1. Perspective 

David Shaw looked both pumped and relaxed before the game. He seems to have comfortably settled in. And on the very first play, he played the very best card in the Cardinal deck.

All season, there has been one play has been extremely successful while still underused. It has almost gone unnoticed because Stanford never, as far as I could tell, used it more than once in a game. Hogan is in the shotgun, three receivers are fanned out, one TE/receiver is in the slot, and McCaffrey is in the backfield next to Hogan. With four receivers, the there aren’t a lot of defenders left to cover McCaffrey. McCaffrey swings around the line and finds himself involved with a single linebacker or safety. In most iterations of this play during the season, he has had a linebacker on him. He jukes like he is going outside, then cuts inside on a dime store 45 degree hypotenuse of heaven. The slickest slant on this side of the Sierras. Hogan fires a bullet, and McCaffrey is off in space. Usually a safety or other cornerback has been able to track McCaffrey down after 30 or 40 yards. But this time, the Iowa linebacker was slid over on the other side of the field, and the safety came up to cover him. No chance. On the first play of the Rose Bowl, the Iowa defenders might have been a little nervous or flat-footed. What a beautiful time for the that play and that call by Shaw. Fortunately, McCaffrey’s speed and angle allowed him to break through for a 75-yard touchdown. Pass the guacamole… and a clean pair of shorts.

On Iowa’s first play, it was whistled for a false start. And so the game went. McCaffrey gained 65 yards on the next touchdown drive to have 140 yards with about 8% of the game elapsed. And on Iowa’s next possession, Quenton Meeks took and interception to the house to give Stanford a 21-0 lead.

The defense shut down Iowa’s running game, limiting them to 48 yards on 38 attempts. Almost everyone played well, including Shaw, who made the seemingly-obvious but historically-troublesome decision to go for it in the 2^nd quarter on 4^th and 1 from Iowa’s 33. Remound Wright picked it up no problem. And Shaw then used a fake fumble, trick play for a touchdown pass on the next play.

2. Hogan’s Legacy

Hogan’s record as a starting quarterback: 36-10. He’s led Stanford to three conference championships. He has three bowl victories including two Rose Bowls. He’s no Andrew Luck, or John Elway, or Jim Plunkett, and he doesn’t need to be—he has a better Stanford record than all of them. Well, OK… Luck had a slightly better winning percentage as a starter, going 31-7. But no Rose Bowl wins. Perhaps the simplest way of summing up Kevin Hogan is in one word—winner.

3. McCaffrey & The Heisman Trophy

“What’s the statistic du jour?”

“It’s the statistic of the day.”

“Mmmm… that sounds good. I’ll have that.”

What the hell is that? If it isn’t Ray Finkle, then it sure as hell is a Heisman-quality statistic. Well, he must have put up some of those numbers in meaningless games, right? The four opponents were: UCLA, California, USC (in the Pac-12 Championship game), and Iowa (in the Rose Bowl). Wow. All big-time games.

And he did this for the #3 team in the country. Of course, the Heisman winner, Derrick Henry, played for the #1 team in the country, Alabama. Should he get the edge for playing on the better team? In my opinion, the Heisman should go to the best player, not the best player on the best team. Henry already has a ring… that is his reward. Now if Stanford was the 40^th best team in the country, you might give Henry a nudge, since he would be playing in bigger games with greater stakes. But you can’t differentiate between teams that are that close in quality.

Of course, Henry didn’t get the benefit of returning kicks and punts. So, let’s take return yardage out of the equation. McCaffrey averaged 7.0 yards/play from scrimmage. Henry averaged only 5.7 yards/play. That is a pretty significant difference for running backs. And statistics have played an important role in determining who wins the Heisman. Marcus Mariota (2014) and Jameis Winston (2013) both led the nation in passing yards per attempt. So what gives?

The racial discrimination explanation is probably insignificant and hard to quantify–though the number 43 is important. It has been 43 years since a white running back (John Cappelletti at Penn State) won the Heisman Trophy. So there might be a slight subconscious bias against white running backs.

I think the late kickoff time for east coast voters explanation doesn’t carry too much weight. In his Heisman season, Mariota played in 6 games that started at 9pm ET or later; McCaffrey played in 7.

I do think it is absurd that 15% of Heisman voters cast their ballots before the Pac12 Championship game, effectively ignoring one of the best college football single-game performances in history. That is part of the explanation why he didn’t win. As for the rest, I think that some people still just didn’t respect Stanford football enough. It is the only explanation for Stanford continuing to field the runner-up.

However, finally, as of this 2016 season, I think that there are now very few people left out there who don’t think Stanford players are as good as any players in the country. Stanford was picked by the media to win the Pac-12 conference for the first time ever, despite losing its four-year starting quarterback and a ton of talent on both sides of the ball. And it was slotted 8^th in the preseason AP Poll. That is the kind of respect that teams like Alabama and USC are used to getting year after year. For the first time, the personnel losses didn’t matter; storylines didn’t matter; the name on the jersey is all that mattered, and that name is fully respected. That, for a long-time fan like myself, is nothing short of spectacular.

4. Up Next

What’s coming up?… A great matchup in the 2016 opener versus big purple: Kansas State. A quarterback situation that is to be determined. Lots of new faces (helmets) in the trenches.

Besides watching McCaffrey, I’m most looking forward to the defensive back play. In the past five seasons, Stanford has finished 102^nd, 45^th, 71^st, 78^th, and 106^th in the FBS in interceptions per game. Look for this trend to change dramatically in the 2016 campaign.

1. Perspective

Since 1961, when the conference starting keeping track of a preseason media poll, Stanford has never been picked to win the title. On Saturday, Stanford earned its sixth Pac-12 championship in the past 50 years, and its third in the past four seasons.

Oregon or USC has led the preseason media poll the past 13 seasons. Despite the fact that Stanford has been a vastly better team than USC over the past six seasons, USC was again picked to win the conference this year. Furthermore, UCLA was also getting heaps of hype—ignoring the fact that it had lost to Stanford an astonishing seven (and now eight) consecutive times.

There was no faith in the dynasty. No respect. Of course, even most of the Stanford fans had left the bandwagon after the Northwestern game. I considered taking a year off from the blog! What an idiot.

Fortunately for us, Shaw rallied the troops and gave us a season that was supremely entertaining. And fortunately for me, my tailgate crew rallied as well and was 100% committed to going to Saturday’s championship game. Because of November home games and other obligations I have in December, I am spending basically every Saturday for two months driving hours away from Sebastopol. So I was prepared to watch the Pac12 championship on television in order to spend a rare weekend at home. But my comrades knew better, and they were right. It was a fun tailgate, an exciting game, and I was damn glad that I was there.

Stanford never went three and out, and only punted once. The offense was a pure joy to watch, and Stanford has now scored at least 30 points in 12 consecutive games. That is the longest active streak among Power 5 teams. Yep, you could make an argument that your Stanford Cardinal has the best offense in the country this season. Seriously. It isn’t a slam dunk case, but who else are you going to say is better?

Let’s lob in some facts that occurred in both the September game at USC and the Pac-12 championship game:

• Stanford committed no turnovers.
• Kevin Hogan completed at least 75% of his passes and averaged over 11 yards per attempt.
• Kevin Hogan had at least 30 rushing yards.
• Stanford had at least 35 minutes of possession.
• McCaffrey put up huge all-purpose numbers.

Yet, in September against USC, McCaffrey didn’t have a single play from scrimmage go for more than 19 yards. Umm… well, he had a few big ones in this game. McCaffrey’s 461 all-purpose yards was the 5^th best in FBS history, and boosted his season total to 3,496 yards, crushing Barry Sanders’record. (We should note that he technically hasn’t beat Sanders’ record yet—he should have 30 yards more to go if it wasn’t for a ridiculous stats-keeping decision by the NCAA.)

McCaffrey might not win the Heisman, but he should. That is a special record that he is setting. McCaffrey has 61% more all-purpose yards than any other Power 5 conference player this season. He leads Jakeem Grant of Texas Tech by 1,329 yards! What!?!?! It isn’t even close. No player is more dynamic in college football. If McCaffrey played for Alabama, he would win the Heisman by a mile. Pretty pathetic how biased the award is, but what can you do… the Pac-12 hasn’t won a national championship in over ten years. That is the first thing that needs to change if we are to expect the attention and respect.

