SEATTLE — It seemed somewhat fitting, if not a tad bit cruel, that one of the finest first-half rushing performances in recent University of Washington memory got blurred by a blowout loss at Stanford last Saturday night.
Such has been the plight of Huskies running back Chris Polk.
After spending his first two full seasons in the shadow of quarterback Jake Locker, the junior tailback entered this season with as much attention as ever. He even had some Heisman Trophy buzz heading into the campaign.
But just as quickly the media spotlight found Polk, it shifted away and again left him to toil in the shadows — all because he plays on a team with Keith Price, one of the most exciting young quarterbacks in the country.
Still, Polk, has quietly put up the kind of numbers that might be living up to the one-time Heisman hype.Last Saturday, he had 143 of his 144 rushing yards in the first half at Stanford,
He is the Pacific-12 Conference’s runaway leader in both rushing yards (872, which gives him 162 more than any other league rusher) and rushing yards per game. His 124.6 average makes him the only Pac-12 runner averaging more than 102 rushing yards per game.
Polk ranks fifth in the nation in rushing yards per game, putting him ahead of Heisman frontrunner Trent Richardson of Alabama and a cast of other big names like South Carolina’s Marcus Lattimore and Wisconsin’s Montee Ball.
Polk has run for 100 or more yards in six of UW’s seven games this season and has a legitimate shot at eclipsing Corey Dillon’s 17-year-old school record of 1,695 yards in a season. Polk’s current clip, even if the Huskies don’t earn a bowl bid for a 13th game, would push him past his 2010 total of 1,415 rushing yards.
He’s also averaging a career-best 21.3 yards per reception and ranks sixth in the Pac-12 with seven touchdowns.
Quietly, Polk is having his best season yet as a UW running back.
“People get so used to Chris going out and rushing for 125 yards, it’s just another ho-hum day at the office,” Huskies coach Steve Sarkisian said Wednesday. “But he’s playing really good football for us. The little things we were hoping he’d take the next step with, he is.”
If there is one area where Polk’s improvement has been most evident, it’s as a breakaway threat.
He had two long touchdown runs — of 46 and 61 yards — in the first half of the Stanford game and now has three touchdowns of 20 or more yards this season. He had just two during last year’s 13-game schedule.
During 2010’s first eight games, Polk had just five runs that went 20 yards or longer. This season, he has eight through seven games.
“The emphasis from halfway through last season to spring ball to now has been: win in the secondary,” running backs coach Joel Thomas said Wednesday, when the UW sports information department said Polk was not available to the media.
“That’s what separates him from being on the radar or off the radar — getting into the secondary and making plays. It’s been about taking that long run of 18 or 20 yards and making it 60 or 70.”
Sarkisian said that the subject came up again as the Huskies prepared to face Stanford.
“We had challenged him, actually, last week,” Sarkisian said, noting they told Polk: “‘If you really want to take that next step to where people are talking about you, (the breakaway run has) got to be the next phase that comes.’
Polk apparently took the the message to heart: “To see him break those tackles in the secondary, and then out-run corners to the end zone, was very impressive,” Sarkisian said.
The scariest part about Polk is that the best may be yet to come this season. He has proven to be a strong finisher his first two years at UW.
In the final four games of 2010, Polk broke out for 685 rushing yards. That gives him 1,557 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns in his past 11 games — just under the length of a typical season. (It’s worth noting that the last running back to win a Heisman Trophy, Alabama’s Mark Ingram in 2009, had 1,542 rushing yards during the Crimson Tide’s 12-game regular season that year.)
“He’s really improved from game to game to game this year,” Sarkisian said, “and I’m really excited to coach him for the next five (of Polk’s junior season).”
Polk already has moved into second place on UW’s all-time rushing list. He did that in a Utah game four weeks that saw him — surprise — overshadowed by another stellar passing performance from Price, who completed 22 of 30 passes for 226 yards and three touchdowns.
With 3,433 rushing yards for his career, Polk is probably going to need another season at UW to catch all-time leading rusher Napoleon Kaufman’s mark of 4,106. Then, Polk won’t have to worry about standing in anyone’s shadow.
“We’ve talked so much about how this program has changed and how we’re on our way back, and he’s as much as part of that change as anybody that’s been in this program,” Sarkisian said. “We can talk about Jake (Locker), we can talk about Keith (Price) or Mason (Foster) or those guys, but Chris has really been the foundation of all of it.
“His ability to run the football, especially late in the last two seasons, has been a real key factor in our success and our ability to keep getting better.”
Notable
Junior safety Justin Glenn (foot) sat out most of practice for the third consecutive day, and it’s appearing more and more likely that sophomore Will Shamburger will get the start in Saturday’s game against Arizona. Glenn, who played at Kamiak High School, has started five consecutive games but hurt his foot against Stanford. … Saturday marks the second of three consecutive 7:30 p.m. kickoffs for the Huskies, and Sarkisian is just fine with that. “For us, late October, playing a home game in Husky Stadium at 7:30 at night is advantageous for us, (and) for our fan base, from a weather perspective,” he said earlier this week. “I think our kids really enjoy it.”
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