Washington’s Rout Confuses the Coach : Huskies: Don James says the last thing he expected was a 52-16 victory over Stanford.

Washington’s streak of blowouts in Pacific 10 Conference play continued Saturday, and Husky Coach Don James professed to be blown away by it.

“It doesn’t make sense,” James said after his 13th-ranked team crushed Stanford, 52-16, improving to 4-0 in the Pac-10 and 6-1 overall.

“After seeing how well Stanford (2-5, 1-3) had played against UCLA (a 32-31 loss) and Notre Dame (a 36-31 road victory), I thought this would be one of our most scary games,” James said.

Instead, Washington scared off the Cardinal, leading 31-0 at halftime and easily maintaining control thereafter.

Greg Lewis rushed for 108 yards to reach 920 for the season and keep alive his streak of running for at least 100 in each game. He did it despite an upset stomach.

“I was more tired today than in any other game,” Lewis said. “Luckily, the offensive line was really dominating and opening holes. I felt faint a couple of times out there. At halftime, I knew I couldn’t last a whole lot longer.”

It was a long day for Stanford, Coach Denny Green said.

“We didn’t play well, and we ran into a really good team,” Green said. “We turned the ball over too much (three lost fumbles, two interceptions) and had too many penalties (11 for 75 yards). We had trouble with their defensive front. Our overall concentration wasn’t good.”

Washington quarterback Mark Brunell began the rout by capping the Huskies’ first possession with a 15-yard scoring pass to Mario Bailey. He threw a 35-yard second-quarter touchdown pass to Orlando McKay, and with 2:21 remaining in the first half ran eight yards for a touchdown.

“That first touchdown was really important as a confidence-builder,” said Brunell, who completed nine of 16 passes for 148 yards with no interceptions. “Stanford had started its previous two games (against Notre Dame and USC) very quickly, so we knew we needed to score some points right off the bat.”

Scoring points was no problem for Washington all day. In the first half, the Huskies also scored on a 25-yard first-quarter field goal by Mike Dodd and a 17-yard fumble return by rover Eric Briscoe.

Stanford finally scored with 10:13 left the third quarter on Glyn Milburn’s 57-yard punt return. Milburn also caught seven passes for 103 yards.

After Milburn’s touchdown, Washington answered in three plays, with fullback Matt Jones breaking loose on a 39-yard touchdown run.