After the game, McCaffrey was asked about the fact that he had a passing touchdown, rushing touchdown, and receiving touchdown—all in the same game. He said it was cool, but immediately pointed out that Kevin Hogan did the exact same thing in the game. First of all, that might be the first time in the history of major college football that two players on the same team have accomplished that feat in the same game. Second, you got to love that McCaffrey’s immediate response was to shine the spotlight back on Hogan. That moment right there defines the character of Stanford football.

For more on McCaffrey’s case for the Heisman, including the stunning fact that “McCaffrey is averaging 8.3 yards per touch… the best mark in college football history,” read this article from David Lombardi. (Lombardi doesn’t qualify this stat though… there must be a minimum number of touches he is using for this stat, though I couldn’t find or verify it with some internet searches. Let me know if you can.)

McCaffrey’s 461 all-purpose yards is the 5^th best in FBS history. The record is held by Emmett White of Utah State, who gained 578 yards against a New Mexico State defense that was ranked 95^th in total defense. McCaffrey’s game is likely “better,” given the opponent and significance of the conference championship. But I can’t find out who holds the 2^nd through 4^th most all-purpose yards. Let me know if you can find the info. What I’m getting at is that McCaffrey’s numbers might actually be the best ever in a championship-caliber game involving good teams.

2. Spreading the Field with Three Receivers

Stanford came out hot, spreading the field and taking some shots downfield. But then, during the middle of the game, and especially in the red zone, Shaw went with a bit of jumbo and wildcat and less spread formations. The results were not good. For example, on its fourth drive, Stanford started with two plays in spread formation and picked up the first down. Then, close to goal line, the Cardinal ran all four plays without three wideouts and turned the ball over on downs.

My dad, next to whom I had the pleasure of sitting, noticed the trend during the game. We discussed it throughout the 2^nd and 3^rd quarter and were hoping to see the Cardinal return to the spread formation. Shaw and coaching staff delivered in a big way. They absolutely realized what was happening: McCaffrey was having more success running the ball when USC was forced to use 5 defensive backs (three corners on the three receivers and two safeties). On its key 10-play, 4^th quarter drive, Shaw called for three receivers on 9 plays. The only other play still had two receivers spread wide. No jumbo. No wildcat. The Cardinal coaching staff came through in a big, big way. They recognized a key game trend and capitalized on it.

In fact, on its last 16 offensive plays, Stanford did not use a single jumbo package, and never had less than two receivers spread out in formation. This is the exact opposite of what we did the last time we played USC, and shows the versatility of the team and the coaching staff.

The data was clear. The following drive chart tracks the percentage of plays in each drive the Cardinal lined up with at least three receivers. Notice the strong correlation between successful drives and a spread formation.

3. Shaw, Trick Plays, and 4^th Down

On Stanford’s 2^nd drive, up 3-0, it faced a 4^th and inches from the USC 13. Shaw made the call to go for it, and I reached for a clean pair of shorts. The correct call—without question. I’m not sure if anyone on staff is aware of just how automatic this decision should be. (I’m not sure if any reporters know either—ESPN’s Kevin Gemmel wrote an excellent article about Wright’s success picking up TDs and short yardage but didn’t mention this statistic.) Coming into the USC game, Remound Wright was 27 for 27 converting 3^rd or 4^th downs with one or two yards to go. Insane. Shaw might not know the stat, be he knew exactly what to do: give the ball to Wright. He picked up the first down, and Stanford finished the drive with a touchdown.

And what a beautiful touchdown is was. Hogan pitches to Wright who pitches to McCaffrey who throws back to Hogan. What an awesome play and a great call by Shaw.

On Stanford’s next drive, on 3^rd and goal from the 1, Wright was stopped for the first time in 29 tries. It was the exact same play to the same side Stanford ran on the prior drive, but this time USC knew exactly where Wright was going, and brought all of its linebackers to the left side so there was one available defender to meet Wright mid-flight. OK, so that is the first time all year that has happened. We have a 10-0 lead, so we already have a two-score advantage. Time to take another swig from the kombucha bottle and get back after it. But Shaw made the wrong decision and sent in Ukropina.

On the next drive, leading 13-0, we decided to go for it on 4^th and 1 from the one. Well, fine, but why leading 13-0 and not 10-0? It makes more sense to go for it leading 10-0. Shaw needs some coherent strategy here. But, at least, we are seeing more aggression and confidence on 4^th down than we have in the past. And the late 4^th quarter, 4^th down pass to Cajuste was as tasty as a Bloody Mary on the morning of Jazzfest.

Shaw is happier and more comfortable than ever. There is no doubt about his ability to lead the team—Stanford is headed to the Rose Bowl for the 3^rd time in 4 years. He’s the only Stanford coach in the post WWII era to accomplish that. He’s established a solid and growing legacy, a consistent turnstile of top recruits, and a drama-free and team-oriented group of men. And, as I’ve noted over the past three years, he still has a tiny bit of upside with game management. But he is a very solid coach—there can be no question about that. Stanford is lucky to have him. Fortunately, he knows how lucky he is to have Stanford as well.

4. Defensive MVP: Blake Martinez

Two things worth mentioning here. First, Martinez had the play of the game when he caused the Kessler fumble that was returned for a Stanford touchdown. Second, for the season, Martinez had more tackles than anyone else in the Pac-12 conference—by twenty. He had 129 tackles on the season, good for 9^th nationally, and 20 more than anyone else in the conference. He was our anchor as our defense worked through injuries and growing pains all season long.

5. How Close Was Stanford to Making the Playoff?

We can name that tune in one note. It isn’t a Stanford play, though. Erasing those fumbles against Oregon or converting the two-point conversion would not yet have guaranteed the win. But there is one single play that, if it alone had gone differently, would have allowed Stanford to make the playoff.

On September 12^th in Knoxville, Oklahoma scored 14 unanswered to push Tennessee to overtime. Tennessee got the ball first in overtime and scored a touchdown. Oklahoma needed to score a TD to stay alive. It faced a 4^th and goal from the Tennessee 1. Baker Mayfield faked the handoff and kept it and found the endzone. Oklahoma went on to win the game in the 2^nd overtime. If Mayfield had been stopped on that play, then Stanford would have made the College Football Playoff.

6. Pac-12 Bowl Matchups

I hate to admit it, but the Pac-12 bowl lineup is lacking luster. The Pac-12 is sending 10 teams to bowl games, but very few provide national intrigue. The Pac-12 has no clear underdog—8 teams are favored and Oregon and ASU are about even. There is little chance to make a national statement, unless of course the conference goes 9-1, which is statistically unlikely. There is a chance to lose face though… which is the difficult thing when you are favored against no-name teams.

Honestly, other than the obvious Rose Bowl matchup and the Alamo Bowl between Oregon and TCU, only one other game interests me: Washington State vs Miami in the Sun Bowl. That is a great matchup for the conference, and in my opinion is the only game other than the Rose Bowl in which the conference can make a real statement by simply winning the game. In the other games, a statement is going to have to come with a lopsided victory.

Well, maybe I’m being too harsh here. I suppose Utah-BYU should be fun, and USC-Wisconsin isn’t bad either. But the Pac-12 really needs to get a regular bowl game against the SEC. Until that happens, we’re stuck with too many games like Arizona vs New Mexico.

7. The Rose Bowl: vs Iowa (12-1)

Of course, most of us were hoping for a shot at Ohio State. Despite 6 years of playing football as good as anyone else in the country, we have never once faced a team that has won a national championship in that span: Ohio State, Florida State, Alabama, or Auburn. It would have been special to have played the defending champions. But, as the reality sinks in, I’m just fine with Iowa. Ohio State presented a huge chance to make a statement, but it would have come with a risk. Ezekiel Elliot could have walked over our defense. I don’t think Iowa will rush for 300 yards against us. Ohio State might have. Plus, Ohio State has the dual threat quarterback, with which Stanford has struggled. Iowa does not.

So, I like the matchup. I’m sure Iowa’s defense will be tough to run against, but that’s OK. They aren’t used to facing offenses as good as ours. And I think our defense might be able to handle Iowa’s offense. Consider this stat: Iowa didn’t run a single play in Michigan State territory in the entire 2^nd half. Vegas seems to feel the same way, as Stanford opens as a six point favorite… which of course brings up the fact that the committee ranked Iowa #5, one spot ahead of Stanford. I didn’t like it at first, but I suppose I understand it. If you look at what happened against our common opponent, Northwestern, it makes it hard to make a clear case that Stanford should be ranked higher. And it doesn’t matter anyways. It will be settled on the field.

