By CHRIS JOSEPH TAYLOR / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Washington State's defensive back Alfonso Jackson #1 tries to bring down Southern California's full back Stanley Havili in the first half Saturday. The Cougars struggled all day on both sides of the field letting the Trojans go for a total of 625 offensive yards.

PULLMAN, Wash. - The scoring streak is over for Washington State's football team after 280 games.

The Cougars were shut out 69-0 on Saturday by No. 6 Southern California, posting their first goose egg since a 44-0 thrashing at Ohio State on Sept. 15, 1984, when Ronald Reagan was president and Sarah Palin was a college student.

It was the second-longest current streak among major colleges for not being shut out, and the fourth longest of all time. Michigan, at 295, retains the longest active scoring streak, which also dates to 1984.

"It was in the back of a lot of people's heads," Washington State quarterback Kevin Lopina said. "A lot of people are bummed out because it ended, but it happens."

The Cougars (1-6, 0-5 Pac-10) never crossed midfield against a USC defense that leads the nation by allowing only 9 points per game and posted its second consecutive shutout. WSU had only 116 yards of total offense, including 88 on the ground and a paltry 28 through the air on 6-of-9 completions.

It was their fewest passing yards since a 1975 game against Washington, and fewest total yards since a 1969 game against Stanford.

It was also the largest margin of defeat in a team history dating to 1894. The 24-year scoring streak was older than most of the players.

First-year Washington State coach Paul Wulff was a player for the Cougars in the mid-1980s, in the nascent days of the streak. Asked if the end weighed on his mind, Wulff said "no."

"It's a game, we lost it," Wulff said.

The Cougars went into the game with a quarterback just recovering from a broken bone in his back, a third-string running back who started, and a patched-up offensive line, Wulff said.

"I don't like it," he said. "If I could have changed it, I would have."

Offensive coodinator Todd Sturdy was subdued after the game.

"I'm disappointed we couldn't put points on the board. I would have liked to keep that streak alive," he said.

Wide receiver Brandon Gibson, WSU's main offensive weapon, was held to one reception for no yards. He did try to run the ball twice on trick plays, getting four yards.

"We were fighting, digging and scratching, but we had nothing to fight, dig and scratch with," Gibson said.

It's been that way all season for a team that is averaging only 13 points per game, and twice had been held to three points.

Southern Cal coach Pete Carroll, who took his foot off the throttle early, said the lopsided score made him uncomfortable.

"I didn't know what to do," he said. "I didn't want the score to go up any higher than it had to."

The 1984 team that was shut out at Ohio State still managed 305 yards of offense, behind quarterback great Mark Rypien and running backs Rueben Mayes and Kerry Porter.

The next week, WSU beat Ball State 16-14 and had not been shut out since, although seven times they had scored a lone field goal.

Florida now has the second-longest scoring streak, at 249.

For years, a shutout of Washington State was unlikely, no matter how bad the team was. Washington State produced a trove of outstanding quarterbacks -- Timm Rosenbach, Rypien, Drew Bledsoe, Ryan Leaf, Jason Gesser, and Alex Brink among them -- plus running backs and receivers who could always put points on the board.

This season is different. Three different quarterbacks have started games, and two have been knocked out for the season by injuries.

Twice the Cougars have been held to one long Nico Grasu field goal, in a 66-3 loss to California and a 28-3 loss at UCLA.

The WSU streak was the fourth-longest in history, trailing Brigham Young's 361 games from 1975-2003, followed by Michigan and Texas at 282 games from 1980-2004. In Pacific-10 play, WSU had scored in 258 consecutive games since 1975, the longest streak in the league.