Taylor Martinez And Nebraska Roll Over Washington, 56-21

Video via King 5 Sports.

As described in the recap, Jake Locker had a game to forget.

And it sounds like that's exactly what he'll be doing.

"It's one of our 13 this year and we didn't play as well as we wanted to in all three phases of the game," said Locker in the video above. "It'll be nice to have a bye week to clean some of that stuff up and get ready to start our Pac-10 season."

Seattle, WA (Sports Network) – Freshman quarterback Taylor Martinez continued to impress with three rushing scores and a passing touchdown in leading No. 8 Nebraska to a 56-21 throttling of Washington.

Martinez threw a 24-yard TD pass to Mike McNeill to open the scoring and went on to rush for 137 yards on 19 carries. His day included an 80-yard TD scamper, while Roy Helu Jr. ripped off a 65-yard scoring run — one of two scores — on the way to 110 yards on the ground.

Rex Burkhead added 104 rushing yards and a touchdown for the Cornhuskers (3-0), who easily dispatched of Western Kentucky and Idaho at home to start the year. The 3-0 start is just their third since 2004.

Senior Jake Locker had a game to forget, completing just four of his 20 passes for 71 yards with two interceptions — one returned 31 yards by Alfonzo Dennard for a touchdown.

Locker did hook up with Jermaine Kearse for a 45-yard touchdown and ran for another score. He led the team in rushing with 59 yards on 11 touches while Chris Polk ran for 55 yards and a score for the Huskies (1-2), who were coming off a 41-20 win over Syracuse.

Washington had won five of its previous six games at Husky Stadium.

Nebraska built a 28-14 halftime lead and scored on its second play of the game after Locker was intercepted by Eric Hagg near midfield less than two minutes in.

A 24-yard run by Burkhead placed the ball at the Washington 24 and Martinez connected with McNeill from there for the early lead.

A quick three-and-out from the Huskies saw the ball back in enemy hands, and Nebraska found the end zone for a second time on its fifth play from scrimmage. Martinez stretched the field on a 55-yard completion to Brandon Kinnie on second down to reach the goal line and took it in himself on the next play for a 14-0 difference less than five minutes into the game.

Washington answered with a strong 11-play drive, with conversion runs of seven yards each by Polk and Locker on third down. The latter saw Locker reach the end zone, capping the 80-yard trek and halving the deficit.

While the Huskies offense mostly sputtered from there, NU pushed the lead to 21-7 early in the second quarter. A key 21-yard strike to Niles Paul on 3rd- and-16 moved the ball into Huskies territory and Helu Jr. rumbled in for an eight-yard score three plays later.

After another punt from the offense, the hosts benefited from a fumble recovery that placed the ball at Nebraska’s six-yard line. Two plays later Polk crossed the goal line from two yards away to make it 21-14 with under five minutes remaining in the first half.

But Nebraska posted another score before the break. Kinnie took the ensuing kickoff back 39 yards and Martinez kept it himself from the one to forge a two-touchdown lead.

The Cornhuskers ratcheted up the offense after halftime, and opened up a sturdy 49-21 lead with 21 third-quarter points. Martinez set the tone by taking it 80 yards for six points on the first play from scrimmage.

The barrage was interrupted by a quick 45-yard TD pass from Locker to Kearse, but Helu then broke off his 65-yard scoring run and the ‘Huskers put an end to Washington’s next drive with Dennard’s pick-six of Locker for the 28-point margin.

A debilitating 80-yard drive in the fourth quarter shaved nearly six minutes from the clock and was capped by Burkhead’s 19-yard touchdown.

Game Notes

Martinez ended 7-of-11 passing for 150 yards…Kinnie led all receivers with five catches and 105 yards…This bout marked the eighth all-time meeting between these two teams, with Nebraska taking a 4-3-1. edge in the series…Washington gained 246 yards of offense and was 4-of-14 on third downs.

Nebraska used a dominant defensive performance to stifle Husky quarterback Jake Locker en route to a 56-21 win at Husky Stadium.

