In the first game of the season with the student body on campus and in attendance, Washington State “manhandled” the Cardinal on both sides of the ball to win easily, 36-10.

Washington State 36

Stanford 10

The Cougars played an ugly game on Saturday. Washington State coughed up three fumbles — two deep in Stanford territory — kicker Loren Langley pulled an extra point wide right and quarterback Alex Brink overthrew several deep balls to open receivers.

But Stanford played worse. The Cardinal got blown out on its home field by a team that lost seven straight Pac-10 games last season, and beat national laughingstock Baylor by just two points last week.

The Cougars physically dominated Stanford on both offense and defense. The Cardinal showed little improvement since last week’s equally embarrassing blowout loss to Navy.

Offensively, Stanford’s offensive line allowed eight sacks on the day, five of those by defensive end Mkristo Bruce.

“He manhandled those guys; he’s just very tenacious,” said Washington State Coach Bill Doba of Bruce.

The Cougars held the ball for 13:21 of 15 first-quarter minutes. In that quarter alone, Washington State gained 180 yards compared to Stanford’s two.

“We dug ourselves and the defense a hole by putting Washington State on the field for basically 15 minutes of the first quarter,” said senior quarterback Trent Edwards (15-of-25 for 167 yards, one touchdown and one interception). “You can’t win football games that way, and a lot of that starts with the offense.”

On the day, Washington State gained 240 rushing yards on nearly five yards per carry. Stanford managed just 28, less than a yard per touch.

“Once you control the front, then you’ve got a chance,” Doba said. “And they’ve got some young kids up front on their defense, so we were able to run the ball.”

Coach Walt Harris expressed a painful awareness of his team’s struggles on the line. His squad ranks dead-last of the 119 Division I-A football programs in stopping the run — by over 50 yards per game.

“The rush defense — I’m not pleased with that, but I’m not pleased with the rush offense either,” Harris said. “But to say that I’ve got answers, I’m like everyone else.

“Until we can match up physically, we will continue to make it hard on ourselves to have a chance to compete.”

Washington State blew the game open with three second-quarter touchdowns. Five minutes into the period, Cougar defensive end Mike Graise drove his blocker five yards into the backfield, enabling him to snag Edwards’ screen for freshman tailback Toby Gerhart and rumble 33 yards for the score.

On the next drive, Stanford then failed to pick up a first down, and star Cougar wideout Jason Hill blocked senior Jay Ottevegio’s punt at the Cardinal 13. An eight-yard Brink scramble on third and seven set up a two-yard play-action pass to tight end Jed Collins, pulling the Cougars ahead 15-0.

After another Stanford three-and-out, Washington State turned to the ground, running six times for 43 yards on their next drive. Brink capped the march with a one-yard sneak to give the Cougars a 22-0 halftime lead.

Despite hemorrhaging yardage and possession time in the first quarter, Stanford’s defense managed to keep Washington State off the board early. The Cougars fumbled twice inside the Stanford five to kill promising drives. The only points Washington State scored in the first period came when Edwards slipped in the end zone for a safety.

“Defensively, we played a great first quarter; we held them to [two] yards,” Doba said. “Offensively, with two fumbles, we kept trying to keep them in the game.”

With Stanford’s top-three receivers injured, junior walk-on Kelton Lynn caught the Cardinal’s only touchdown of the day, a 25-yard strike in the early fourth. Lynn led Stanford with 65 receiving yards, while junior tailback Anthony Kimble paced the ground game with 41 yards on 11 carries.