Since Stanford took time off from football during the UW game, I’m taking time off from the blog for this one game. Long story short, I didn’t even get a chance to watch most of it. I’m not going to go into why, but regardless I don’t think I’ll even bother watching the tape. The game is lost in history to me.

For some perspective, keep in mind that this hasn’t really happened–at least not against anyone not named Oregon. Excluding its struggles against Oregon in the past 7 seasons, Stanford was not in position to win a game late in the 4th quarter for just the third time in the past 92 games. (Northwestern 2015 and ASU 2014 are the other times…again, excepting a few Oregon games.) That is a pretty spectacular run.

But times have changed. Oregon’s dominance is over. And Stanford’s is at risk as well. UW is in prime position to win the conference. I expect Stanford to lose again, which means that UW would have to lose three games for Stanford to reach the conference title game. That isn’t happening. So, our best bet is to root for the Huskies to run the table and make the Playoff. Maybe Stanford can pick up the pieces and still salvage another Rose Bowl season.

We will know a lot more after the Washington State game. And there is another amazing statistic related to Stanford’s last 92 football games that is at play here. Stanford has lost consecutive football games only once in the past 92 games. Big game against Wazzu this Saturday night. I can’t wait.

1. Perspective – Here is Where We Are At With Stanford Football

Wow. That was like going to a Grateful Dead concert and hearing only Brent Mydland tunes from Built to Last (“We Can Run,” “Victim or the Crime,” etc.) during the entire first and second set before a shreddingly-epic Scarlet-Fire for the encore. I watched the first half in a Vietnamese restaurant in Sebastopol, then the 2^nd half on an iPad at home. We are rebuilding our house, and doing most of the work, so I have little free time and no cable television. So the viewing venues didn’t really add to my enjoyment either.

It was a grueling game to play and a grueling game to watch. The players put a lot out there for our entertainment and some Stanford dudes made some spectacular plays to seal the deal.

I don’t mind watching Stanford run and play conservatively. Here are the questions that interest me each time Stanford gets set to run an offensive play:

1. Can McCaffrey get 4 yards when there is really no hole available and a normal running back would only get 1 or 2?
2. Can we really gain enough yards despite the defense knowing what is coming?
3. Is this going to be the play that contains an element of surprise?

I might be missing something, but I think much of my conscious and subconscious enjoyment watching Stanford games recently comes from the unraveling of reality as it relates to these three questions.

So I have absolutely no armchair quarterbacking to do with the specifics of the plays called. Shaw and Bloomgren are very smart and have a decent and improving feel for the tone of the game and when to drop into the downhill toboggan with some trick or treat. I’ll give just one example of many well-called plays. The first seven plays of Stanford final, desperate drive were Ryan Burns passes. On the 8^th play, Stanford faced a 3^rd and 3 from the UCLA 12 with a little under a minute remaining. ABC caught Shaw doing a run-in-place shimmy with his arms on the sideline—indicating to Burns to let McCaffrey run the ball. Burns handed off to McCaffrey, who picked up 4 yards for the first down. Great play call to go to McCaffrey there.

The running game was there all game for Stanford. Herbstreit and Fowler kept saying throughout the first three quarters that UCLA was beating Stanford at its own game—being more physical and consistent moving the ball. But it was a bunch of tofurky. UCLA was winning because of Stanford’s two turnovers—plain and simple. They weren’t playing better football. And Stanford was controlling the line of scrimmage. Stanford finished the game with 5.6 yards per rush. Mora and UCLA wanted to put up similar numbers on the ground. UCLA ran the ball 33 times, only four less than Stanford. But UCLA managed a measly 2.3 yards per rush. So the linemen on both sides of the ball played very well for Stanford and they deserve a ton of credit.

So why, besides the obvious turnovers, was this game in such utter peril for Stanford? Three other reasons: 1. Stanford committed a few untimely penalties that put itself out of run situations. 2. Stanford struggled to cover the tight end. (This was a problem in two big plays for USC last week as well.) 3. Shaw made a couple bad game-management decisions.

Early in the 3^rd quarter, trailing 10-3, Stanford faced a 4^th and 1 from the UCLA 42. Shaw showed he has learned little about these situations as the years go by. He sent in the punt team, and I sent in the following text messages to my tailgate crew:

“#&$*.”

“We were establishing the run perfectly.”