The story of the game should revolve around the career of Kevin Hogan. Come, hear, Uncle Hogan’s Band, playing in the Rose. Come with me, or go alone, he’s come to take his teammates home. It’s the same story that Shaw told me, it’s the only one he knows. Like the first quarter he comes, and like the wins he goes. Ain’t no time to hate, barely time to wait. Wo, oh, what I want to know, how far Kevin Hogan goes.

Go Cardinal.

1. Perspective

Conrad Ukropina just put a feather in the cap of heaven. That was the most beautiful flying object I’ve seen in 25 years, since November 17, 1990. On that day, John Hopkins sent his 5^th field goal of the day through the uprights in a dramatic last-second victory over Cal in what would come to be known as “The Revenge of the Play.”

Since the Harbaugh-led resurgence of Stanford football, we’ve seen some dramatic field goals at the end of games. Some fluttered in the skies and sailed adrift, like Jordan Williamson’s Fiesta Bowl meltdowns. But many led to victories, notably Williamson’s OT FG vs Oregon in 2012 and Nate Whitaker’s game winner at home against USC in 2010.

But this kick was different. It was just a perfect kick. Dead center, high and long. And smothered the playoff hopes of Notre Dame, which makes it extra special.

A hummingbird in a butterfly bush flower is a beautiful thing to watch, but it doesn’t send me into a group hug full of timeless ecstasy. Only Conrad Ukropina can do that.

2. Brief Game Notes

Stanford’s first drive was capped with a completion to Schultz that used McCaffrey as a decoy on play-action. Beautiful call by Shaw. And then Notre Dame ran the kickoff back for a touchdown. We’ve been spoiled by some great special teams coverage over the years. In fact, I can’t remember when the last time we’ve given up a kick return for a touchdown. If you can, let me know. So I guess we were overdue.

On the next drive, Rector and Cajuste made some amazing third down catches, and the offense was moving. On the following possession, Notre Dame had a false start on 4^th and 1 from the 3 and had to settle for a field goal. The breaks were starting to go Stanford’s way. Stanford forced another Notre Dame field goal from inside the ten, and the red zone stops turned out to be the difference in the game. When forced to load the box with run defense and play man-to-man in the red zone, our defense isn’t actually that bad. Statistically, Stanford’s red-zone defense doesn’t rate that high, because teams have made a ton of field goals and Stanford has almost no 4^th down stops or turnovers. However, Stanford, Northern Illinois, and Boston College are the only FBS teams to have allowed more red-zone field goals than touchdowns. Not bad, especially if your goal is to win games in offensive shootouts.

At the end of the half, Stanford forced the only turnover of the game as Kizer fumbled. It was another play that cost Notre Dame just enough points to ensure the Stanford win. And Notre Dame dopped a pass early in the 3^rd quarter that would have led to another touchdown, only to settle for its third field goal of the game. As I watched the tape, I realized just how fortunate Stanford was. It played well and made some big-time plays, but Notre Dame definitely shot itself in the foot a few times. Notre Dame outgained Stanford by 111 yards, and average 8.9 yds/play compared to Stanford’s 6.6 yds/play. Add in the kickoff return for a touchdown, and delete the facemask penalty on Stanford’s game-winning final drive, and you most likely have a Notre Dame victory.

There were a few coaching decision to second-guess, and I’m happy that they belong to Brian Kelly and not David Shaw. First, Brian Kelly’s decision to try a drop back pass on Notre Dame’s 3^rd quarter two-point conversion attempt was a mistake. The way they were running the ball, that call makes no sense. More importantly, after picking up a first down and getting down to the two, Notre Dame used its second timeout with 35 seconds remaining. It should have let a few more seconds run off the clock and just set up for a run play and preserved the timeouts. Then, it would have scored with 10 to 20 seconds left—not 30. But it might not have mattered—Hogan was just too determined to get the win. And the Fox announcing team just got so into Cajuste—Cajuste is loose!—that there was no way to lose. And I think we might be onto something with Cajuste. If you’re in a tight spot sometime in the future, don’t click your heals together, just yell at the top of your lungs, “Cajuste!!!!!!!!” I promise—good things will happen. If you need an extra boost, try this: “Cajuste!!!!! Ukelele!!!!!!” Thank you Gus Johnson. Thank you very much.

Joel Klatt incorrectly repeated how Hogan had just played his best game. Sorry Joel. Top five of his career, sure, but not his best. But he definitely went out on a high note. Thank you Kevin Hogan for four great years.

3. The Playoff Race & Stanford’s Chances

The playoff teams are already set assuming the favorites win. Oklahoma is in as the Big12 champion. Fair enough? Absolutely. They’ve looked good, are strong on both sides of the ball, and are ranked in the top 4 in virtually all rankings and metrics. On the Massey Composite Ranking site, Oklahoma is a top-4 team in 100 of the 110 different ranking systems. That is a really high percentage, as there is a lot of variability in those systems. (For example, one ranking has Stanford as high as #2 while another has Stanford at #19.)

The Big-10 champion is in as well. Make sense? No question about it. Iowa would be undefeated with a huge win over Michigan State, or MSU would own the best set of top-20 wins of anyone in the country: Michigan, Oregon, Ohio State, Iowa. The champion of this conference absolutely has to get in. It owns huge wins over the Pac-12 (MSU over Oregon, and NW over Stanford) and the fact that the conference has the defending national champion means something as well.

Alabama, when it beats Florida, is obviously in. It will have beaten more teams in the top quarter of the FBS than anyone else: Wisconsin, Georgia, Arkansas, Texas A&M, Tennessee, LSU, Mississippi St, and Florida. That is 8 wins against teams that a generally ranked in the top-30. Outstanding. In, and a heavy favorite.

Finally, if Clemson wins, they are in as well. Stanford dulled the shine of Clemson’s win over Notre Dame, but its win over Florida State now looks even better at FSU blew out Florida. Clemson also has had very few lucky or close wins. I would give the top seed to Alabama, but give Clemson the #2 seed. They are a lock.

But what if Alabama or Clemson lose? First of all, Ohio State is not getting in the Playoff. Ohio State owns a 1-1 record against top-40 teams. That isn’t good enough. And with the Big-10 already a lock to get a team in, there is no way the committee will choose two teams from the same conference unless they have to. Is there a scenario that would force their hand? Technically, yes. If Alabama, Clemson, and Stanford lose, then Ohio State is in the Playoff. But it won’t happen.

For that matter, Alabama isn’t going to lose either. If it does, the SEC is out of the Playoff, which is absolutely fine considering it owns no quality wins over top-25 teams other than the freakish week 1 South Carolina win over North Carolina. Florida is not a great team, and the committee knows it. If Alabama can’t beat them, then they have no spot in the playoff. So, if a miracle happens and Alabama loses to Florida, Stanford would be in the playoff with a victory over USC. But again, it ain’t going to happen.

So that leaves the issue of Clemson vs North Carolina. If North Carolina wins, and Stanford wins the Pac12 championship, then we have a very interesting situation. First of all, Clemson is out of the discussion. They don’t have a good enough record and strength of schedule to stay in the top-4 after losing. More importantly, the committee seems committed to selecting conference champions, which is a great thing. A lot of experts and analysts are writing and talking about how Clemson could stay in the mix after a loss. It isn’t going to happen. There would have to be a bad call at the end of the game that led to a UNC win for the committee to overturn things and put Clemson in. The game will be the deciding factor, and the winner will advance. It is as simple as that.

So if UNC and Stanford win: then it is UNC vs Stanford. First, let’s deal with the obvious: Stanford has two losses and UNC has one. We’ll need to account for the big difference in scheduling difficulty.

Let’s assume Stanford and UNC are average top-10 teams. Then we’ll use Sagarin’s rankings and data on how top-10 teams fare against other teams. Ideally, we would have a probability curve that represents the likelihood of victory versus the appropriate rank of the opponent. For example, an average top-10 team might own a 92% win probability against a team ranked 30^th, and a 91.7% win probability against a team ranked 31^st, etc. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to data like that, though it would probably be easy (but time-consuming) to gather. It’s much easier to group teams into intervals, so that we can analyze Stanford’s win likelihood against a team ranked 11-20, for example, or a team ranked 21-30. I’ve used the last five seasons worth of data to provide a clearer picture of the win probability at different intervals. Note that Sagarin’s rankings include FCS teams as well, for a total of 253 teams. Here’s the data:

First, let’s note why it seems like there are so few upsets. This is because early and mid-season upsets usually mean that the underdog is actually a better team than expected. By the end of the season, with all of the games played, it is extremely rare that a great team lost a game to a team that turned out to be horrible.

