UW defense can't stop OSU's Rodgers brothers

Someone who only tuned in at the beginning and end of this one, saw about all they really needed to know of Oregon State's 34-13 Pac-10 football victory over Washington on Saturday.

On the first snap, the Huskies were called for a delay penalty, unable to get the play off in time.

"It's disappointing, because you've got everything in place," said coach Tyrone Willingham. "Let's get it started."

And with just a couple of minutes left, they were stopped on four plays from the 1-yard line, unable to move the ball a mere 3 feet.

"It's fricking ridiculous you can't punch it in from the 1-yard line," said offensive coordinator Tim Lappano. "It's not acceptable."

The two events seemed to typify all that has gone wrong in this lost season as the Huskies fell to 0-6 and dropped their eighth straight dating to last season.

The Huskies only punted once, tied a season-high with 377 yards gained, and held Oregon State to 421, 75 yards under the average that the previous five UW opponents had managed.

But when it really mattered, the Huskies came up wanting time and again, leaving the crowd of 63,996 waxing nostalgic for better times. And if they needed reminding, the school brought out Don James and players from the 1978 Rose Bowl to be honored as Husky Legends at the end of the third quarter, receiving one of the loudest bursts of applause of the night.

"Our football team, I thought, fought to the very end and played hard," Willingham said. "But [we] didn't do enough of the right things to put ourselves in position to win the football game."

Instead, it was Oregon State getting three touchdowns of 33 yards or longer, and forcing four turnovers to continue its dominance of UW, which as much as anything illustrates clearly how the tables have turned on the Huskies in recent seasons.

It was the fifth straight Oregon State victory over UW, increasing a school record set last season, and the fourth in a row at Husky Stadium, three coming with the embattled Willingham as coach. Washington athletic director Scott Woodward has said he doesn't foresee making an in-season coaching change. But this decisive loss will only increase speculation about the fourth-year coach, who is 11-31 with the Huskies.

"There are still games on the schedule," Willingham said. "We've got to find a way out of this gloom and doom."

Washington briefly recovered from the first-play delay snafu to take a 3-0 lead on its second possession, its first lead of any kind in eight quarters.

But it disappeared quickly as Oregon State's James Rodgers took a reverse 52 yards for a touchdown late in the first quarter.

Two turnovers by UW quarterback Ronnie Fouch — an interception and a fumble — led to two more Oregon State scores in the second quarter, James Rodgers going 33 yards with a screen pass, to put the Beavers up 17-6 at halftime.

"We didn't make enough big plays, gave up too many big plays, didn't create turnovers, and gave turnovers," Willingham summarized.

Oregon State just about ended the suspense when it took the second-half kickoff and drove 65 yards in 10 plays. The possession was capped by a 1-yard run by Jacquizz Rodgers to make it 24-6.

A 55-yard run by James Rodgers early in the fourth quarter made it 31-6.

"We would stop them and stop them and they would hit us in the mouth with big plays," said UW cornerback Quinton Richardson.

Still, there remained one highlight — a 59-yard TD run by freshman Terrance Dailey that is the longest play for the year for the Huskies — and a lowlight — the four straight futile plays from the 1.

The game, to be sure, was not in doubt when the Huskies got to the 1-yard line with about three minutes left on a 32-yard pass from Fouch to Devin Aguilar.

But the play seemed to awaken the Beavers, who improved to 4-3.

On first down, Fouch failed to get in on a sneak. Then fullback Luke Kravitz was stopped up the middle.

"I thought it was a lot of pride right there," said Beavers coach Mike Riley. "We could have probably thought the game was in hand and not done it, but the guys wanted to [stop them]."

Fouch then rolled out, and Washington coaches felt he probably should have thrown to a seemingly open Kavario Middleton in the back of the end zone. But Fouch kept it and was stopped for no gain. On fourth down, UW went back to Kravitz, but he cut inside when he was supposed to go outside, and got nowhere.

"That was more disappointing than anything in the whole game," Lappano said.

And now the Huskies are back in the all-too-familiar position of trying to rally from a disheartening loss, no easy task with Notre Dame in town next week.

"It's not easy right now," Lappano said. "It's hard. We need everybody we have to try to hold this thing together. It's going to get hard, harder every week. We've got a challenge on our hands."

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com.