“4^th and 1 couldn’t be more perfect.”

“You are going to run back-to-back wildcats—fine. Then get your one *@()$&#* yard when the time comes.”

“If you run up the middle every time you are basically asking to face a 4^th and 1 eventually.”

“What are the odds McCaffrey picks up that 1 yard? First thought: 85%.”

Let’s break these odds down a bit more. Christian McCaffrey had 26 carries in the game. His runs went for the following yards, in order: 3, 13, 13, 3, 4, 1, 3, 12, 3, 4, 6, 8, 7, 4, 2, 3, 10, 1, -1, 8, 6, 9, 2, 3, 7, 4. There are no zeros in there, and only one negative number. He gained one yard or more on 25 of his 26 carries. That is an over 96% success rate folks.

Of course, with UCLA anticipating a McCaffrey run, it is not 96% likely that McCaffrey would pick up that first down. But I still say it is close to 90%.

Unfortunately, Jake Bailey kicked a beauty and Stanford pinned UCLA down on the 1, obscuring the poor decision from Shaw. Nonetheless, Shaw’s mathematically incorrect, overly conservative, and boringly passive decision killed a drive that had tons of momentum.

In the post game press conference, Kyle Bonegura of ESPN typed up the following report:

“Before Stanford coach David Shaw was even asked about why he punted on 4th-and-1 at the Stanford 39 with less than five minutes, trailing 13-9, he gave his reasoning.

‘We trust our defense. We had a fourth-and-1, and bad field position, and if we had been in good field position we would’ve gone for it,’ Shaw said. ‘But with bad field position we don’t go for it. We never go for it. Not with that much time left and with the defense that we have. Coincidentally, I had that conversation with my wife this morning about that exact scenario. Midfield, to our side of the field, 4th-and-1, and I told her that you punt. You punt every single time. If you have the defense that we have and the belief in what we do, that’s what you do. You punt. And you play great defense and you get the ball back, and you go out there and you execute the plays.’

It was a curious decision at the time, but the man stuck to what he believed in – and it worked. With three Pac-12 titles in four years, he should always deserve the benefit of the doubt.”

Here are the important take home points from all that jazz:

1. Even Shaw’s wife senses that he is wrong on this issue.
2. It didn’t work. Stanford won despite this incorrect decision. And it has worked against us. (Remember the USC game two years ago—in which Shaw punted from USC’s 29 and 32—that ended in a 10-13 loss?)
3. Shaw deserves the benefit of the doubt in everything related to the team’s success—but not on this issue. Even the smartest guy in the room is not infallible from every thorny old bias.

With 4:40 remaining in the game, Stanford had a 4^th and 1 from its own 39. Shaw wasted a time out and then punted. This is less egregious than the previous punt because of the field position and time outs Stanford still had, but you’re in perfect position to keep running the ball down the field and score with little time left. It is NOT a risky play to go for it. If you are Washington St, it might be risky to run on 4^th and 1. If you are Stanford facing Michigan State in the Rose Bowl a few years ago it might be risky to run on 4^th and 1. But in the past two years Stanford has had tremendous success picking up one yard.

Stanford football is close to getting to the top of the mountain. This issue is Shaw’s last hurdle to becoming one of the best college coaches of all-time. Unfortunately, the hurdle isn’t even in view yet in his opinion.

(One concession on this point though… if Jake Bailey and the Stanford punt team can continue to pin teams inside the 5, then we will be having a slightly different conversion. But only slightly.)

2. Perspective on the Players

It is frustrating and obnoxious to vent on this 4^th down issue because it takes away from such a fantastic effort from so many players. Trent Irwin is catching metaphors like the pages of a Pablo Neruda book. Damn—that’s a bad simile. But Irwin has perhaps the best hands since the great Ed McCaffrey. Or at least since JJ Arcega-Whiteside. JJ Arcega-Whiteside burst on to the scene with the first three catches of his career and some Mark Bradford-style elevation sensation. He replaced the injured Francis Owusu and made the winning touchdown catch. Kevin Palma led the team with six tackles. Terrance Alexander and Alameen Murphy stepped into to replace injured cornerbacks Quenton Meeks and Elijah Holder seemingly without any drop-off. Safety Justin Reid made a huge defensive pass break-up in the closing seconds to preserve the victory. Sean Barton had a huge tackle for a loss. A.T Hall had a great game on the line and helped push McCaffrey over the first down line on his late-game run. Solomon Thomas had two tackles for a loss and a fumble return for a touchdown courtesy of Joey Alfieri. Conrad Ukropina send three more perfect pine nuts through the parallel bars. So many players made big contributions, many of them making their best plays of their college careers. It shows you how good of a job recruiting Stanford has done—how deep it is at so many positions.

