1. Perspective

For some ungodly reason, Remound Wright held up his hands to keep Christian McCaffrey from returning the opening kickoff from three yards deep in the end zone. I don’t think Wright had received the memo—McCaffrey would have the green light all night long. It didn’t take long to fix Wright’s mistake. On the first play from scrimmage, McCaffrey took the handoff for 25 yards and the rest was history. He wouldn’t stop running until he had left his footprints in the record books.

Speaking of records, Stanford has some sweet nectar streaks going right now. That is 8 straight wins against UCLA. Pretty spectacular. Clearly this is not the same phenomenon as flipping a coin and getting eight straight heads. These odds are not equal.

Stanford has also won 25 consecutive home games played at night. That is prettier than a hot tub full of Guinness. I suppose I have no complaints then about the ongoing 7:30pm kickoffs.

Furthermore, Kevin Hogan is now solidly in first place as the winningest active quarterback. Who knew that the guy who would come in for Nunes for one play to specifically roll right and hit a receiver rolling with him would be such a great leader. Hogan-doubters are a rare breed nowadays. The kid is a winner.

2. Christian McCaffrey

I knew McCaffrey was having a huge game, but I had no idea he was running into the record books. I was shocked to hear in the 3^rd quarter that McCaffrey had just set the single-game school rushing record. I think part of my shock was due to the fact that I knew that a big part of his big game was the 96 yard kickoff return. So I wasn’t thinking rushing record. Plus, he wasn’t getting a ton of carries. Of course, there were sequences of plays when it was obvious the ball was just going straight to him—wildcat or not. During a stretch in the 2^nd and 3^rd quarters, excluding Stanford taking a knee at the end of the half, McCaffrey touched the ball or was targeted on 17 of 18 plays. But he only had 25 carries on the day! 243 yards on 25 carries! The record McCaffrey broke was previously held by Toby Gerhart, who rushed for 223 yards against Oregon in 2009. But Gerhart had 38 carries! He only averaged 5.9 yards per carry. It was a special night for McCaffrey, and a wonderful article about it and him can be found here.

Going into the week, McCaffrey was second in all-purpose yards per game to Tyler Ervin from San Jose State. Inexplicably, Ervin only managed 45 all-purpose yards against San Diego State. And McCaffrey exploded for 369 yards against UCLA. So McCaffrey now holds a huge lead in all-purpose yards per game.

I’ve been wrong about a ton of things on this blog. Hell, even at the start of this year after the Northwestern game, I wrote: “What will be new and interesting this year? I honestly don’t know at this point.” I was panicking like an idiot, and McCaffrey has answered that question in a big way. After the third game (USC), I wrote: “You heard it here first: McCaffrey will lead the nation this year in all-purpose yards per game.” I’m going to go ahead and lock that statement in as fact. A few weeks ago I was looking at some stats and saw him in the 4^th position in APY/game, but he was lacking breakout plays. It was a statistical improbability that he went three games without breaking off a huge gain. This is fact: he will lead the nation. He will not be caught. And there is still more upside! He is barely being used in the passing game. And he has had to fair catch almost all punts in the past two games. (And need I remind you… opening kickoff… Remound Wright… ‘ehem…)

Where is all this headed? To Barry Sanders, of course. Barry Sanders holds the FBS record for all-purpose yards in a season: 3,250. As long as Barry’s son doesn’t take up too many of the carries, McCaffrey has a shot at this. If Stanford plays 14 games, McCaffrey needs to average 232.1 yards per game. His current average? 253. Boom. Sizzle. Keep. Your. Eyes. On. This. If he stays on pace to break a record held by Barry Sanders… then just maybe… eh… fucking east coast Heisman voters… it’ll never happen.

3. Offense & Coaching

I short-circuited on the first drive, when Shaw punted on 4^th and 2 from UCLA’s 42 yard line. I stammered in the crowd, “Shaw… you… fuck…shit… why are you throwing on 2^nd and short if you’re not going to…. damn it… Teevens…. Harris…” Then I looked around at the people near me and had a glimpse of how—despite the huge annoyance of Shaw’s strategy—my behavior was a million times more obnoxious. We all make mistakes. I did. So did Shaw. Fortunately, it was Shaw’s first mistake in many games, and it didn’t end up mattering much.

