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Sanchez, Gable help USC pound Washington

Nov 2, 2008 - 2:08 AM By John Reger PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

LOS ANGELES (Ticker) -- With a lame duck coach and an even more inept offense, Washington was little competition for Southern California.

Mark Sanchez and C.J. Gable led six different players who scored for No. 6 USC, which demolished the Huskies, 56-0, on Saturday.

It was the Trojans' eighth consecutive victory over Washington, and the most lopsided in the 85-year history of the rivalry. USC (7-1, 5-1 Pac-10) defeated the Huskies (0-8, 0-5), 48-0, in 1929 and, more recently, 38-0, in 2004.

"It was a great way to bounce back from last week," Sanchez said, referring to a tough, 17-10, win over Arizona. "To beat someone like this and shut them out it was pretty special."

The Trojans were without their leading rusher, sophomore Joe McKnight, who has been battling turf toe for the past two weeks. McKnight practiced during the week, but aggravated the injury Thursday and did not dress for the game.

Gable and Stafon Johnson made sure USC did not feel the loss, taking the majority of the carries. Cable ended with nine carries for 58 yards and two touchdowns, while Johnson had seven carries for 36 yards.

"I did good, I could have done better," Gable said. "The line was blocking good. It wasn't really me doing the work, it was the line - they were perfect. If the line does good, I do good."

The Trojans jumped out to a 21-0 lead after the first quarter and a 42-0 edge at the half, led by three touchdowns from Sanchez - one rushing. Sanchez, who sat out the second half, finished 13-of-17 for 157 yards.

Conversely, Washington struggled from the beginning. Huskies head coach Ty Willingham, who will leave after the end of the season, was unable to spur his team to any type of offense against the Trojans.

I think it's obvious we played a very good football team," Willingham said. "Offensively we could not get started."

Washington was held to 14 total yards in the first quarter and got its opening first down at the 8:20 mark of the quarter. The Huskies finished with 35 total yards in the first half and 185 in the game.

"We came into the football game knowing we had to play perfectly and we had to be aggressive and couldn't make mistakes, and we didn't do that," Willingham said. "We didn't give ourselves a chance."

USC scored on its first two possessions on passes of 4 and 32 yards from Sanchez to Patrick Turner. Gable added a 9-yard scoring run for a 21-0 first-quarter lead. Sanchez and Johnson had 1-yard TD runs in the second quarter.

"I feel it shows we are playing well," Turner said. "The offense was playing on all cylinders. We wanted to make up for last week. We didn't feel like we played well at all and we wanted to show we could. We came out here tonight and really played well."

Most of the starters played only one series in the second half for the Trojans.

USC has given up a total of 30 points in seven wins, with its only TD allowed since the loss to Oregon State coming after a fumble gave Arizona the ball on the 15 last week.