[81alum]

Yes, Andrew Luck is gone. But Luck wasn't the major factor in Stanford's game plan against UW the last few years. Last year, Luck passed for 169 yards, while Stanford ran for a school-record 446 yards. In 2010, Luck passed for 192 and Stanford ran for 278. In 2009, Luck passed for 103 and Stanford ran for 321. The game plan against UW has been run, run, run. If UW hasn't fixed its run defense, then Stanford won't need to get very much out of Nunes.

I'm not sure I agree. 

First, the fact that Luck was the quarterback forced opposing defenses to respect the pass and not stack the box as much as they otherwise would.  Nunes has not yet become consistent enough to force opposing teams to keep their safeties back.  Luck in his senior year was so gifted that he opened up the run just by his reputation.  All good quarterbacks need to at least to make a few throws that punish the safeties for playing too close.   

Second, SJSU limited our rushing to 3.8 per attempt, and Duke to 3.5 per attempt.  Those are not enough to be consistent running the ball.  Relatively weak teams can clog our running game and dare us to pass.  Washington can at least do the same. 

We might still run over Washington and by a big margin--but not if Nunes has a bad day.  If he puts together two halves like the first half against USC this game might be closer than we would like.  If he avoids picks, throws for a few conversions on third down, and gets Ertz et. al. the ball behind the safeties then this could be a blowout. 

[81alum]

Yes, Andrew Luck is gone. But Luck wasn't the major factor in Stanford's game plan against UW the last few years. Last year, Luck passed for 169 yards, while Stanford ran for a school-record 446 yards. In 2010, Luck passed for 192 and Stanford ran for 278. In 2009, Luck passed for 103 and Stanford ran for 321. The game plan against UW has been run, run, run. If UW hasn't fixed its run defense, then Stanford won't need to get very much out of Nunes.

I'm not sure I agree. 

First, the fact that Luck was the quarterback forced opposing defenses to respect the pass and not stack the box as much as they otherwise would.  Nunes has not yet become consistent enough to force opposing teams to keep their safeties back.  Luck in his senior year was so gifted that he opened up the run just by his reputation.  All good quarterbacks need to at least to make a few throws that punish the safeties for playing too close.   

Second, SJSU limited our rushing to 3.8 per attempt, and Duke to 3.5 per attempt.  Those are not enough to be consistent running the ball.  Relatively weak teams can clog our running game and dare us to pass.  Washington can at least do the same. 

We might still run over Washington and by a big margin--but not if Nunes has a bad day.  If he puts together two halves like the first half against USC this game might be closer than we would like.  If he avoids picks, throws for a few conversions on third down, and gets Ertz et. al. the ball behind the safeties then this could be a blowout.