1. Pounding the Rock

After getting away from the ground game against Utah, the offense came out ready to pound it. Tyler Gaffney got the ball of the first three offensive plays, and that was all it took for a first down. Those first three plays set the tone for the entire game, and they also helped to set up Stanford’s first pass, a beautiful play-action toss to Montgomery. Montgomery dropped the sure touchdown, but Stanford continued to move the ball. Later in the drive, on 3^rd and 3, Shaw called up a shovel pass, but Stanford made another uncharacteristic mistake as Gaffney dropped the ball and the drive stalled. On the second possession, Sanders dropped a screen pass that would have sparked the drive. On the third possession, Hogan scrambled for gains of 5, 10, and 9 yards, and had an amazing recovery of a pitch in the red zone that was fumbled by Wilkerson—another Stanford error that ended a drive. On the 5^th drive, a dubious cut block penalty contributed to another stalled drive. And on the 6^th drive, Cajuste lost the handle on what would have led to a sure touchdown. UCLA never really stopped Stanford, and the Cardinal would have had a huge lead at the half if it hadn’t hurt itself with sloppy play.

Fortunately, Kodi Whitfield provided the precision that would ignite Stanford and allow it to take control of the game. His third quarter touchdown catch might be the best in Stanford football history. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82Be_-X_AIg) When the ball was in the air heading towards two converging UCLA defenders, not a soul in the stadium was thinking touchdown. Hopefully the floodgates open wide for Whitfield, especially with Cajuste out for the next game. Excluding the interception, Cajuste had a huge game, and we’ll need him back to have any chance against Oregon.

Meanwhile, is Tyler Gaffney morphing into a Toby Gerhart? 36 carries for 171 yards and 2 touchdowns… sounds like Gerhart to me.

2. Ed Reynolds and The Party in the Backfield

The defense played its most dominant game of the year. UCLA’s only whiff of success on offense came on broken plays with Hundley scrambling for spare yards. UCLA almost never tried to pass deep downfield, and when they finally did, Jordan Richards was there for the interception. Richards’ picks extended Stanford’s streak to 32 straight games with at least one takeaway.

3. Math of David: Numbers and Coaching

Shaw, ever the chameleon, followed up his Utah performance with some great play-calling. He kept the ball in the hands of Gaffney, and ran the ball on 3^rd down. Some fans weren’t please to see running plays on 3^rd down, but the statistics show that Stanford should be running often in that situation. (Shaw, however, needs to have Gaffney running the ball on all those third downs, not Ricky Seale on a 3^rd and 5.) I also like seeing the pseudo-run of the shovel pass, even though it wasn’t executed properly. Shaw is obviously struggling and trying to improve his play-calling, but at least he is tinkering, knowing that it needs to improve.

Hogan threw the ball well on deep routes. The four deep passes of the game were the dropped “touchdown” to Montgomery, the dropped (and intercepted) pass to Cajuste, the touchdown to Whitfield, and the sideline catch by Cajuste on the 3 yard line. Stanford was in position to be successful on all four of those plays. I am still hoping that Shaw decides to throw downfield more. Hogan has earned the right to take 5-10 shots downfield every game. At the very least, it will keep the defense on its toes and open up the field near the line of scrimmage.

Shaw is still very conservative, punting past midfield and attempting field goals when many coaches would go for it. But Ben Rhyne continues to punt the ball inside the 10, and Ukropia was 1-1 on the day going into that 4^th quarter attempt. What wasn’t conservative was Shaw letting Gaffney run the ball into the end zone at the end of the game. He clearly could have taken a knee. Shaw said postgame that they wouldn’t have been able to run the clock all of the way down and would have had to kick a field goal with ten seconds. That isn’t correct, however. After kneeling on third down, the clock would have run out. Shaw also justified not running against Utah at the end of the game because he was worried about the clock, but there was clearly plenty of time. Do we need to worry about the ability of David Shaw to do some quick mathematical estimation and calculation? Perhaps. The evidence thus far tells us that his mind just doesn’t estimate that well. I think Stanford might be better off with an offensive coordinator who manages late-game situations. Still, regardless of the flawed reasoning, I love that Gaffney got into the end zone for another score. We dominated UCLA, and we deserved to win by more than seven points, and the voters across the country needed to see that 24-10 final score.   Jim Mora shot Shaw a funny look across the field though, and after the game shook hands with Shaw with the frantic speed of someone trying to extract something out of a burning house. Mora handled the Nick Pasquale situation so well for his team that I started respecting him as a coach and a mentor. But, that’s out the window now. I hope Sarkisian invites Mora over for some tea, scones, and pouting.

