PALO ALTO, Calif. — There was no dramatic finish this Saturday. No raucous celebration.

Instead, a week after an upset of USC that seemed to herald Washington’s return to college football relevancy, the Huskies came back to earth with a 34-14 loss at Stanford that was as decisive as the score.
The defeat left the Huskies at 2-2, a record many fans would gladly have taken before the season. But it was a result that revealed that while UW has improved significantly, it still has some significant rebuilding to do — especially running the ball and stopping the run.
That ultimately proved the tale as Stanford’s Toby Gerhart rushed for a career-high 200 yards on 27 carries and Stanford finished with 324 while the Huskies were held to just 100.
Sarkisian agreed that the running game on both sides was the key, though he said he didn’t think it was because of any letdown from the win over USC.
“We couldn’t get them to stop running the football,” he said. “They controlled the game that way. And in turn we couldn’t get the momentum back in our favor by being able to run the ball and being able to control the game. I don’t think that’s about a letdown emotionally. I think our kids were ready to play.”
Coupled with three turnovers — two interceptions by Jake Locker and a Locker fumble on an exchange from center — and the UW offense never really got going while the defense was on its heels all game.
“(Locker) tried really hard and sometimes that gets you into trouble,” Sarkisian said.
The Huskies entered the game ranked No. 24 in The Associated Press poll, the first time they had been ranked since Sept. 28, 2003. They will assuredly fall out when the new poll is released Sunday, and now have to prepare for a trip to Notre Dame, a team the Huskies have never beaten in seven tries.
The game kicked off at 6:10 p.m. in a field enclosed in shadows on a hot fall Bay Area afternoon.
It was a sleepy environment for a contest with an official attendance of 36,930 that didn’t seem quite that large.
Washington coaches had tried to prepare their players by turning off practice music this week to replicate a more placid atmosphere.
But the Huskies seemed out of tune from the start as they allowed Stanford’s Chris Owusu to return the opening kickoff 91 yards for a touchdown — Owusu’s third return for a score this season, already tying a Pac-10 record. That set the tone for Cardinal dominance.
Sarkisian said there was a mixup on the opening kickoff, that the play was designed for the ball to be kicked to the left and instead it went to the other side.
“Whether that’s a miscommunication or not I’m not sure. I just know our guys were covering one side of the field and we kicked it to the other.”
The Huskies never led, and the Cardinal seemed in control with a 24-14 at the end of a first half that featured its share of craziness.
After Owusu’s return, the Huskies responded with a drive into Stanford territory. But that drive ended when Locker threw his second interception of the season as he tried to hit D’Andre Goodwin at the end zone. Instead, he found Stanford’s Delano Howell, the younger brother of former UW linebacker Dan Howell, indicative of a night when the junior quarterback never seemed as sharp as he had the first three games.
Stanford was on the move for another score when the Huskies got a huge break as Gerhart fumbled the ball when stripped in traffic by Daniel Te’o-Nesheim, with E.J. Savannah recovering at the 11.
The Huskies then returned the favor when Locker fumbled a snap at the Stanford 46, stopping a promising drive.
But the Huskies then got a huge break of their own when Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck tried to escape pressure and threw backward to an unsuspecting teammate, tight end Jim Dray, who watched as the ball bounced off his pads.
Most of the players stopped, seeming to think it was an incomplete pass. But UW’s Justin Glenn picked it up and after a moment’s hesitation began running and raced easily into the end zone for a touchdown that tied the game at 7 with 2:05 left in the first quarter.
But UW’s hold on the momentum was temporary. On the next play from scrimmage, Gerhart took a handoff and raced 60 yards into the end zone to put the Cardinal back on top 14-7 late in the first quarter.
“Gerhart is an absolute stud,” Sarkisian said. “It’s not that we weren’t right there. He just had the ability to bounce off tackles. And offensively we needed to help our defense more and keep them off the field and we weren’t able to do that tonight.”
Stanford expanded the lead to 17-7 early in the second quarter, then the Huskies mounted their best drive of the half, a four-play, 67-yarder that ended in a 19-yard pass from Locker to Jermaine Kearse. That cut the Stanford lead to 17-14 with 9:54 to play in the half.
But the Cardinal then seemed to take command for good with a grind-it-out 14 play, 68-yard march that ended in a 1-yard run by Stepfan Taylor to take a 24-14 lead with 2:41 to play.
That’s how the half ended and the Cardinal had the statistical lead in almost every area, including 285-187 in total yards and 194-62 in rushing yards.
Gerhart had 156 yards on 13 carries at the break to surpass his career high.
Stanford expanded the lead to 27-14 with 3:20 left in the third quarter on a 25-yard field goal by Nate Whitaker. That was set up on a Locker pass that was intercepted by Howell, the second for each of the game. Stanford got to UW’s 7-yard line but the drive ended there.
Washington had one last gasp as it drove to the Stanford 38 early in the fourth quarter. But a Locker pass on fourth-and-six fell incomplete and the Cardinal then moved easily down the field in five plays, Luck going the final nine yards on a bootleg scramble.
That put Stanford ahead 34-14 with 9:20 to play and sewed up the win for the Cardinal, which is 3-1 overall and 2-0 and all alone in first place in the Pac-10 with decisive wins over both Washington schools.
“There’s plenty of work to do. A lot of work to do,” Sarkisian said. “We are a young football team. But the goal is to continually get better and strive to get better day in and day out, week in and week out. I don’t know if we did that today.”