And then there is Ryan Burns. Ryan Burns handled the postgame interview with class and charisma, and with a subtle smile. But really he had that same smile on his face the entire game. And maybe that has something to do with why he is the starter instead of Chryst. Chryst too looks excited and very competent when he’s out on field, but also slightly tense. Burns looks relaxed, like he is having the time of his life, just playing the game that he loves with people he loves. I like that in a quarterback.

3. A Lesson in Coaching from USC vs Utah

Utah ran the ball on all 12 plays, including a 4^th and 1 from USC’s 14, and its opening drive resulted in a touchdown. If it is working, let the record keep playing. Great coaching by Whittingham. USC was also running the ball well. Justin Davis was averaging 13.7 yards per carry on his first 9 carries. On USC’s final 24 plays of the game, Helton had his Trojans hand the ball off to Davis exactly one time. Davis ended the day with 10 carries for 12.3 yards per carry.

And Helton suffers from Shaw’s 4^th down punting syndrome, punting the ball on 4^th and 3 from Utah’s 37 yard line late in the game, which gave Utah the opening for the come-from-behind victory.

Helton will not keep his job for very long.

4. Overranked Team of the Week: #22 Texas (2-1)

Rarely has a team been this overrated. Texas jumped into the rankings when it beat Notre Dame at home in overtime in its first game. Notre Dame, we now know, is not a good team. And then Texas lost to Cal. It was a close game, but Cal was the slightly better team—nothing fluky. So, at that point, if there was room for Texas in the poll, then there should have been room for both Cal and San Diego St (which beat Cal and is undefeated). But really Texas should have been completely removed from the top-25, as it owns no quality wins and lost to an average Cal team.

There are so many ways of justifying why Texas should not be ranked, but here is the most convincing. Ken Massey keeps a website that does a composite ranking by averaging out 80 different rankings and polls compiled for college football. Most of the rankings are computer algorithms—some well-known (Sagarin, Billingsley, and others used in the BCS era) and others mostly unknown—but all are presumably verified by Massey and post their rankings online every week. These algorithms for the polls are structured in vastly different ways, so among the 80 polls there exists an enormous range of rankings for any particular team. For example, Stanford is ranked #2 in a few of the polls, and as low as #29 in one of the polls. Strength of schedule, margin of victory, and other parameters can be weighted very differently, so a team like LSU that has lost but played a tough schedule shows an even wider range: #6 in one poll and #74 in another (averaging out for a composite ranking of #29). While some of the individual polls spit out absurd orders, the composite average usually does an excellent job of revealing a reasonable ranking. Here is the composite top-6, in order: Ohio State, Alabama, Michigan, Clemson, Louisville, and Stanford. Clearly very reasonable.

Because the AP poll is a composite average of a 65 voters, it also is also usually reasonable; a team might not be fairly ranked but it is rare that the AP poll has a team that is extremely misranked. One way we can know if a team is extremely misranked in a poll is to see how that ranking compares to its position in the other 79 rankings on Massey’s composite list. For example, whatever algorithm “CSL Ratings” uses to compile his rankings is clearly not working to appropriately rank Stanford at #29. All 79 other rankings have Stanford in the top-20. CSL’s rank for Stanford is an obvious outlier.

For each team in the AP poll, some of the other 79 polls have that team rated higher, and some have that team rated lower. The AP poll ranking usually falls near the median ranking in all 80 polls. For example, Stanford’s ranking of #7 in the AP Poll is very close to its median ranking of #6 from all 80 polls. But the Texas Longhorns have a unique situation. Texas’ #22 ranking in the AP Poll is the outlier. It is the highest ranking for Texas among all 80 polls! The other 79 polls besides the AP rank Texas anywhere from #29 to #86, with a median ranking of #53! Can 79 vastly different polls and algorithms all be wrong about the Longhorns while the human voters on the AP Poll be right? Nope. Impossible.