Locker had a forgettable performance, going 4-20 for 71 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. 45 of those yards came on a deep touchdown pass to Jermaine Kearse early in the second half.

Washington looks to regroup after a bye week when they open the Pac-10 slate against USC in Los Angeles.

With the Huskies behind, Jake Locker can’t afford to make mistakes. He did just that, throwing an interception that was returned for a touchdown, putting Nebraska up 49-21.

The interception was Locker’s second of the day. Outside of a long touchdown pass, the black shirts have kept the senior quarterback in check today.

University of Nebraska quarterback Taylor Martinez ran for an 80 yard touchdown run on the first play of the second half against the University of Washington in Seattle.  

Here's a video of the 80 yard touchdown run by Nebraska's Taylor Martinez.

Taylor Martinez's touchdown run gave Nebraska a 35-14 third quarter lead.

Well, that didn’t last long. Taylor Martinez took the first play from scimmage in the second half 80 yards for the score, outrunning the Husky defense.

Two plays later, Locker answered with a deep strike to Jermaine Kearse.

Looks like we have a shootout.

At the half, Nebraska leads Washington 28-14. Jake Locker is 2-10 with 20 yards and an interception, but the Husky running game has kept them in the game.

The UW defense needs to step up and Locker needs to find a rhythm in the second half to make this a game.

With Cort Dennison out with an illness, freshman Garret Gilliland gets the start at middle linebacker for the Huskies.

UW Sports News passes along the news on twitter.

Gilliland will be charged with slowing down the Huskers spread option attack up the middle.

UW took another blow due to injuries before the game. With Cort Dennison already likely out, tailback Johri Fogerson is not suited up, either.

Bob Condotta passed that note along in his live chat.

The TBs have taken the field and Fogerson is not in uniform, either.

In his live chat this morning, Bob Condotta mentioned Cort Dennison “may be out” today against Nebraska.

In a follow-up question, he elaborated a bit.

“Some kind of illness. We were just told he’s under the weather. We didn’t get anything more specific. "

“That will make Garret Gilliland a huge key today. Or maybe they move Foster over or something and shuffle things around. But Thursday, it was all Gilliland in the middle. "

This is a huge blow for the Huskies if Dennison can’t give it ago. Against Taylor Martinez, Washington needs to be strong up the middle and keep track of the mobile Nebraska quarterback.

UPDATE: Condotta says Dennison is not suited up and will not play today in his live chat.

We know UW has an all-black uniform combination they haven't unveiled, but will today be the day?

Bob Condotta, of the Seattle Times, wondered aloud if we might finally see the all-blacks in action against Nebraska today.

Husky head coach Steve Sarkisian has obviously placed a huge emphasis on the Nebraska game. If the black uniforms get UW fired up, why not try them out against the team known for their "blackshirts"?

On ESPN’s College Gameday this morning, Desmond Howard slammed the Huskies while picking Nebraska to win comfortably.

Howard, a Michigan almuni, said “I’m regurgitating the purple kool-aid. The Huskies don’t look that good. Nebraska in a blowout.”

Washington and Nebraska kick it off at Husky Stadium in about two hours.

The Sports Network

By Frank Haynes, Senior College Football Editor

GAME NOTES: The eight-ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers head to the Pacific Northwest to challenge the Washington Huskies in non-conference action.

Nebraska is a perfect 2-0 on the young season, having easily dispatched with Western Kentucky (49-10) and Idaho (38-17), both at home. The Huskers are 2-0 for the sixth straight season, but a win in this clash with make them 3-0 for just the third time since 2004.

The Cornhuskers are coached by Bo Pelini, who has a record of 22-8 in this his third season at the helm.

A week after dropping its season opener at BYU (23-17), Washington evened its record at 1-1 with last week's home win over Syracuse (41-20). The Huskies are led by second-year head coach Steve Sarkisian, who took a winless team in 2008 to a 5-7 record last year for the best turnaround at the FBS level.