The primary issue with the data is the 51-60 interval. Obviously, the probabilities should continue to increase per interval. So I am going to adjust the win probabilities to the following to smooth them out a bit:

Now, let’s analyze Stanford and North Carolina’s seasons, including a theoretical Stanford win over USC in the Pac12 championship and a UNC win over Clemson in the ACC championship.

So, if Stanford is indeed an average top-10 team, it would be expected to win 11.17 games given its schedule. At 11-2, Stanford would have underachieved by 0.17 wins.

UNC would be expected to win 12.09 games given its schedule. At 12-1, UNC would have underachieved by 0.09 wins.

The difference is nominal, and Stanford’s 2^nd loss is clearly expected based on how much more difficult its schedule is than UNC’s schedule. So, it would have to come down to other metrics. Margin of victory is high for both teams. Both teams are trending in the right direction with week one losses that look to be complete outliers. In my opinion, it would come down to this: who looks and plays better in its championship game. We saw this happen last year. Ohio State’s 59-0 dominance of Wisconsin demanded that it be put in the playoff. So if UNC and Stanford win, whoever gets the open spot will be the team that has a more convincing performance. If Stanford can win by two touchdowns while UNC barely beats Clemson, then Stanford will make the playoff.

If you’re curious about the possibility of Stanford vs Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, read up here.

These projections I think underestimate the importance of being conference champion, but some great stats, probabilities, and Ukropina pic can be found here.

4. Up Next: USC (8-4)

The big question is: can Stanford win convincingly? Can Stanford’s defense get a few turnovers and stops? Is Stanford even better than USC?

Last week, I wrote that Stanford was going to roll Notre Dame. I based that comment on this: I was sure that Hogan was going to have a great final home game, and I blindly hoped that Notre Dame just wasn’t that good on offense. Turns out, Notre Dame is pretty good team, and the Stanford defense struggles to turn in good performances against good offenses. Does the Stanford defense have a chance? Well, Oregon, Cal, Notre Dame, and WSU all have top-25 offenses. USC’s offense is not quite as good—32^nd in total offense. But I’m still worried that USC will be able to run the ball. I hang my hopes on Helton calling too many pass plays and Stanford somehow intercepting a couple of passes. If the defense goes another game without getting any turnovers, the Stanford offense will need to be near perfect.

Should be fun evening at Levi Stadium. There’s good mojo there. Stanford played well against Maryland in the Factory-Farmed Chicken Bowl last year, and the Grateful Dead strung together some beautiful notes over the summer. We’re Truckin, down to Levi’s Stadium, woah oh baby back where I belong, back home, the game ain’t worth a dime, if we don’t lay them Trojans down.

1. Perspective

Stanford won its 6^th consecutive big game as Christian McCaffrey drove his tractor (re: offensive line) over a field of California golden poppies. It wasn’t the most satisfying Big Game we’ve seen recently, but the offensive line deserves a ton of credit. They’ve helped McCaffrey set a few school records:

• Most all-purpose yards in a game (389 vs Cal)
• Most all-purpose yards in a season (2807… and counting)
• Most consecutive 100 yard rushing games (9… and counting)

We are fortunate fans to have such great players entertaining us. And we also have great coaches. Even though I am again going to point-out a major strategic issue with which Shaw struggles, I still appreciate the quality and consistency of his leadership. Clearly he knows how to get guys ready to play football.

2. Coaching & 4^th Down Decisions

Sonny Dykes made a great call in the first quarter to go for it on 4^th and 1 from its own 42. Goff hit Powell on a quick out and Cal’s offense got going in the right direction. Unfortunately for Cal, it kept getting stuck in the red zone and Dykes opted for field goals.

On AM 1050 after the game, Shaw said something like: That was our strategy on defense—limit big plays and then play clutch in the red zone and trade field goals for touchdowns. It’s just simply math. My first thought was, “Damn… our strategy is to just let them move down the field and score points?”

Shaw elaborated in his media conference the next day: “I hate the phrase ‘bend but don’t break.’ Because it sounds very passive. We’re not a passive football team. But, we want to keep the ball in front of us and not giving up the touchdown passes and trying until late in the game. But trying to keep the ball in front of us and get them to third and six in the red zone. Get them to third and five in the red zone. And not give up the touchdown to make them check the ball down and make them kick field goals. And that’s, once again, that’s — it’s math. If we can go down and score touchdowns and make them kick field goals, eventually, we’re going to win.”

Interesting… Shaw did indeed use the word “math!” Is this a good strategy? Thinking about it more and comparing the result to the big touchdowns in the Oregon game, I think it actually holds some water. However, you are basically admitting that your defense isn’t that good, and you are committing yourself to having to score touchdowns to win the game. Because Cal has a bad defense, it all seems plausible. But in order to win in this kind of offensive shootout, you may have to take some chances with your own offense, including going for it on 4^th down.

In the 2^nd quarter, Stanford faced a 4^th and 1 from Cal’s 49. Shaw went jumbo with Wright and Stanford converted for a first down. Automatic. Easy decision from Shaw. In fact, the data on this will show just how easy these calls are in these situations. Stanford has the highest 4^th down conversion percentage in the country for any team with at least 8 attempts. But then a few plays later, Stanford punted on 4^th and 3 from Cal’s 41! What the hell is that? If you are going to let Cal convert short passes until it reaches the red zone, then what does it matter if they start their possession at their own 20 or 40?

In the stands, I screamed my usual pressure-release mantras: “Buddy Teevens! Walt Harris!” It helped a little. It annoyed some people around me, but others were clearly disturbed by Shaw’s decision and laughed at the single overlapping feature of Shaw’s regime and the Teevens-Harris era: an overly conservative offensive strategy on 3^rd and long, on 4^th and short, and within field goal range.

Shaw, you’re allright man. You aren’t Buddy Teevens. God bless. But let’s get coherent with our strategy here. If we are playing for red zone defense and giving up field goals, then we don’t care much about field position, right? We care about possessions and points.

And, we have the personnel to keep possession and ball into the end zone. Just how good has Remound Wright been in short yardage situations? Or, for that matter, both Wright and McCaffrey? I went back through every game and all the play-by-play data. Prepare yourself to be launched from a hookah into the magi-color swing set of crumbcakes and awe:

I knew something special was happening this year, but I didn’t know the data was going to be this amazing. In three years of blogging and digging through statistics, this find made my hair stand up straighter than any other piece of data. I couldn’t believe it as I went through the games. When running the ball on 3^rd and 4^th down with one or two yards to go, Stanford has converted on all 36 attempts!

In the 3^rd quarter, Stanford faced a 4^th and 1 from its own 43. No brainer, right? Surely someone on our staff must be aware of our percentages?! Shaw punted again. Cal, after scoring on its previous two possessions, took the ball and moved down the field and scored again. At that point, Cal held a huge yardage lead. Cal was moving the ball extremely well, and the game really could have swung in the Bears favor. Fortunately, there were no further possible situations for ignoring an obvious statistical advantage. McCaffrey took over and ran clock, and Cal also ran too much time off of the clock on its drives. At least the Bryce Love sweep for a touchdown in the 4^th quarter was a great call by Shaw.

3. SEC & Rankings

I am shocked how little chatter there is about the abomination that is the SEC East. Last Saturday was absolutely embarrassing for the conference, but because two teams barely escaped with victories, it wasn’t major news. Florida was a 30-point favorite over 2-8 Florida Atlantic and survived by the thread of one play. FAU outgained Florida as well. If FAU would have converted one of their four shots at the end zone in overtime, then Alabama would be playing a team that lost to FAU in the SEC Championship.

South Carolina lost to the Citadel, and Goergia needed overtime to beat Georgia Southern. And this is November… teams should be playing their best football by now. Plus, all of the SEC teams were at home. Can you imagine if Florida had to travel to play at Florida Atlantic? They might have lost by two touchdowns!

Fortunately, the committee pays attention to stuff like this, and moved Florida down in the ranking. Stanford is the highest-ranking two-loss team, and it is above an SEC and a Big12 team that each have one loss. I’m fine with that.

