Photos

By Rick Eymer
Palo Alto Online Sports

Josh Nunes showed a great deal of improvement in his second career start, throwing for three touchdowns in leading the Stanford football team to a 50-13 victory over visiting Duke on Saturday in a nonconference contest.

"It was a heck of a lot better," Nunes said. "We had points on special teams, defense and we were able to put some points up on offense."

The Cardinal (2-0) will find out what its made of next week when No. 2 USC comes to town to open Pac-12 Conference play next Saturday at 4:30 p.m.

Stanford is ranked No. 21 in the Associated Press Top 25 this week and No. 16 in the USA Today Top 25.

"We have to have the best week of practice we've had so far," Stanford middle linebacker Shayne Skov said. "We have to make sure we're a little sharper than we were this week. It's going to take everything we got."

Skov had four tackles and one pass breakup in his first start since tearing ligaments in his left knee in the third game at Arizona last season.

Duke quarterbacks Sean Renfree and Anthony Boone have yet to be compared to Trojans' Heisman Trophy candidate Matt Barkley and the Blue Devils threw for 358 yards on 42 of 63 passing.

"The game that we played tonight," Stanford coach David Shaw said, "still wouldn't be good enough to beat USC."

Of course, the Blue Devils were forced to throw the ball a lot since Stanford grabbed an early lead and stuffed Duke's running game to the tune of 27 yards on 23 carries.

Nunes, who was 16 of 30 for 275 yards, took the field for the first time with the Cardinal already holding a 7-0 lead thanks to Drew Terrell's 76-yard punt return following Duke's first offensive possession. It was Stanford's first punt returned for a touchdown in three years.

Terrell, who caught three passes, also hauled in a 19-yard scoring toss. Levine Toilolo and Jamal-Rashad Patterson each added a TD reception.

Ed Reynolds intercepted a pair of passes, returning one 71 yards for a touchdown, and has three on the season. Harold Bernard forced a fumble that was recovered by Torsten Rotto. The Cardinal last had one player with two picks in a game in 2009.

Stepfan Taylor rushed for 69 yards and a touchdown and Jordan Williamson was 3 of 4 on field-goal attempts.

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