UCLA Gets Taken to the Blank : College football: Washington State holds UCLA to 226 yards in 21-0 victory at Rose Bowl. Stokes has one catch.

Washington State’s defense showed why it’s one of the nation’s best Saturday as the 22nd-ranked Cougars shut out No. 18 UCLA, 21-0, at the Rose Bowl.

Dewayne Patterson had four sacks and Kevin Hicks ran for two touchdowns as Washington State (3-0) handed UCLA (2-2) only its second shutout in 23 years. The Cougars limited the Bruins to 226 yards in the Pacific-10 opener for both teams.

The nation’s top defensive team against the rush, the Cougars held UCLA to 69 yards in 31 rushes. Washington State had given up an average of 19.5 yards rushing in its first two games.

The Cougars, ranked ninth nationally in total defense, sacked Bruin quarterback Wayne Cook six times, and held him to 90 yards passing. Cook was 11 of 25 with one interception.

UCLA came into the game averaging 432.3 yards of offense.

The Cougars’ defense set up the third touchdown, when Chris Hayes intercepted a tipped pass by Cook at the Washington State 16 in the third quarter and returned it to the UCLA 13. After a penalty, Chad Davis threw a screen pass in the right flat that Frank Madu turned into a 17-yard scoring play.

The Cougars scored the second time they had the ball, marching 85 yards to a three-yard touchdown run by Hicks. Davis completed passes of 27 yards to Albert Kennedy and 41 yards to Kearney Adams during the seven-play drive.

After UCLA missed its only serious scoring threat, a 36-yard field goal by Bjorn Merten that was wide left midway through the second quarter, Terrell Henderson blocked Darren Schager’s punt to give the Cougars the ball on the Bruins 1. Hicks ran it in on the first play to make it 14-0 just before halftime.

Davis, a sophomore who became the starter this year, completed 13 of 20 for 166 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions. He had been intercepted four times in the Cougars’ two earlier victories.

UCLA receiver J.J. Stokes, an All-American last season, played for the first time since bruising his left thigh in the Bruins’ opener on Sept. 3. He caught one pass for 13 yards but left the game in the third quarter because the thigh had stiffened up.

The last time UCLA was shut out was in 1992, when the Bruins lost, 20-0, to Arizona State. Prior to that, they hadn’t been blanked since a 38-0 defeat by Michigan in 1971.