Next week, if Stanford beats Notre Dame, we will look at ranking metrics and see if a Playoff case can be made for Stanford.

4. Up Next: Notre Dame (10-1)

The only thing that scares me about Notre Dame is that they beat USC when USC was playing well. But Notre Dame is banged up and trending in the wrong direction. And they have a ton of pressure on them with the Playoff nearing. Stanford gets a free-roll this week, and Hogan plays in his last home game. Read up on a great Hogan article and then get ready for a blowout. Stanford is going to roll.

1. Perspective & Defense

The following numbers tell a certain story:

On paper, it looks like a one-sided game, though Oregon’s 400+ yards are slightly alarming. But in the end, only two statistics mattered: Oregon had 9.1 yards/play, and Stanford turned the ball over three times. That was it—Oregon made big plays, and Stanford made mistakes. Other than about three plays of each side of the ball, Stanford played a great game.

On Sunday, my friend Peter texted a group of us, “If you were considering re-watching the fourth quarter—don’t! I just did and it was incredibly painful. We move the ball with complete ease on three drives only to fumble twice like we haven’t fumbled all season. And then also don’t watch the two-point conversion. I have no idea what #77 [right tackle Casey Tucker] was thinking… it is as if he never even saw Coleman even though he was two feet away from him.”

I had mostly gotten over the game by the time I read his text, but I agreed with Peter about one thing: I really didn’t want to watch the tape of the game. As it turns out, it took me six days to finally get enough emotional distance from it to sit and watch it.

It was a great battle. If you are an Oregon fan, then you think that the Ducks did enough to deserve to win the game. Your offense was unstoppable, and you made plays when it mattered. If you are a Stanford fan, then you gave the game away with three fluke turnovers. Which team is better? Which team deserved to win? I mean this in as unbiased of a way as possible, but I think Stanford is a slightly better team. Think of it this way: if you are a huge fan of both teams, and you get a free ticket to send Oregon or Stanford into the playoff, which team would you send? There is no way you would send Oregon’s defense against the best in the land.

The reality is, however, that you really wouldn’t want to watch Stanford’s defense face Alabama’s offense either. The Stanford defense isn’t good enough for Stanford to have really contended for a national title. And that is fine. It has been a wonderful season so far, but keep in mind that it was supposed to be and apparently is indeed a rebuilding year on defense. And next year may be another rebuilding year as well. Our defense is young. I’m reasonably happy with the way they have played this year. Oregon is a powerful offense. And they didn’t make any mistakes. The one big defensive play that we did make was earned, and Kevin Anderson almost took it back for a game-changing touchdown. But he was barely nudged by a fast piece of celery and tumbled to the turf. I immediately sensed the importance of that moment—and was deflated when we had to settle for a field goal. Ironically, it was a similar moment to the 2012 Stanford-Oregon game when Marcus Mariota broke free for what should have been about a 90 yard touchdown run but was tackled from behind by Devon Carrington around the 10 yard line. D’Anthony Thomas was running with Mariota the whole way, and instead of focusing on blocking, he ran ahead of Mariota as if celebrating the moment and his own speed.

But Thomas let Carrington catch Mariota, and Oregon ended up coming away with no points. Check out the play here. In a game like this, those little opportunities must not be squandered.

2. Offense & Coaching

The first drive started out well, easily reaching the red zone. On a 2^nd down and 3, Shaw called for McCaffrey to throw a pass back to Hogan. It should have worked easily, but the pass was a bit low and Hogan dropped it. Then, on 3^rd down, McCaffrey ran right for the first down, but it was called back on a holding penalty on Hooper. Hogan kept the rock on third and long and got back to 4^th down and 3. Shaw sent in the field goal team. Ominous start. Stanford moved the ball easily, but its own mistakes stalled the drive. As it turned out, that would be the theme of the night.

The decision to kick isn’t surprising, but field goals are really, really bad if you are in an offensive shootout. We weren’t yet, but what did we expect? Oregon has a monster offense, and we knew it was going to be a high scoring game. So, is the correct play to actually go for it on 4^th down? If we use the data just from the first 11 plays of that initial drive, Stanford gained three or more yards on 9 of those 11 plays. From that perspective (82% chance of 3+ yards), you could make a strong case that the correct strategy would have been to go for it.

In the 3^rd quarter, on 4^th and 2 from the 26, Shaw definitely made the wrong decision to attempt a field goal. Stanford was down 5 points, and the Oregon offense was rolling. Can’t settle for field goals. And why should we! Our offense was rolling too! The only way you can justify sending in the field goal team in that situation is if we are down exactly 3 or 10 points. This was Shaw’s only clearly bad decision of the game, and the mathematical football gods of karma punished him for it—Ukropina missed his first kick of the game.

Our only punt of the game came on our next possession, and it was primarily self inflicted by a holding penalty on 1^st down.

Then, we really had to go to the passing game. And Rector and the other receivers had a fantastic game. They made some huge catches in traffic. The Stanford offense was virtually unstoppable. I find it interesting how easy it was for Hogan to move the offense with the passing game in the second half, considering that we hardly ever pass two plays in a row. Our entire offense is mostly premised on moving the ball slowly. We don’t go after many big plays. When we sense we are in a shootout, I think we need to throw the ball earlier in the game. More play action with some shots downfield. We don’t need to see the jumbo package on 2^nd or 3^rd and short when we are losing. Save it for fourth down.

You can’t second-guess the fact that the alternate, jumbo package center was in the game when the final fumble happened. Caspers has been snapping the ball to Hogan all year in the jumbo package and we haven’t seen a fumble yet. So we can’t fault anyone for that. Just a fluke play at a horrible moment.

But Tucker sure blew it on the two-point conversion attempt at the end of the game. It is hard to imagine what he was thinking or where he was looking. He completely missed the block, and Hogan had to force out the throw to Hooper a bit early. I love the play call by Shaw. Hooper was breaking open and if Hogan had another half second it would have been an easy conversion. But the missed block blew it up, and Oregon escaped. Yeah, they earned it with some slick waterslides of offensive fun. But just as clearly, they escaped.

3. The Playoff Rankings

I was pleasantly surprised to see Stanford sitting at #11, four spots higher than it is in other polls. It is pretty amazing to see our program get that kind of respect in a committee room. I think the football guys really respect the way Stanford plays football. And it is clearly willing to overlook the Northwestern loss. If you really consider that game to be a core part of Stanford’s resume, then there is no way that it can be ranked that high. Stanford owns only one win against a top-25 team (#24 USC), and has two losses. But it is really nice to see the committee consider what teams are powerful, on both sides of the ball, at this moment as the season comes to a close. It makes for a better playoff.

I also generally agree with almost all of the Playoff committee rankings. Never was I able to say this last year. But this year things have been good. The committee is really focusing on strength of schedule, and teams like #10 Baylor and #18 TCU are being punished for having zero wins against the top-25. In fact, Baylor and TCU’s best win is over either Texas Tech (6-5) or West Virginia (5-4). And TCU is certainly being downgraded for beating a horrible Kansas (0-10) team at home by only six points. They are possibly also being docked for their fluke last-second win against Texas Tech. I absolutely love how low TCU is ranked.

Speaking of Baylor and TCU, Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News left Baylor off of his top-25 ballot. He justified it with the same logic of my previous paragraph—they haven’t beaten anybody good. But here is the problem—Wilner has TCU ranked #18, and TCU clearly has a similar or worse resume than Baylor. So, by his logic, TCU shouldn’t be ranked either. I’m not opposed to that idea… teams should have to prove themselves…. but at some point you have to select teams for the bottom portion of the poll. In his #22 spot he has Wisconsin, which owns zero wins over teams with winning records. And slotting in at #25, Wilner voted: Air Force! Oh God. Air Force (8-3) is going bowling, and eight wins is nice and all, but take a good clean look at the shape of your toilet bowl to know how many victories Air Force has over teams with winning records: 0. Wow. Wilner really fucked this up. I usually love how he votes and looks to justify some unusual rankings, and he often does a great job ranking some teams that he analyzes deeply. But then he completely fails to apply his same logic to other teams. People out there are pissed off at Wilner—Baylor fans especially. In this case, I think they have a point. He’s tied himself up in a pretzel of inconsistency.

