SEATTLE —It has been 15 years since the Huskies played a game ranked among the top 10 teams in college football. It took them 16 seconds to show they belonged.

Budda Baker delivered a big hit to force a fumble on the game’s opening kickoff, and on the next play Jake Browning threw the first of his five touchdown passes to kick-start No. 8 Washington’s 59-14 blowout of Idaho on Saturday afternoon.

The Huskies, favored by 37 points, improved to 2-0 exactly as they should have: Save for an underwhelming rushing attack, they did just about everything they wanted in their second consecutive lopsided victory. They should have a third blowout next Saturday when they close out the nonconference scheduled against Portland State.

“Awesome out there, huh?” UW coach Chris Petersen said.

He was talking about the setting — “the greatest setting in college football,” he said — on a perfect 71-degree afternoon under clear-blue skies for an announced crowd of 60,678 at Husky Stadium.

He could have easily been talking about Browning and the offense, which scored 40 points for the fifth game in a row — the first time in program history that’s happened. Browning’s five TD passes tied a school record.

Sure, it was only Idaho. But it’s another step, if but a baby step, and the Huskies won’t celebrate this one for long.

“I still think we’ve got a lot left in us,” Petersen said.

Browning entered the UW record books, too, tying the single-game record with his five touchdown passes.

The sophomore quarterback completed 23 of 28 passing for 294 yards and had a quarterback rating of 229.3 before being pulled after his first drive of the third quarter.

The Huskies led just 7-0 after the first quarter before pushing the tempo and scoring 28 points in the second quarter to take a 35-0 halftime lead. The hurry-up suits Browning well: At one point, he completed 13 passes in a row.

“Yeah, 2-0 feels good,” Browning said. “But our big thing is we’re going to keep getting better, and you’re going to hear that from me the whole year.”

On the game’s first play from scrimmage, Browning scrambled away from pressure to his right and found Dante Pettis in the back of the end zone for a 21-yard touchdown. He added a 7-yard TD pass to Pettis early in the second quarter, then a 30-yard TD to Chico McClatcher and TD passes of 9 and 8 yards to John Ross III, who continued his sensational comeback from a torn ACL last year.

“He had done a real nice job,” Petersen said. “The thing that is interesting is that I still think there are things we are cleaning up with him. He did a great job of scrambling out there and keeping his eyes down the field. We have actually been working on that quite a bit.”

Even when the outcome looks so easy, so smooth, so flawless, Petersen said it’s important to be critical of his emerging quarterback.

“But when you go back, what I want to look at is, did he need to escape?” Petersen said. “Did he have things that he could have got the ball out (earlier). I know one early on when he threw that touchdown (to Pettis), he didn’t need to make it so spectacular. But he is completing a lot of passes and keeping his eyes downfield. All those things that good quarterbacks do.”

The defense did its part. Safety Jojo McIntosh forced a fumble to near the goal line to wipe out the Vandals’ best chance to score in the first half, and the first-string defense added two fourth-down stops as part of its first-half shutout.

One of the best part of games like these, Petersen said, is that UW’s reserves get a chance at extensive playing time. Backup QB K.J. Carta-Samuels threw a 26-yard touchdown pass to Quinten Pounds in the third quarter, and backup linebacker Connor O’Brien returned an interception 46 yards for a touchdown.

Regardless of the opponent, it’s a performance that certainly will keep the Huskies in the top 10 for at least another week.

“It felt like it,” said Idaho coach Paul Petrino, when asked if the Huskies looked like a top-10 team. “Defensively, the way they hit, it felt like it. And offense, their speed, it felt like it. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they are there at the end of the season.”