Once upon a time there were two twins growing up in Seattle. They grew up as brothers often do and became terribly competitive, battling each other to the death on the basketball court in games of full-court one-on-one, pushing each other to their limits as distance runners, and developing a shared love of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. They weren't identical, but they were close enough that people noticed them.
When it came time for college in the fall of 1987, one brother -- we'll call him "Mark" -- stayed close to home and chose the University of Washington; the other -- "Erik" -- headed south to enroll at Stanford. These twins, as if they needed another reason to compete, had one more point of contention. One more battle to fight each fall.
Sadly for Erik, this was smack in the middle of one of the most one-sided stretches Stanford has endured against any opponent. Starting in 1983, the Huskies beat the Cardinal ten straight times. Stanford won in 1994, but UW bounced back to win six more in a row. Losing to his brother's alma mater 16 out of 17 games was hard on Erik, and it could've been this despair that pushed him towards those twin sirens of distraction, nicotine and Jack Daniels. Soon enough Erik was making bets in the only currency he understood -- cigarettes. Not satisfied with beating his brother Mark, he wanted to corrupt him, and he crafted wagers that would have Mark smoke one cigarette for each point in what Erik hoped would be a Cardinal victory.
But those victories never came; those cigarettes were never smoked.
In recent years, however, the tables have turned in this football rivalry. Aside from the debacle of 2012 when the Josh Nunes-led offense failed to score a touchdown in a 17-13 loss, the Cardinal has had its way with the Huskies, winning six of the past seven games, often in convincing fashion. There was a 41-o win in 2010, and a 65-21 thrashing the year after, a game which featured a school-record 446 yards rushing for the Cardinal.
It feels like Saturday night's game will give us a similar result. The Stanford offense has not looked this good since the halcyon days of Andrew Luck. This conservative, archaic offense has ravaged the Pac-12 thus far, posting 41, 42, 55, and 56 points in consecutive games to jump out to a 4-0 conference record and make the case that Stanford is the team to beat, no matter what people might think about Utah.
Of course, Washington features the best defense on the Cardinal schedule, so it's unlikely Stanford will be able to maintain its season-long streak of scoring more points than the previous game, but they'll certainly score enough to come away with an easy win.
Washington's offense has struggled this year, no doubt because they're breaking in a true freshman quarterback. Jake Browning certainly has the tools to develop into a star in the not-too-distant future, but he's been predictably inconsistent. His QBR numbers tell the story well: 83.9 and 91.5 against cupcakes Sacramento State and Utah State, then 15.4, 29.3, and 64.4 in conference play against Cal, USC, and Oregon; the Huskies were 1-2 in those games.
Browning was knocked out of the Oregon game with a shoulder injury, and Coach Chris Petersen has said his availability will be a game-time decision. With Browning, the Huskies are already at a disadvantage; without him things will be even worse. If our brothers are still making bets, Mark should end up smoking at least a pack of cigarettes on Saturday night.
I'm predicting a 41-13 Stanford win, but that probably doesn't surprise anyone. For the other side of this coin, here's Kirk DeGrasse from UW Dawg Pound with some great insight on the Huskies. Read on, good people. Read on...
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