Washington has been particularly tough at home recently, winning three straight and five of the last six in front of the Husky Stadium faithful.

This bout marks the eighth all-time meeting between these two teams, with the series knotted at 3-3-1. Nebraska has won the last two encounters, the most recent coming in 1998.

Through two games, the Nebraska offense has demonstrated its dominance on the ground by churning out 649 yards on 74 attempts for an average of 8.8 ypc. There have been 11 runs of 20 yards or more, and nine TDs have been recorded.

Freshman QB Taylor Martinez continues to impress here in the early going, leading the team with 284 rushing yards and five TDs, while completing 65.6 percent of his passes, albeit for just 121 ypg. He has yet to throw a TD pass and has been intercepted only once. Niles Paul is the Cornhuskers' leading receiver with nine grabs for 123 yards and a TD.

As for Nebraska's RBs, both Roy Helu Jr. and Rex Burkhead are over 100 yards for the season, and they have combined for three TDs.

Despite piling up 360 rushing yards and putting up 38 points last week against the Vandals, coach Pelini wants his offense to continue to progress and put forth maximum effort.

"Our attention to detail needs to pick up, our attitude needs to pick up and our standard needs to pick up. We'll get that fixed this week. We'll be fully ready as a football team to go to Seattle. I can promise you that."

Defensively, the Huskers have allowed very little thus far, yielding a mere 13.5 points and 289 yards of total offense per game. They average four turnovers per outing, and P.J. Smith has notched two of the club's sin INTs.

Lavonte David is the team's top tackler at the moment, checking in with 20 stops, while Jared Crick and Baker Steinkuler have combined for five sacks, the team as a whole having logged eight sacks through the first two games.

In the win over Idaho, the Huskers came away with six turnovers, a fact Pelini was obviously ecstatic about. "It's huge. That is what we talk about, about attacking the football. Like I said, defensively we stepped up, those guys played well. We played very well defensively, we did a lot of good things. Now we weren't perfect, but I saw a lot of good things."

With his team trailing 10-0 to Syracuse last week, Washington QB Jake Locker made it his personal mission to bring his team back and he did just that as he threw a career-high-matching four TD passes to help the Huskies claim their first win of the campaign. Locker, who suffered a bruised wrist late in the contest but should be able to go this week against the Huskers, went 22-of-33 for 289 yards, while WR Jermaine Kearse finished with nine catches for 179 yards and three scores -- all career highs.

So far this season, Locker has completed 60 percent of his passes for 555 yards, five TDs and no INTs.

The UW ground attack also got into the action, as Chris Polk ran for 117 yards and a TD to help the team finish with 175 yards on better than five yards per attempt.

Sarkisian lauded the play of some of his offensive guys, "Jermaine Kearse had a fantastic outing. I thought Jake Locker had a tremendous ball game as well. Chris Polk, Jesse Callier, Devin Aguilar on offense were all great."

He praised the defense as well, "After the 10 points we gave them, our defense really set the tone for the game and getting the ball back to the offense. I thought our defensive line played well. I thought our corners played well."

Dennison Cort was high man on the defensive side of the ball for the Huskies with his dozen stops, while Mason Foster was credited with 10 tackles, a sack and a forced fumble.

It was certainly a tale of two games for the UW defense, which surrendered 408 yards and failed to register either a sack or turnover against BYU the week prior. Foster had 14 tackles in the setback.

Washington is clearly the best team Nebraska will have faced thus far, and while the Huskies have some firepower on which to rely, they are likely to come up short. The home crowd will do its best to will UW to victory, but the reality is the Huskers are simply better.

Sports Network Predicted Outcome: Nebraska 31, Washington 21

SB Nation Seattle's Jeff Nusser writes that the University of Washington's game with Nebraska on Saturday is a potential watershed game for University of Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian and quarterback Jake Locker.

