High off upset of USC, Washington looks to avoid letdown at Stanford

Washington will try to avoid letdown

STANFORD, Calif. — Toby Gerhart has plenty of memories from Stanford’s upset of Southern California two years ago — even if he didn’t play and couldn’t help since he was sidelined by a season-ending knee injury.

The Cardinal turned around the next week and lost to Texas Christian. A major letdown to say the least.

“Your confidence is sky high and you have that feeling you can beat anybody,” said Gerhart, Stanford’s star running back. “We were at that same point a couple years ago.”

But that can change so fast from one week to the next.

That’s exactly what Washington coach Steve Sarkisian is looking to avoid when his 24th-ranked Huskies (2-1, 1-0 Pac-10) visit Stanford Stadium on Saturday with first place in the Pac-10 on the line. It’s their first road game of 2009 and Stanford (2-1, 1-0) is playing well.

Sarkisian has stressed the theme of keeping the momentum this week in practice.

“We haven’t won anything,” linebacker E.J. Savannah said. “It was just the first Pac-10 game. That’s not our goal. Our goal is to win out in the Pac-10.”

Washington shocked then-No. 3 USC 16-13 on Saturday in Seattle, among the most monumental victories in program history considering where this team was a year ago: winless. Yes, the Huskies have gone from the lowest of lows last season to a long-awaited return to the Top-25 after three games.

“It was a special day,” Sarkisian said. “We don’t forget the last game. We obviously enjoyed that feeling. We want to remember the feeling and how to get back to it.”

Cardinal coach Jim Harbaugh doesn’t want to dwell on what happened to Stanford after that USC win in his first season. He’s more focused now on pushing his team forward in a year the Cardinal will be happy with nothing less than earning a bowl berth following a near miss last year.

Harbaugh acknowledges a win over USC can do a lot to put a program on the map.

“It’s hard to measure, but there is definitely more attention to the program and people wanting to talk to you about the game and how it went down,” Harbaugh said. “But there is a next game coming. I’m sure Steve is doing a great job focusing his football team. This league has shown that everybody is capable, everybody is vulnerable, every week you’ve got to prepare.”

For Washington quarterback Jake Locker, last year’s game with Stanford is a bad memory. He broke the thumb on his throwing hand, ending his season with eight games left. He later had surgery. The Huskies spiraled from that point on the way to an 0-12 record and the school’s first winless season.

Locker knows the win over USC gives the program some validation, a sign things could finally be on the upswing for a football team desperate to return to the Huskies’ glory days under coach Don James.

“I think everybody that came here, this is the kind of football we signed up to play,” Locker said. “I think we knew we could get here, it was just a matter of time. It was really exciting to be able to finish a game like that, because we’ve been in that situation. We’ve gone into halftime against a really good football team either tied, down three, up seven, whatever it may be, and then something just happens in the second half and it all falls apart. I think the confidence we all have in each other coming out of halftime ultimately is what allows us to win games.”

Gerhart’s last game against Washington would also be a bad memory if he could remember it at all.

He sustained a concussion in the first quarter and still has almost no recollection of the game except for stories from teammates and others about how he kept repeating himself when asked simple questions.

“That was probably the weirdest thing I’ve ever been involved with,” he said.

Gerhart is a big reason the Cardinal are off to their best three-game start since 2004.

He heads into Saturday’s game needing 72 yards to take another step up Stanford’s career rushing list. He’s currently eighth at 1,967 yards, and 72 would tie him with Kerry Carter for seventh.

He knows it won’t be easy.

“They’re a good team,” Gerhart said. “All week long on ESPN we saw upset alert. Everybody was picking Washington to beat USC.”

Sarkisian insists his Huskies will be ready to build on last week’s performance. Washington is 9-3 in the last 12 meetings at Stanford, including a 27-9 victory in 2007 — Washington’s last road win.

There’s been a trend in the Pac-10 for letdowns following victories over the Trojans.

Last year, Oregon State upset USC 27-21 then lost to Utah 31-28. In 2006, it was UCLA. The Bruins beat their archrival 13-9, then later lost to Florida State in the Emerald Bowl.

“We touched it head on,” Sarkisian said. “We have a very aggressive mentality about it. I think we’d like to recreate that with a great week of practice. They’re locked back in.”