The only other team that is a bit tricky to rank is #3 Ohio State. Ohio State has not played a ranked team all season. Even worse, OSU hasn’t played anyone in the top 35 of most rankings. Penn State (#42 realtimerpi, #39 Sagarin, #37 Massey Composite) is Ohio State’s strongest opponent to date. So why is Ohio State ranked so high? I can only presume that it is because they are the defending champions. And that makes sense to me. We aren’t suppose to use last year’s results when we are this deep in the season, but the fact that Ohio State hasn’t lost in over 20 games should mean something. I am very comfortable with Ohio State at #3 despite the fact that its toughest games are still ahead of them.

4. Up Next: California (6-4)

The Big Game has BIG CONSEQUENCES. A shot at the Rose Bowl is on the line, and the game is under the lights! Stanford has won five in a row. Will this one be different? For that matter, will it be any different than the Oregon game? It will all come down to Stanford’s ability to limit big plays and avoid turnovers and field goals.

1. Perspective 

Leading up to the game, I had completely forgotten that Hogan was returning to the field where he made his first start three years ago. He led Stanford to a 48-0 win, including touchdowns on his first four drives as a college quarterback. There was good juju on this field for Hogan, and he was feeling it again this year, as he and McCaffrey led Stanford to a dominant win.

2. 1^st Half Thoughts:

I missed most of the first drive as I got settled in at Papas y Pollo Mexican restaurant in Sebastopol. (My crappy satellite tv provider doesn’t have Pac12 network.) Early signs looked good for Stanford. McCaffrey was finding gaps and Hogan looked very comfortable. But so did Colordao. Lifau was throwing the ball well and Nelson Spruce looked as reliable as a receiver can possibly look.

Then, on a third and long situation that has recently had Shaw call a conservative run, Hogan sent a beauty over the top for a TD pass to Rector.

On another drive, Hooper made a great airborn, back-shoulder catch. People were stepping up and making plays just like the USC game. Awesome stuff.

And then Shaw threw down and officially introduced the new David Shaw. Stanford faced a 4^th down and 2 from Colorado’s 6 yard line. It was a tough call. Stanford only led by 7, so a field goal makes it a two score game. But something is different about Shaw recently. He looks happier. And it is translating into making game decisions that make fans (and statisticians) very happy. Shaw went for it, and out of the jumbo package, Hogan tossed to a wide-open Dalton Schultz. Beautiful, beautiful play. I love this new attitude on 4^th down, and it is essential if we expect to keep winning games. Our defense is not good enough to win in low-scoring, field position battles.

3. 2^nd Half Thoughts:

Lifau came out running the option and had no trouble picking up easy gains on the ground. But Kevin Anderson and Peter Kalambayi came up big on 3^rd and 3 to blow up a QB sneak for a two yard loss. And then, on 4^th and 5 from the Stanford 11, the Colorado coach made the quintessential decision that exemplifies why these coaches should not be paid millions of dollars. Down 21 points, he sent in the field goal team. Colorado offense had looked decent. The game wasn’t over. But once the kicker stepped on the field—well, that was it. Bye, bye, Colorado.

And then he tried an onside kick! I actually love the onside kick attempt. Stanford had only one guy over there. If Stallworth doesn’t bring in the kick, Colorado had four guys right there to recover it. But that’s why you put great hands up there. On the next play, Hogan faked the handoff to McCaffrey and gave it to Bryce Love on the fly sweep. It was about to be busted up, but Love broke through for a 47-yard touchdown. Stanford was rolling.

And then the defense took over. On Colorado’s next 10 plays: 1 play went for positive yards, 4 plays went for no yards, and 5 plays went for negative yards.

Christian McCaffrey’s touchdown pass in the 4^th quarter was amazing, though I was shocked to see used in a blowout. And then I realized what Shaw was thinking. He doesn’t care about this play working in a crucial time. He cares about the running game working in crucial times. He cares about teams not keying on one play or one run. After the game, he said, “We got to put a lot of things on film, so that was good.” Crazy. The logic seems flawed to me. It is a stretch to think that all the defenders are just going to stay home and not crowd McCaffrey now that they have seen a few trick plays. But, that is Stanford football. The trick play is not what we are after. The goal is sound, fundamental football—with only a few surprises. As long as your men don’t gang up on fewer of our men, we are going to win.

4. SEC Overrated Again… Though Not in the Eyes of the Playoff Committee

I haven’t started with my criticism of SEC bias yet this year, but in the comments section of Jon Wilner’s blog, an astute reader noted this fact: The SEC is 0-3 against teams that were in last week’s initial Playoff Rankings. The conference owns no major victories this year. I think Florida’s game against Florida State will tell us a lot more about the SEC.

Fortunately, the Playoff Committee dropped Florida and LSU well below Stanford, which is correct. I have no issue with the committee rankings, other than the fact that USC should be ranked ahead of teams like Wisconsin and Mississippi State.

Much more on the rankings next week.

5. Up Next: Oregon (6-3)

The game still feels dangerous. The Ducks offense is moving again, and I don’t think we have the speed to stop it. But, there is one major difference: Vernon Adams is not nearly the run threat that Marcus Mariota was. Last year, Mariota rushed for 92 yards against us on just 9 carries. Mariota averaged 51 rushing yards/game last season. This year, Adams averages 24. If we can keep Adams in the pocket and force a little pressure, I like our chances. Of course, it all hinges on the expectation that Oregon can’t stop us. They should score 30 points on us, but the expectation is that it won’t be enough. We’ll see if our line can indeed dominate, or if Oregon keys on McCaffrey, if Hogan can make them pay for it.

1. Perspective

The night and game had a misty, eerie feeling from the get-go. Something about Halloween, in the cold and rain. And ESPN announcer Brock Huard always creeps me out. He started out referring to Stanford as “these Cardinals,” then next said, “these Cardinal,” before later in the first quarter settling in on “this Cardinal team.” Just horrible stuff to take on a Saturday night when I should have probably been dancing to Hot Buttered Rum at the Hopmonk in downtown Sebastopol rather than looking at Brock Huard’s porcelain mug and begging Hogan to complete a freaking pass. Jeez… it was a long night in front of the television, but like every visit to Green Tea massage parlor, it had a happy ending.

I wrote in my previous post that Stanford would need to keep the turnover margin even, at worst. By the time that Stanford had committed two turnovers, the game was slipping away. Stanford was still leading 3-0 at that point, but I sensed disaster. It was not its usual self., and Stanford was missing opportunities to build a lead. Fortunately, the ghost of freshman Quenton Meeks whisped past WSU receivers and stole the game for “these Stanford Cardinals.” (Freaking Brock f-ing Huard.)

Stanford was lucky—Washington State outgained Stanford by 130 yards and totally neutralized Stanford’s power run attack. And Hogan was having a terrible game through the air, reminiscent of the Notre Dame game in similar conditions last year. But Stanford escaped—for the first time all year. That perspective is important here—Stanford has not needed to get lucky yet. It won its previous six games in fairly convincing fashion. So in a way, it deserved to get lucky. And it was not as lucky as Michigan State against UM, or Mississippi against Alabama. It wasn’t a fluky victory, just a close game that went Stanford’s way.

Not only was it Stanford’s first victory in a close game this year, it was really its first victory in a close game in about two years! Here’s the data from Stanford’s last 22 games prior to its two-point win over WSU:

Margin of Victory         0-7 Points     8+ Points

Stanford’s Record (W-L)    1-4         14-3

Important to note is the fact that the sole victory by 7 points or less in the prior 22 games was Stanford’s 7 point win in 2014 against Washington. In that game, Stanford held UW to 179 total yards, but the final score was much closer than it should have been because Stanford lost the turnover battle 3-0, and one turnover was a fluke strip that was returned for a touchdown. Stanford really dominated that game. So, this Halloween treat was the first victory that wasn’t completely earned since the 2013 Washington game, 31 games ago. I’d say we were due for some good fortune, or at least a couple of dozen packs of Starburst left in an unmanned and well-lit doorway. Trick or treat? I’ll treat myself—thank you very little.

Remember the run at the end of 2012 in Hogan’s first year? We kept winning close games and ended up in the Rose Bowl. In Hogan’s first ten starts over the 2012-2013 seasons, Stanford went 5-0 in games decided by 7 points or less. That also puts the close losses of 2014 in some context. The law of averages is at work—you can fight it, but in the long run the coin is going to flip onto both sides (not at the same time, mind you—that would be weird… something like the Duke-Miami result, I suppose.) Overall, it was nice to see Stanford steal one for the first time in two seasons.