It was a small fish in a sea of great coaching. Shaw threw in some sneaky calls. On first and goal from the four, after McCaffrey’s 96 yard kickoff return, Shaw let Hooper sneak into the corner for a TD pass. That was cool and unexpected. Also, on 2^nd and 1, Hogan hit Cajuste on a quick slant for a touchdown. That should work most of the time, since almost always it is a run play in that situation. And the double reverse Hogan pass to Owusu was also a ton of fun, especially since Owusu made one of the greatest catches in football history. Even my partner, Vicki, said it was the coolest thing she’s ever seen. I showed it to her on tape on Sunday. Then, she thought back to Saturday morning and said, “Why the hell did Gameday not even show it in three hours of coverage?” Now that she mentioned it, it is insane. How did they not feature that catch on Gameday? Fortuntaely, Joe Tessitore did the call justice during the game. “You’re going to be seeing that next summer at the ESPYs… Not to smother this thing in hyperbole, but that is an instant all-timer.” Jesse Palmer added, “You could try that 500 times in practice and not catch a single one.” Compare this to the drabness of Sean McDonough and Chris Spielman calling the Michigan-MSU ending for ESPN—they totally failed to capture the ridiculously rare and historic drama of that final play. Quick note: MSU gained way more yards and Michigan defensive backs hold and commit PI on every play—MSU was (slightly) better that day.

Anyhow, amazing play by Owusu, and some fun calls by Shaw. Shaw still has some tricks, marbles, carrots, and slurpees. But, it was his decision to force the run game that really won this game. At the end of the first quarter, it wasn’t clear from where Stanford was going to get its offense. Hogan had found Hooper on some huge 3^rd down plays, but Stanford was not moving the ball easily. Then, Shaw just decided to run up the middle. It was as if he just decided that it was time for Stanford to impose the run game. It didn’t feel like it was going to work, and it didn’t feel like Shaw cared. It seemed like Shaw was just deciding that we were going to keep running until we wore the defense down. And it totally blew the game open. It is so ballsy and so fun when it works. I just hope Shaw can readjust midgame whenever it isn’t working (i.e. Rose Bowl vs Michigan State.)

4. Defense

Elijah Holder really jumpstarted this game with his pick six on UCLA’s first drive. It was easily the most exciting defensive play of the season.

UCLA hurt itself with penalties and dropped passes. Even though Stanford was controlling the line of scrimmage, the game could have been closer. UCLA was outgaining Stanford for most of the game.

It will be interesting to see what the defense does the rest of the way. They don’t really have an identity yet. As a whole unit, it is solid, though not outstanding. The cornerbacks are playing well. The safeties maybe not as much. The line is pretty good. All in all, it is a very serviceable defense, and is performing about how we expected. After all, the defense lost eight starters last year.

5. Up Next: Washington (3-3)

I watched all of Washington vs Oregon. Washington has one guy who can keep them in the game: Myles Gaskin, a freshman running back. He has got some serious speed and shifty moves. He will be difficult to stop. We’ll need to stop the run and force UW to pass.

On the other side of the ball, UW has the 34^th ranked run defense. Not bad. Statistically, it is the best run defense we’ve faced—even better than Northwestern. We might have to hit the tight-ends on play-action and get McCaffrey some screen passes. Hogan is due for a big game.

6. The Worst Play I’ve Ever Seen A Good Team Make

Utah returns a kickoff for minus two points.

7. Stanford’s Path to the Pac-12 Championship Game

It is still way too early to expect Stanford to make the College Football Playoff. But it is entirely reasonable to start thinking about a December matchup against Utah—a team that Stanford hasn’t beaten since 1995.

Because of Oregon’s decline and the parity in the Pac-12 North (excluding Oregon State), the division is now decidedly in Stanford’s hands. Stanford owns a two game lead on everyone except California and Washington State. But Cal and WSU each have six conference games remaining, and they are not easy games. Even if we give the teams an extremely generous—both teams will be underdogs in multiple games—average win percentage of (50%) for their remaining games, the chance that either team stays undefeated is 1.56%. So, using those probabilities, the chance that any Pac-12 North team besides Stanford finishes conference play with only one loss is about 3%. This is probably way too generous with respect to Washington State. ESPN’s FPI calculates “Win Out %” to the nearest tenth, and they have Washington State (64^th in FPI) as having a Win Out % of 0.0%. So, even if their percent chance of winning out was 0.049%—the highest it could be without rounding down to 0.0%—then its average win percentage is more like 28%—0.00049^(1/6).

Basically, Stanford has a great shot at the Pac-12 Championship Game. It could lose any conference game and the Notre Dame game and with >97% certainty will be playing Utah in Levi’s Stadium in early December. It could even lose three of its last six games and make the Championship Game. If Stanford beats Cal, Washington State and say, Colorado, it is still highly likely that Stanford would win the Pac-12 North. To take the title from Stanford, Washington or Oregon would have to win out—both likelihoods that are now around 1%.

So, there is some room to spare. And the WSU game and the Cal game are currently more important than the Oregon and UW games. Amazing. I’m not ready to think about Stanford’s Playoff chances yet, but I am prepared to make tentative plans to be at Levi Stadium on December 5th.