5. Up Next: Oregon St. 

If Eastern Washington can put up huge numbers, can’t we? Unfortunately, Oregon St is a different team now, and the defense has much more confidence. I think the most interesting matchup is going to be Brandin Cooks, the nation’s leading receiver, against Jordan Richards and Ed Reynolds. Mannion is going to use Cooks on the wide receiver screen, but Oregon St also runs a pro-style package and will throw downfield. Can Richards and Reynolds keep pace with the best receiver in the country? We will see. Certainly an interception or two would go a long way towards a victory. And when is the last time Stanford caused and recovered a fumble? That would be the Army game. I think we are going to need a few turnovers to get the win. Or, of course, just unleash the Kevin Hogan air show (a la Washington St game).

6. Around the Pac-12

USC lost to Notre Dame, which doesn’t help the Pac-12 perception, but it does increase the chance that Notre Dame will be ranked when they visit the Farm in late November. Utah lost to Arizona, which doesn’t help Stanford’s perception, but Utah was without its starting quarterback, and Arizona still might prove itself to be decent. The middle of the Pac-12 is still very puzzling. Washington was crushed by Arizona St, who seems to be able to only play well at home. Only Oregon continues to play with the certainty of victory, dominating Washington State at home. Unfortunately, defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti didn’t like the taste of Connor Halladay slicing up his second string defenders in garbage time. Aliotti took to the airwaves and called Mike Leach “classless.” Aliotti was way out of line, for two reasons. First, Washington State is a passing team, and Halliday’s record 89 attempts was simply a result of Oregon’s fast offense and the Cougar’s inability to run (2 yards on 12 carries). Second, Mike Leach has executed a 31-point second half comeback before, with Texas Tech in the 2006 Insight Bowl vs Minnesota. Oregon isn’t going to crumble like Minnesota, but there is absolutely no reason for Aliotti to expect Leach to stop throwing the ball at any time in the game.

Aliotti, however, didn’t pluck nearly as many of the stupid strings as did Clemson coach Dabo Swinney. On Tuesday, Swinney said his team was much closer to Florida State than the 51-14 score indicated. If they were to play ten times, he said, “We’d probably win five, they’d probably win five.” That would be the exact opposite of deductive reasoning, I suppose. It reminds me of the kind of intelligent assessment we see from so many of our politicians, like Louisiana congressman John Fleming calling Obamacare, “The most dangerous piece of legislation ever passed.” Making these kind of statement basically renders the use of words totally useless. I’m going to play my karma card and say Clemson is on its way to a few more losses this year.

7. Underrated Team of the Week

#25 University of Central Florida Knights (5-1). I just listened to UCF quarterback Blake Bortles talk with Scott Van Pelt on ESPN radio. Bortles was insightful and offered some interesting perspective on his team’s big 38-35 win at Louisville. He was appreciative of the air-time and quite articulate. So he must have been scratching his head in disbelief when he looked at this week’s rankings. Bortle’s Central Florida team is ranked #25 in the USA Today Coaches Poll, nine spots behind #16 Louisville (6-1)! Louisville is a good team who deserves to be ranked. The dominant win against Florida in the Sugar Bowl last year still shows they can compete with SEC teams. But they absolutely—if there is any shred of respectability left in the polls—have to be ranked behind UCF. Unless, of course, UCF’s win was a fluke, full of blocked punts and turnovers. Let’s check the box score… UCF 446 yards and 2 turnovers, Louisvile 445 yards and 2 turnovers. Looks like UCF played well enough to deserve the win, and since UCF was on the road, it clearly deserves a higher ranking. Furthermore, UCF has a road win at Penn State, and its only loss was to South Carolina who came from behind to win by 3. Louisville’s best win was at home against Rutgers, so its resume includes zero top-50 wins. It is a travesty to see this carelessness in the polls, especially considering both teams will be fighting for a BCS berth with millions of dollars at stake.

Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury takes a lot of heat for the outliers in his AP ballot. While making his ballot, he spends time considering wild but justifiable week-to-week movements (this week he moved FSU from #17 to #2), emphasizing head-to-head results, and occasionally applying the transitive property when appropriate. Wilner is prone to selectively applying these methods and getting inconsistent results. But Wilner at least tries to bring some thought and analysis to his rankings. This week he has UCF and Louisville in the proper pecking order, with UCF at #14 (one spot below South Carolina) and Louisville at #25. The problem with most voters is that they just move a team up or down a handful of spots based on a win or a loss, and they don’t bother to check the other teams nearby in the rankings to really compare resumes. Wilner writes, “If the goal is to have an end-of-season ballot that wholly reflects the results [and not the bias of the preseason poll], then you cannot always move all teams incrementally.” (http://blogs.mercurynews.com/collegesports/2013/10/20/my-ap-top-25-football-ballot-florida-state-and-auburn-climb-oregon-falls-re-considering-alabama-at-no-1/) Hopefully, next year’s BCS committee will evaluate along these same lines. For now, we are left with a bunch of voters who are lazy at best, and ignorant at worst.