What matters is there is a perception that the Nebraska defense is really good. And if Sarkisian the offensive guru and his erstwhile Heisman Trophy candidate can find a way to pile up some yards and points against a unit roundly considered to be very good while somehow pulling off a victory ... well, you might not want to write off Jake Locker's candidacy just yet.

Beyond that, this probably is Locker's best chance to show pro scouts whether he's really worth trusting with their franchise come April. This is likely to be the most NFL-esque defense Locker will face, with what will probably be some of the smallest holes he'll have to fit passes into all year. Light up Nebraska the way he did Syracuse, and there's legitimate excitement.

Nebraska fans from far and wide are in Seattle this week, painting the town red and supporting their Huskers.

Bob Condotta noted a “sea of red” may show up in Seattle this morning.

There may be a Sea of Red coming to town today, though frankly, all that’s visible outside my window this morning is this haze of gray fog.

I can verify first-hand that Nebraska fans are out in force ahead of Saturday’s showdown. There’s plenty of red roaming Seattle in anticipation of tomorrow’s matchup.

The Omaha Herald is expecting somewhere around 20,000 Nebraska fans to be in attendance to see their Huskers take on Washington at Husky Stadium Saturday afternoon. The influx of fans should help Nebraska negate the home-field advantage and may be why head coach Bo Pellini wasn’t worried about the crowd noise.

Washington and Nebraska kick it off Saturday at 4 p.m.

Saturday’s Washington-Nebraska game at Husky Stadium marks the eighth meeting between the Huskies and Huskers, with half of those meetings coming in the 1990s. In the early 90s, UW was at the peak of its success and the games against Nebraska were fiercely competitive and highly anticipated by fans of both teams.

Bob Condotta took a look at the series and some of its most memorable moments.

But to most UW fans, the series boils down to games in 1991 and 1992 that were as memorable as any during a time the Huskies were among the elite of college football, plus the 1997 contest in Seattle that marked the coming-out party for Marques Tuiasosopo.

Though both programs have slipped since then, Nebraska is back in the top-ten and Washington is in the middle of a rebuilding, with anticipation as high as its been in the last decade. The history and current state of the programs make this matchup one of the biggest Montlake has seen in some time.

Washington and Nebraska kick it off Saturday at 12:30 p.m. on ABC.

ABC released the coverage map for Saturday’s slate of games and the majority of the country will see UW-Nebraska at 12:30 p.m.

You can find the full coverage map here.

If the game isn’t on ABC for you, coverage will be mirrored on ESPN 2. If that doesn’t work, the game will also be streamed live on ESPN3.com.

Needless to say, it will be easy to get your football fix this weekend.

Nebraska head coach Bo Pellini and UW athletic director Scott Woodward have a history that goes back to their days at LSU. The two will meet again this Saturday, with Woodward overseeing Washington athetlics and Pellini taking the field as the Huskers head coach.

The Seattle Times’ Bob Condotta looked at the relationship between the two and found Pellini played a role in the hiring of Husky head-man Steve Sarkisian.

So when the time came to hire a coach in 2008, Woodward instead called Pelini merely for advice — with Pelini helping to nudge Woodward toward his eventual hire of Steve Sarkisian.

“We talked and he had an enormous amount of respect for coach Sarkisian and thought the world of him,” Woodward said.

Pellini had just been hired at Nebraska prior to the 2008 season but Woodward admits he would’ve been a candidate had the Huskies made a change in 2007.

Pellini and the Huskers take on UW Saturday at 12:30 p.m.

A sold out crowd at Husky Stadium awaits Bo Pellini and the Huskers Saturday afternoon, but the Nebraska head man doesn't seem too concerned about the raucous crowd expected in Seattle.

Seattle Times reporter Bob Condotta passes along the word from Pellini.

Despite a dominant week 2 win over Syracuse at home, The University of Washington did not receive any votes in this week’s Associated Press college football poll.

Washington also didn't receive votes in ESPN.com's Power Rankings and ESPNU's Fan Rankings but did receive 14 votes in USA Today's poll, placing them No. 38 in the country.