Give major props to Jon Wilner of the Mercury News. He initially ranked Texas #2 after the Notre Dame win (an over-reaction but he does that early in the year), but now Wilner has Texas completely unranked. He has done his job well. You have to make big changes at the start of the year as the information pours in. Not sure what the other voters are thinking on this one. Did they forget that Texas went 5-7 last year? Maybe… well, perhaps they may remember Texas’ 6-7 campaign the year before?

5. Underranked team of the Week: UCLA (2 – 2)

UCLA has done a lot more to earn a top-25 ranking than Texas. I’m not sure how good it is, but it is definitely better than Texas, and one could easily justify having them ranked right now. If Texas A&M and Stanford falter, then UCLA could be reevaluated. But for now, they’ve two top-10 teams and measured up pretty evenly.

6. Coming Up – @ Washington (4 – 0)

It feels like a game Stanford should lose. For one, Stanford is down a few injured starters. But I feel like there is still unresolved karma out there. Stanford was fortunate to beat Washington three years ago at home and ever since I’ve felt like we owed UW a win. In that 2013 game, UW outgained Stanford by about 200 yards, but somehow Stanford pulled out a 31-28 victory, helped in part by a 99-yard kickoff return for a touchdown from Ty Montgomery. Stanford has dominated the line of scrimmage in the past two games, so that bodes well for Stanford. But we’ll see.

If Washington has been watching tape, then it should be preparing to target its tight ends. Keep an eye on that.

This game is enormously important. Because of owning the head-to-head tiebreaker, whoever wins this game has a huge lead in the Pac-12 North and the Rose Bowl race. For example, if Stanford wins, it could likely lose up to three more games (one of them to Notre Dame) and still get to the Rose Bowl (assuming UW also loses one more game…perhaps @Utah). The winner is completely and utterly in a velvet-lined driver’s seat in a fast car headed south to Pasadena via Santa Clara. Go Cardinal.

1. Perspective

Despite winning 7 of the last 9 vs USC, this is the first game since 2009’s “What’s Your Deal” game that Stanford has dominated. It won the line of scrimmage, it had more discipline, and it definitely won the coaching battle.

The game had a different feel from the very beginning. Normally, the USC crowd is loud and proud at Stanford stadium. There were still a lot of USC fans around, but they were much quieter this time. A group of three USC fans next to our tailgate were napping about an hour before kickoff. Inside the stadium, there wasn’t much more energy. This is currently a lopsided rivalry and the idea that Helton can bring USC back to prominence is very much an uncertain proposition.

2. Offense

One of my favorite plays of the game was a 2^nd quarter pass from Burns to Irwin. It was a quick out, and Burns put the ball on the outside shoulder to protect from interception. Irwin spun outside of the tackle and gained 15 yards. Just beautiful, veteran, textbook execution from a quarterback and receiver who do not have all that much experience. Burns played well again, and is exceeding expectations. The offensive line is also coming together nicely. The holes aren’t always there for the running game, but the pass protection so far seems very good.

Rector showed how fast he is with a take-your-pants-off explosion on a 3^rd quarter reverse. While traveling about 12 years ago, I hopped off a train in Brasov, Romania and got in a woman’s car to be taken to her guesthouse. She had a thick accent and didn’t speak much English, but had clearly developed a proud and interesting diction. When discussing the weather forecast for tomorrow, she said, “It is…. instability.” As we started talking about places to eat, it somehow emerged that there was one Mexican restaurant in Brasov—probably one of the only ones in the country. I asked her if she liked the food there. She paused. “It is very… explosive.” I knew exactly what she meant, and went there for dinner later that night. It was the same kind of delicious explosiveness we’ve come to expect from Michael Rector.

McCaffrey is the first player to have 200+ all-purpose yards in 8 straight games in 10 years. That fact probably deserves its own paragraph. Or at least this concluding remark: the next closest player to have consecutive 200+ all-purpose yards has a streak of… 2 games.

On a side note, Adoree Jackson showed a lot of class all game. He constantly patted McCaffrey on the back or helmet after plays. It didn’t matter if McCaffrey had a good gain or not, he was just respecting one of the few guys on the field with as much talent as him. Jackson also had a nice interception in the 3^rd quarter.

3. Defense & Special Teams

I don’t have time to break down these units but the secondary shut down Juju Smith-Schuster, holding him to 3 catches and 34 yards. And I think we might start seeing a surge in the “Ukropinus Pinea for Tree” campaign—the guy can flat out kick the pine nut.