2. Defense: The Meek are Hungry for Pigskin

Quenton Meeks made one of the best defensive plays since Ed Reynolds made a pick and huge return against UCLA a few years ago. Meeks stepped in front to make a late 4^th quarter pick (his second of the game) that set up Stanford’s go-ahead field goal. Without Meeks anticipatory insight and skilled hands, Stanford does not win the football game.

Couple things I want to mention are from a 4^th quarter drive for WSU. WSU faced 4^th and 1 from Stanford’s 12. They set up in the shotgun with four receivers. The Stanford cornerbacks were all set up 7 yards off the receivers! Falk saw this, threw a quick pass out to one receiver, and he lurched forward for the first down. On this play, it is obvious to an average fan that you must be right up on the receivers. What is the worst that can happen? You aren’t worried about them getting behind you. It was a major oversight that lead to a Cougar touchdown. Hopefully the coaches and players will catch this on the film and learn from it. On the flip side, Kodi Whitfield made a fantastical tackle on WSU’s two-point conversion attempt. Ended up being the difference in the game.

3. Offense and Coaching: To Adjust or Not To Adjust

It is hard to fault David Shaw for continuing to run McCaffrey up the middle. Even if WSU was loading the box and keying on him, I would have thought that Stanford could have overpowered the Cougars weak defense. But they just couldn’t do it. I think it was a combination of effort and scheme that was the difference for WSU. They really wanted this game badly, and their defense had only one goal: stop the Stanford running game. They played hard and were every bit as physical as Stanford.

Hogan could have gone off, had he been able to throw the ball before the century ends and land it within a city block of his receivers. I’d like to assume the weather had some effect, but Falk seemed to throw the ball OK. Hogan held the ball too long (sacks) or lost it too quickly (fumble).

But instead of simply just being one of those Hogan off-nights, it turned into Hogan boogie nights. Shaw credited Mike Bloomgren for getting some Hogan run plays into the mix and Hogan took full advantage. The defense was not at all expecting it. Hogan made them pay for keying on McCaffrey. Hogan had 117 yards rushing in the third quarter alone! As a woman in Bulgaria once told me when I asked her about the town’s Mexican restaurant: “Explosive!”

As always, I still get worried when Stanford is too predictable on offense. When it works, it feels like we have testicles the size of pumpkins. But when the defense is keying on our tendency and having success, we really need to shake things up. It was a problem last year with Ty Montgomery. On many plays, it was so completely obvious that we were going to Montgomery. After Montgomery got hurt, we had our three best games of the year.

Fortunately, we tried something we haven’t seen much of all year: Hogan on the move. It isn’t a coincidence that our first big play of the game, in the third quarter, was a 39-yard Hogan scamper that included a faked pitch to McCaffrey. The entire WSU defense, including the safety from the opposite site, crossed the field to pursue McCaffrey. Adjust. Adapt. Don’t die.

4. Mike Leach vs Christian McCaffrey

I would have cursed Leach most of the night for denying McCaffrey the chance to get his all purpose yards from kick returns, except that we kept getting the ball at the 40-45 yard line! Those pooch kicks were not smart. Nobody wins except Barry Sanders and his record. Even if McCaffrey takes one to the house I’m not sure that a bunch of touchbacks and one return TD is any worse than giving your opponent the ball around midfield on each possession.

Fortunately, McCaffrey still has a sizable lead in all-purpose yards and will lead the nation as long as other teams still kick the freaking football off. Unfortunately, McCaffrey’s average game against a poorly rated defense has derailed any hopes of the Heisman. If he wants to get back the race, he’s going to have a huge night back home in Colorado. The setting seems perfect. KLS has already early-called a huge game. Fingers crossed.

5. The Playoff Rankings

Credit the committee for its ranking so far. There is little with which to quibble. (First and last time I write that sentence.) One thing I like to compare the playoff rankings to is the College Football Rankings Composite complied by Massey. It averages the rankings of 112 different ranking systems (mostly computer… though it includes the human polls). Any one computer or human poll is inherently flawed, but an average of a ton of polls is an outstanding measure of team strength and performance. Indeed, Clemson is #1 in this composite poll—just like the committee rankings. In fact, no team in the Playoff Committee rankings top-20 is more than four spots away from its ranking in the Composite. Baylor is 6^th in the Playoff rankings and 10^th in the composite. I think Baylor is probably the most misranked team. I would like to see them down around 10^th until they beat somebody. You can’t play nobody and let Lamar score 31 points against you and be #6. (Alright, alright… Lamar did put up 55 against Houston Baptsist and 66 against Bacone (Okla). Of course, if they keep winning, they can easily get to #1. So it isn’t a big deal right now. It’s a waste of time right now to debate the rankings and playoff scenarios. I’ll get to it in depth in a couple weeks.

For now, I’m fine with Stanford at #11—the same place it is in the Composite. And it is nice to see Notre Dame ranked #5. It is crucial that Notre Dame continue to win the next few games.

The only other team worth mentioning, I think, is USC. The composite rankings have USC (5-3) at #18. ESPN’s FPI has USC at #5. They Playoff Committee (and the AP poll) do not rank USC in the top-25. USC is clearly a good team. Stanford and Notre Dame had to play really well to beat USC. I think USC still has a strong chance to play in the Rose Bowl, and I believe it is a top-25 team.

6. Up Next: Colorado (4-5)

I haven’t seen them play this year, so don’t know what to expect. But I was surprised by how they played against UCLA last week. Plus it is an early kickoff. And it is on Pac12 networks, which I don’t get. Are more ominous forces at work? Stanford should be pumped though. They know they can’t sleepwalk through another one. The big question: can McCaffrey have a huge night in his home state?

1. Perspective

Such a bummer to not have time to dip the frothy fingers of Cardinal ponderings into the gooballs of another great football game. I am getting crushed at work and on the farm. Less time for The Farm. I expect that to change next week, as the first Playoff rankings will be released.

But I wish I had more time to expound on the glory of Coach David Shaw’s 4^th down decision-making in this past game. Early in the 2^nd quarter, facing a 4^th and 3 from Washington’s 29, Shaw went to the power formation. Hogan killed or pretended to kill the first play option and then kept barking to try to draw the defense offside. For a second, I thought it was just a ploy that would end with a timeout and a field goal try. But then the center snapped the ball and Hogan pitched to McCaffrey. Got to love it. Give it to your best player in that situation. Beautiful call, and I’m going to go ahead and give credit to Shaw, Bloomgren, and/or Hogan for the decoy of lulling UW into thinking Stanford was just trying to catch the defense offside. That was a nice little twist.

In the 3^rd quarter, on 4^th and 1 from its own 46, Stanford again went for it. Mathematically, it is absolutely, without question, the correct call. Remound Wright picked up the first down without much trouble. I am very pleased to see Shaw make the correct call here, and it was against one of the best defenses in the conference. We’ll see if perhaps Shaw has seen the light on how to handle these 4^th down situations.

I am completely loving Stanford’s offense. It has the power—sometimes boring—run game that brings a ton of satisfaction (and success) over the course of the game. But it also has a lot of fun and dynamic plays. It is complicated, and can be even more complicated, but the train is always moved down the tracks by the offensive line and the power run. It is a weird juxtaposition, and I am really enjoying it.

And we keep seeing new plays. There was a screen pass to fullback Daniel Marx that went for a nice gain. I’m pretty sure we haven’t seen that all year.

Of course, my favorite play is still when McCaffrey comes from the backfield or the near slot and goes one-on-one against a linebacker. There are four other receivers out downfield, so all the cornerbacks and safeties are tied up. One-on-one against a linebacker! As the ESPN announcer said, “That just isn’t fair.” He gets about five yards past the line of scrimmage then jukes the linebacker, usually slanting inside. It is unstoppable. On 2^nd and 19, McCaffrey picked up 24 yards with this play. We have only seen it at most once per game. If we’re in a tight battle, we may need to use it a few more times.

2. Up Next: Washington State (5-2)

Walk me out in the cold, rain, and snow, my friends. Well, no snow, but it will be cold, wet, and windy. Got to think this favors Stanford. But it feels like a weird night, Halloween and all. You have to think Stanford will be able to move the pile, so I think this game might come down to turnovers. If Stanford can hold at least even on turnover margin, it has a nice chance to win the ball game.

