STANFORD, Calif. -- Washington challenged the surging Stanford offense in the Cardinal's 31-14 win this past weekend. The Huskies, who were ranked atop the Pac-12 defensive pecking order coming in, were able to choke off some of the explosiveness that Stanford had showed in a four-game muscle-flexing leading up to Saturday night. David Shaw's team had averaged 48.5 points in that stretch, and they finished with 17 fewer against Washington.

Yet the Cardinal's offensive performance against the Huskies may have been the most significant one yet, simply because the challenge was greater, and the requirement to conquer it demanded that Stanford return to its deliberate, road-grading roots -- as opposed to the explosive fireworks display of the past month.

"They gave us nothing easy," Shaw said. "We knew that were going to have to be methodical and systematic to win this game. It was going to be tough sledding."

Last year, the Cardinal were often tripped up by a secondary of Washington's caliber. The Huskies closed quickly on the back end, forcing Kevin Hogan to be particularly judicious about his throw selection. He passed that test this time around, completing over 71 percent of his passes at an again-gaudy 12.1 yards per attempt while also adding 49 rushing yards. There's proof that the bum ankle is nearly 100 percent healthy again.

Stanford quarterback Kevin Hogan led the Cardinal to their sixth straight victory on Sunday against Washington. AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

Washington's front seven entered the game allowing a league-best 3.1 yards per rush, and they didn't surrender the gaping holes that doomed a depleted UCLA unit against the Cardinal a week prior, when 48 carries produced 311 rushing yards. Against the Huskies, 48 carries yielded only 188 yards. Typically, 3.9 yards per rush is nothing to write home about, but exceptions are made when guard Joshua Garnett inflicts more damage on one play than a bull in Pamplona.

By the time the cloud of dust settled, Stanford had won the time-of-possession battle 40 minutes to 20. They had run 72 plays to the Huskies' 45. They had churned out several long scoring drives, including a 15-play, 90-yard doozy that ensured comfortable control of the game throughout.

"Washington was really physical," Stanford center Graham Shuler said. "They stayed in the box and played it straight up. But when we came off the field, we didn't even know how many plays it was. We just wanted to line up, pound the rock, and get to it."

Flashy per-rush average of recent games, be darned. This showed something more important for Stanford moving forward: workmanlike stability. And for an offense dogged by consistency questions after a season-opening 16-6 loss to Northwestern and an up-and-down Week 2 performance against Central Florida, this firmness is a huge deal.

The Cardinal are sitting pretty at 6-1 (5-0 in Pac-12 play), and it's tough to see a defense on the rest of their regular season schedule challenging them in the way Washington did. Of Stanford's final five opponents -- Washington State, Colorado, Oregon, California, and Notre Dame -- only the Irish rank in the country's upper echelon defensively, and even their play on that side of the ball hasn't been spectacular.

So if there's not a defense capable of slowing Stanford's offense the rest of the way, what could prove to be the Cardinal's undoing?

For the first time since 2011, the question marks seem to have completely shifted to the other side of the ball. The Cardinal's relatively inexperienced defense will be the determining variable. There's a particularly scary test coming its way this Halloween night at Washington State, where a young Stanford secondary will face an Air Raid that's recently hit its stride.

"It's gonna show everything we've been working on throughout the past seven games," linebacker Blake Martinez said. "It's gonna show how great our young secondary is. When everyone was talking about Washington's defense heading into last week, we had a chip on our shoulder. What about us? We're a great defense, and we're gonna show that next week through our secondary play."

This is welcome assurance from the Cardinal's perspective. If it does indeed come to fruition on the defensive side, and if Shaw's offense maintains the punishing consistency it has shown since conference play began, Stanford will be favored to win the remainder of its games. The table is set for this team to complete its remarkable turnaround. There just can't be any Week 1 deja vu, and that's why Cardinal players use a "remember Northwestern!" rallying cry on the sidelines whenever they feel focus may be slipping.

And so far, there's been no indication that the train is close to coming off the rails.

"We have confidence in Kevin Hogan, in Christian McCaffrey, in the way that Josh Garnett is playing," Shuler said. "And it all feeds off itself. When you get in that self-serving loop, it's tough to stop. We've just got to feed the beast and keep this going."