The Cougars played the Cardinal close for two quarters of football, but Stanford proved to be too much for Washington State in the second half.

Stanford (6-0, 4-0 Pac-12) scored 34 points in the second half en route to a 44-14 blowout of WSU (3-3, 1-2 Pac-12).

Head Coach Paul Wulff said his team played hard but they were going against probably the most physical team they’ve seen so far.

“Our kids played hard, we’re way more physical than we’ve been,” Wulff said. “We faced a physical football team, as physical as your going to find in the West without question. And I think in a lot of ways we matched up for a while, I think we got wore down by the end of it.”

With starting quarterback Jeff Tuel back under center for WSU’s homecoming game, the Cougars started the game on defense.

Heisman candidate Andrew Luck threw an interception, his third of the year, on his first pass of the game to sophomore Damante Horton. The pass would be one of only a few miscues on the day for the senior quarterback.

Wulff had high praise for the opposing quarterback after the game.

“In the first half, Andrew Luck looked like a good football player,” Wulff said. “In the second half he looked like a great football player. He’d have guys in his face and he would step and throw cross-field outs to those tight ends and they were on the money.”

Following the interception, in what was a common theme of the day; the Cougar offense could not move the ball.

After punting the ball back to the Cardinal, the Cougars were able to force a Stanford punt after redshirt sophomore Casey Locker de-cleated Stanford’s senior receiver Chris Owusu.

For the second time in three seasons, as the Cardinal visited Pullman, Owusu was knocked out by a WSU safety. As Owusu went over the middle on third down, Locker paced the receiver and delivered a big hit, that left the receiver down on the field for several minutes.

WSU got a red-zone stop late in the first quarter to force a field goal by Stanford’s Jordan Williamson and ended the first quarter down 3-0.

After a Jared Karstetter fumble on Stanfords’ 47 yard line, which was returned 33 yards to the WSU 20 yard line. Stanford took advantage of the turnover, scoring the game’s first touchdown on a one-yard run by Jeremy Stewart.

The Cougars were able to answer with a touchdown of their own later in the quarter after freshman linebacker Chester Sua was able to recover a Stepfan Taylor fumble on the Stanford 40 yard line.

Junior Carl Winston narrowed the deficit to 10-7 by running in a two-yard touchdown after Tuel executed an eight play 40-yard drive down the field.

WSU entered the halftime break trailing 10-7. After an Isiah Barton 50-yard return to midfield, the Cougars were unable to move the ball.

Tuel said the offense’s inability to take advantage of the return was frustrating.

“It’s very frustrating, he made a great play, gets the place rocking — fired up, all excited and then we kind of shoot ourselves in the foot,” Tuel said. “That’s just kind of how the night went.”

After WSU punted back to Stanford, Luck went to work. He completed a 62-yard pass to tight end Coby Fleener and then capped the drive with a 10-yard touchdown pass to fellow tight end Levine Toilolo.

Redshirt junior Anthony Laurenzi said the Cardinal’s first drive was very deflating to the Cougars’ defense.

“We came out and they scored on us right away and we lost momentum,” Laurenzi said. “I felt like we got flat after that touchdown. When our offense couldn’t counter after that, we fell apart.”

Stanford continued the offensive onslaught in the second half as Luck found Toilolo once again for a 26-yard touchdown to push the score to 24-7 at the end of the third quarter.

The Cardinals weren’t finished there, as Luck tossed his third touchdown pass of the day on an eight-yard shovel pass to Stepfan Taylor. He added to his numbers with a 28-yard pass late in the fourth quarter to Fleener.

Luck finished the game with 336 yards on 23 of 36 completions and four touchdowns to one interception.

Tuel, in his first start this season, completed 17 of 30 passes for 145 yards. He said after the game he felt more and more comfortable as the game progressed.

“I’m not going to put myself out there if I didn’t feel like I was good to go and that’s how I’m going to play,” Tuel said. “As the game went on I felt more comfortable, but at the beginning of the game I was just trying to get some of those nerves out.”