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.

1. Perspective

That was a fun football game to watch. Casually pleasant, with auspicious beginnings and hints of lingering success. We ran out of tortillas at the tailgate, but there was no shortage of Stanford offense as the Cardinal continued to wax.

Less satisfying is the amount of time I have to write this blog. Ideally, there would be an eighth day of the week that was called Sportsreflectionday. Wedge it in there between Sunday and Monday—even though I could care less what happens on Sunday. I could easily spend 10 hours on Sportsreflectionday at my home office pondering the past, present, and future of the pigskin. Instead, we do what we can. This week I just decided to push back until after Week 6 to be able to reflect on another slate of results. If you were waiting patiently for longer than you wanted, then please send me original material I can cut and paste in next week’s post. I’ll be happy to credit you for your work and send you 100% of the blog’s earnings. Hell, I’ll even tell Monroe to lay out your navy blue suit for the morning… Good God it’s a Lichtenstein!

2. Offense

Usually I poke around the box scores and play-by-play scripts to come up with some unseen stats, but this stat I read on a Lombari article for ESPN: “Hogan has become the only quarterback in the country to average over 11 yards per attempt in four consecutive games.” And this has happened on a bad ankle! Unbelievable play from Hogan: 17 for 19 for 217 yards and 2 TDs. Efficient, veteran play.

Since Hogan was injured for a few weeks, Chryst had been taking the first team snaps in practice. So it was great for him to get some clock in the 4^th quarter to show us his command of the show. He is now 5 for 5 on the season and displays both great poise and accuracy. The Stanford offense is in great hands for the next few years.

It also has to be a satisfying time for Barry Sanders Jr. He has patiently played second or third fiddle for years, but he is finally start to break into the big time with three long touchdown runs in the past two games. I would like to see Sanders in the backfield more often with McCaffrey running routes out of the slot. I see no reason why they can’t both be on the field at the same time. It would give the defense more things to think about.

Finally, the false starts, illegal substitution penalties, and receiver drops that plagued Stanford at the beginning of the year seem to be long gone. Things are really rolling, and the tight ends aren’t even being used that much. Stanford only targeted a tight end on one pass play the entire game. I love the flexibility of the offense, and the fact that UCLA won’t know exactly what to expect.

3. Coaching

In my opinion, Shaw hasn’t made a single bad decision since the first quarter of the UCF game when he punted from UCF’s 33 yard line. He really hasn’t been put in a lot of tough spots. Against Arizona, Stanford only faced a 4^th down play once in the entire game, and it was a 4^th and 15 from its own 36. Shaw is clearly a good coach when it comes to keeping the team focused on itself, and focused on improving. As long as he stays out of tricky situations, it is smooth sailing for Shaw. He has even looked like he is having more fun on the sidelines, cracking big smiles and throwing around more high fives.

4. A Coaching Blunder: Steve Sarkisian

I have no interest discussing Sarkisian’s alcohol and/or painkiller addiction. My only feeling about his and other’s addictive behavior is just a general and mild sadness. But I do feel the need to discuss his decision to kick a field goal on 4^th and 9 from Washington’s 28 yard line while trailing 17-12 with 3:44 remaining in the game and only one time out. It was a shockingly poor strategic decision. Steve Sarkisian’s salary is $4.5 million dollars per year. I think it is safe to say that if about $50,000 of that was for being a good role model and mentor for young adults (at which he has also failed), then the remaining $4,450,000 is mostly for winning football games. One of the most important things you can do at the end of a football game is to make good strategic decisions that optimize your chances of winning. You should never kick a field goal on a late drive when you are trailing by 4-8 points. David Shaw has made this mistake before, and it helped Stanford lose the Rose Bowl at the end of the 2013 season.

The math is pretty simple. Down 5 points, USC needed the following to happen if they:

1. Tried a field goal: made a field goal, recovered onside kick or stopped Washington on three plays, driven down the field, made another field goal.
2. Went for it on 4^th and 9: converted the first down, gained about 15 more yards and scored a touchdown.

Do we see how much shorter the list is for option #2? Yes, we are ignoring many things and not even assigning probabilities to each event, but come on, even football lifers who hate statistics know that a field goal was not the correct play.

The alcoholism is one thing, but if I was an AD with any football knowledge, I would have fired him simply for that field goal attempt.

5. Up Next: UCLA (4-1)

UCLA got hammered by ASU a few weeks ago. They have also lost seven consecutive games to Stanford. They should be mad and motivated. Hopefully a healed Stanford defense can put some pressure on Rosen. Thursday night kickoff on ESPN—good chance for Stanford to take another big step forward.

6. Rankings & The Playoff Picture

I think it is safe to say that Ohio State is not the best team in college football. I do believe in the idea that the undefeated defending champ should be number one, but Ohio State just isn’t as good as…. drumroll please…. Michigan! Holy Harbaughs. We all knew that Harbaugh would be successful at turning the program around, but these results are completely ridiculous. Michigan just became the first FBS team in 20 years to record three consecutive shutouts! And they were all power conference games including one ranked and unbeaten team (Northwestern). Voters and fans ignore margin of victory too much, but more important than a 28-point win like Baylor’s recent 63-35 win over Texas Tech is complete dominance in a football game. Nothing is more dominant than a shutout—assuming your offense is still scoring touchdowns. And Michigan has all three phases, including bonus phase four: a fighting Harbaugh. Michigan is dominant, just like the 2010 Stanford team was, and Michigan is the best team in the country right now. One more comparison: Michigan shutout Maryland at Maryland, and Ohio State let Maryland score 28 points in Columbus. Furthermore, in the seven quarters of football Michigan played before this three game run, they only allowed one touchdown. If I was an AP voter, I would vote Michigan #1—except for the fact that they lost to an undefeated Utah team. So then, Utah is #1, and Michigan is #2. I’m not joking—that is how I would vote. No one else has been dominant. I’d feel a little bit better about my ranking if Utah had beaten Cal more easily. But the only team who has been dominant in all its games is Baylor, and they still haven’t played enough decent teams (Kansas, Lamar, Rice, and SMU are all worse than Michigan’s opponent’s such as Oregon State, BYU, and Maryland). However, the AP voters are still scared of the little number: one. Yep, Michigan has one loss, so all of the voters are afraid to rank them too high with so many undefeated teams. The highest Michigan was ranked by any voter was #4.

Yardage statistics should also be weighed heavily with victories, as many teams squeak by with fortunate wins. In other words, a few turnovers and 3^rd down conversions can have a radical impact on a game. Consider undefeated Temple (5-0). Temple beat a good Cincinnati team 34-26 despite being outgained 557 to 296! Cincinnati had 34 first downs compared to Temple’s 13. Cincinnati is a much better team than Temple, but it committed 5 turnovers in the game and lost. Fortunately, Temple is still not ranked right now. It is 5-0, but it hasn’t looked that good.

How you win should matter, just like who you play should matter. And that is exactly why it is so difficult to come up with a dominant team or a clear #1 at this point in the year. Not a single one of the 16 currently undefeated teams have outgained its opponent by more than 50 yards in all of its games. Teams are winning, but no team has been dominant in every game.

It isn’t always that way. In 2011, for example, Stanford was 5-0 at this point in the year, and had outgained all five opponents by at least 99 yards. Alabama was also 5-0 in 2011, and it had outgained all its opponents by well over 100 yards. I didn’t even bother checking other teams that year. I’m sure there were a few more examples of teams that had dominated all of its games. This year there simply are not any such teams. Even Utah, which has looked as good as any other team and owns some big victories, was outgained against Utah State by 46 yards. Utah State committed 3 turnovers compared to zero by Utah. There you go—game, set, match: Utah.

There is only one team that is in the top-20 of both offensive yards-per-pay and defensive yards-allowed-per-play: Ohio State. Damn. I was hoping it was either no one or Stanford. OK, well, then I revise my rankings. #1 Ohio State. #2 Utah. #3 Michigan. #4 Baylor. These are NOT my playoff picks in any way, shape, or form. Just my ranking of the top four teams. It is good that the Playoff Committee waits as long as it does to make its first ranking—there is simply no good way to pick a final four at this point in the season. Week 7 should help clarify some things though—including Stanford vs UCLA, 10 of the top-25 teams are in action against each other. Should be a great weekend. I’m glad Stanford plays Thursday night so I can watch other games all day on Saturday.