4. Coaching – Helton or High Water

On the first four plays of USC’s first drive, Justin Davis ran for gains of 6, 11, 7, and 4 yards. The ABC announcer noted after the first two runs, “In the last 9 games these two have played, whoever has won the rushing battle has won the game.” Indeed, it is all about controlling the line of scrimmage in this game. On the 5^th play, Helton called for a screen pass, which was blown up by Hoffpauir, and USC’s rhythm was disrupted. My first thought: not a great play call. The two good options after those first four plays are: hand off to Davis again, or play-action fake to Davis and pass downfield. After watching the tape a few times though, I noticed that Stanford loaded the box with defenders on that 5^th play. After getting gouged on the first four runs, they made an adjustment. And it looked like that might have caused Browne to audible to the screen pass, which makes sense. So perhaps it wasn’t Helton’s fault in that situation, but Helton definitely struggled to make good decisions in the game.

In the 2^nd series, USC’s two running plays went for 12 and 4 yards. But incomplete passes and false start penalties forced a field goal.

In its 3^rd possession, USC’s running plays went for 8, 2, and 9 yards. Again, tons of success on the ground, but too many passing plays and penalties forced a punt.

In its 4^th possession, USC ran 5 plays, and none of them were rushes! What a gift for the Stanford defense. They had yet to prove they could stop the run, but USC let them off the hook anyways.

On its 5th series and first of the 2^nd half, USC finally let Davis loose again, gaining 5, 5, 6, 6, and 1 yards on its five running plays and the drive resulted in a touchdown.

On its next drive, USC did not run the ball.

Unfathomably bad coaching and play-calling. 12 of USC’s first 15 rushing plays went for 4 yards or more. You can move the ball all day with those kinds of numbers. Stanford was able to move the ball on the ground with far worse numbers.

Of course, the false start penalties did force USC into passing situations, and eventually Stanford starting playing the run better. Early in the 4^th quarter, on 4^th and 1 from the Stanford 18, the Stanford defense made the stop to end USC’s drive. Of course, down 17 points, Helton should have taken the field goal anyways…

And later Helton just did the absurd. Still trailing 27-10 in the 4^th, he punted on 4^th and 6 from Stanford’s 44-yard line. It is the kind of bone-headed call that someone who is paid millions of dollars should never make.

5. Coaching – Shaw and the Art of Subtle Perfection

On the first play of the game, Burns dropped back to pass. Love it. Then we went with tempo and got the second play off quickly. Great. The plays yielded an incompletion and a fumble, but it didn’t matter. Stanford was already off to a great start the moment we saw some wrinkles from Shaw, and the play-calling and game management set the tone for one of David Shaw’s best games as a coach.

On Stanford’s 2^nd drive, Shaw went to McCaffrey. On 3^rd and 1, he picked up two yards. Later in the drive on a 3^rd and 1, Shaw pulled McCaffrey out and had Burns take the shotgun snap and run for the first down. A great call—there is one more blocker with this play and the defense can’t just anticipate a McCaffrey handoff.

On the next play, Shaw called the double wheel, the trailing arcs of slick, the sushi boats on the sidelines. McCaffrey comes out of the backfield on a wheel route, but Love gets the fake handoff in the same direction and is also streaking out to the left. They are both headed in the same direction, and most of the attention is on the 2^nd guy, as it looks like McCaffrey is just headed out to block. I remembered this play from three years ago, when Hogan connected with Tyler Gaffney for a touchdown pass against Army. (It is the first play on the video link.) The slight difference that time is it looks like the trailer, Kelsey Young, was a receiver in motion and not a second back. It is a fun play, and even if the lead guy is covered the quarterback can still target the trailer.

Shaw is an interesting guy when it comes to using some of his best-designed plays. Just this week, ESPN released video on the fake fumble touchdown pass to Rector in the Rose Bowl. Shaw diagrammed the play for the camera. What caught my attention is that he said he has had this trick play in his back pocket for 7 years! Jeez man… I get not wanting to show your best cards on every hand, but why would you hold on to the Ace of Spades for 7 years? I’ve grown to love the steady diet of simple brown rice served with the Stanford offense. If you don’t, then you can’t also appreciate the success the team has had. But let’s not wait so long to see these great plays, no? Alas… I fear that Shaw was only willing to openly share the play with a national ESPN audience since he doesn’t expect to use it for another seven years!

