning to look like an unrealistic possibility, Locker said: “No, no, no. We’re guaranteed four more, and we need to take it one game at a time. We have a great opponent in Oregon next week, and it’s going to be very important that we stay focused on that game. If you really look at it, we control our destiny as far as that goes.”
Dennison hasn’t given up, either.
“We can still go to a bowl game,” he said. “But we’ve got to take every game one game at a time. Just keep fighting, keep competing, and hopefully good things will happen.”
And if they don’t, and the boos come out again the next time UW is at Husky Stadium for a Nov. 18 game against UCLA? Well, then the bowl hopes will probably be dashed — officially — once and for all.
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