SEATTLE — This is not a week Steve Sarkisian wants to be resting and getting his younger players some experience in practice. After seeing Washington get thoroughly handled 48-21 by No. 20 Oregon State, Sarkisian would much rather be getting back on the field this Saturday than enjoying a second week off in less than a month.

“Any time you get your butt kicked the way we did last week, you wish you could jump right back on the horse and play to be honest with you. I wish we were playing on Saturday,” Sarkisian said on Monday. “But we’ve got a bye and will take advantage of it and use it to our advantage the best we can.”

Part of the week off for Sarkisian will be spent taking the temperature of a team that held heady goals of turning last year’s 0-12 debacle into a bowl trip in just 12 months. That goal is gone now thanks to six losses in Washington’s last seven games since its stunning upset of Southern California in September, a victory that continues to lose luster with each of the Trojans’ setbacks.

Now comes the challenge of finding motivation for Washington’s final two games — beginning with the Nov. 28 Apple Cup against rival Washington State.

“Whether we talked about it or not, the natural thing is guys wanted to play in a bowl game. That’s human nature of what goals are out there and aspiring for,” Sarkisian said. “We’ve got to get these guys refocused and playing prideful and playing for something that’s greater than just the reward at the end of possibly a bowl game or a conference championship.”

He’ll also be looking for answers about what happened at Oregon State, where the Beavers simply shoved the Huskies backward from the start and Washington never answered. It was 20-0 before Washington started to catch its footing and it didn’t get much better.

After Jake Locker found Jermaine Kearse on a touchdown pass to pull within 20-7, the Beavers marched immediately downfield and scored just before halftime to go up 27-7. The lead grew to 41-7 before a couple of late Washington scores.

Sarkisian called it the Huskies’ worst effort of the season and was he stumped by the flat performance after a good week of practice leading up to the Beavers.

“It’s disappointing, from the head coach standpoint, that we didn’t look like a team that was prepared to play — mentally or physically,” Sarkisian said. “We got knocked off the football. It looked and appeared that Oregon State was playing harder than us, which, in my opinion, they were. So we have to address that. That’s not acceptable and that’s not OK.”

Locker was under pressure from the start, and his interception at the Huskies 17 on Washington’s second drive gave the Beavers a short field to take control. He threw for three touchdowns — two coming in the fourth quarter — but was sacked four times and held to just 153 yards passing, his second-lowest total of the season.

As the end of the season approaches, speculation about Locker’s future is likely to increase. Many NFL draft pundits list Locker as a potential first-round pick, some believing he could be in the top 10 if Locker leaves after his junior season.

Sarkisian spent much of Monday talking about Locker’s future. Having been through the process with the likes of Matt Leinart, Mark Sanchez and Carson Palmer as an assistant at USC, Sarkisian is well versed in the evaluation process. He said when the season ends, he’ll help Locker gather all the information needed to make a well-informed decision and will support whatever Locker decides.

“There is a lot of things that go into it. We’ll assess it after the year and I think Jake is a bright young man who is patient, he’s got two tremendous parents that have raised him extremely well and we’ll get all the proper information in place,” Sarkisian said. “He’ll make a really good decision in what’s best for he and his family and not just the immediate, but for his future as well.”

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