Not Exactly Artistic

It wasn't an artistic triumph, but if you looked at the film of yesterdays game, Washington dominated Stanford in about every single category on Saturday. The Husky offense is rounding into shape and should be able to be counted on to score at a serious enough clip to keep up in the Pac Ten over the next three years.

Washington's offense has been sub par ever since Pickett's senior year, and the coaches have done a great job rebuilding it over the last three years. Jake Locker of course is the major ingredient, but there was a lot of good blocking going on out there. Louis Rankin doesn't run for 249 yards without good blocking no matter who the opponent is.

The Huskies need to do a better job with turnovers which would have led to at least a couple of more touchdowns yesterday. Let's face it, when you have over 500 yards in total offense you should be scoring quite a bit more.

On defense the Huskies held the Cardinal to only nine points, and only 137 yards yards through the air. The depleted Cardinal did however pick up 116 on the ground which was way too many when you figure that they were down to their 5th string running back. So if you think the defense is fixed you guessed wrong, they still have a lot of work to do just to get to mediocre. The Huskies dodged the bullet because of Cardinal mistakes like fumbling at the one yard line, and being off with their kicking game. Those mistakes cost the Cardinal eleven points, and also a good chance to win this game.

A highlight for me was seeing Jordan Murchison out there playing for the first time in his career. I think the kid did a good job in his first outing and will contribute quite a bit if the coaches let him see action over the last four games.

Next week the Huskies travel to Oregon State, and they are going to have to do a much better job against the run to win that game. Yvenson Bernard sat out the USC game yesterday with a bruised shoulder, but he should be ready to go against Northwest rival Washington next Saturday.

Oregon State is a team this current Husky team should beat. The Beavers are banged up, and they have a QB who is having a terrible year throwing the ball to his own players. The Husky defense needs to be ready to take advantage of those miscues next week to pick up it's second victory in a row.

I have been saying all week that the Mantra is win the next five games. With Stanford out of the way the new Mantra is when the next four. all four of these games are winnable, even Cal who barely got by WSU last night at home. The Cougars probably would have beaten the Bears if James Tardy had been on the active roster this week. I like WSU right now, and I like Doba because his team is getting better over the course of the year and that indicates good coaching. Well coached teams get better, poorly coached teams do not, and banged up teams like Cal just find a way to hold on.

UW is pretty healthy going into the final four game stretch of the season, and that is why I am still optimistic that we can be bowling in December if they can perform at the level they are capable of. Like yesterday, it likely won't be artistic, but you can't diminish the importance of practicing all week as a winner for the first time since the second week of the season. Any way you slice it, yesterday was a big day for Washington.