Nonetheless, Shaw had a brilliant game. (Obviously I give Bloomgren a ton of credit as well… I just don’t know who is calling the plays, so for now I am just saying “Shaw” when I really mean “whoever is managing the offensive game.”) A virtually flawless game. Here’s another perfect detail. In the 2^nd quarter, Stanford had 2^nd a 1 from the USC 48. Shaw was confident Stanford could pick up a yard on 3^rd down, so he took advantage of having a down to play with. McCaffrey started down the left sideline, stopped, then took off. The cornerback was caught flat-footed, and McCaffrey was wide open for a touchdown. Burns missed the pass, but Shaw played his next card perfectly as McCaffrey gained two yards on the next play to pick up the first down. Hardcover textbook, rock solid football.

Later in the 2^nd quarter, Stanford looked to take control of the game. Shaw called for eight straight rushing plays (the final 7 for McCaffrey) on the drive, all of them out of the jumbo elephant package. It was an early attempt to drop the hammer, and it worked. If you are going to tell USC that a run up the middle is coming, and still feel confident you can gain yards, then you have to be willing to go for it on 4^th and 1. Shaw was completely ready and willing. And Stanford scored a decisive touchdown.

It was all running up the middle, which was why the Rector reverse was so perfectly set up later in the 3^rd quarter. Well-crafted by Shaw. And the end result was a near perfect game. Even when things didn’t go well—like the interception in the 4^th quarter—it wasn’t a bad call or a bad result. On 3^rd and long, a deep pass that is intercepted is no worse than an incompletion and a punt on the next play.

6. Rankings & The Playoff Picture

I’m going to hold off on quibbling with any rankings for now… Save it for a future post. The Pac-12 has a nice “lead” over the Big-12, but it is also still too early to talk Playoff.

7. College Gameday & National Television

Unfortunately, I don’t think Stanford will be featured in a College Gameday onsite location game. Notre Dame is down, so is Oregon. The Washington game is on a Friday, so that isn’t an option. Even if Stanford and Cal came close to running the table until Nov 19th it would be hard to get a nod over Ohio State vs Michigan State. So there likely won’t be the exposure that comes with Gameday.

The only time when Stanford will really get the eyes of the entire nation is next Friday night, at Washington. For that reason, I like the Friday night game. It locks in a prime-time national audience with no overlapping games drawing viewers to other channels.

8. Coming Up – UCLA (2 – 1)

The only big overlapping game on Saturday is #17 Arkansas vs #10 Texas A&M at 6pm. So most college football fans will at least tune in for the first half of #7 Stanford vs UCLA on ABC. Stanford is going for its 9^th consecutive win against UCLA. I can’t make that kind of stuff up… it has to have already happened for me to even consider it.

1. Perspective – This Is Better Than Losing to Northwestern

The field in the afternoon light. The ball in the air. Christian McCaffrey. Man it was fun to see him take the opening kickoff. He got a slither, a slide, and for a split second gave us the first adrenaline rush of the season when he found a gap before being dragged down on the 37. Exhale. Smile. High fives. Feel the gratitude. The entertainment has returned after the longest 9 months of the year.

Stanford hasn’t played a regular season game against a team that was actively in the Big12 since it played Texas 16 years ago. Great scheduling move by the athletic director. And the nonconference schedule looks fantastic for the foreseeable future. In 2021, for example, Stanford plays only Power 5 conference teams and Notre Dame.

If you would have offered me this 26-13 victory before the game started, I would have taken it—begrudgingly. It wasn’t an epic night for McCaffrey, but a lot worse things could have happened. Burns could have struggled; we could have committed a few turnovers; Stanford could have lost. All in all, we’ll take the win and move on with a nicely placed bar for Ryan Burns to work on maintaining.

2. Offense – Life of Ryan

Burns looked tall, athletic, and patient. And he just kept completing passes. He Nunesed a few balls into the turf in the second half, so we’ll have to keep an eye on that. But a good start nonetheless.

Chryst also looked great. He threw one good ball to McCaffrey, then handed the ball off to him as McCaffrey led Chryst’s only drive for a touchdown. McCaffrey was quick to thank Chryst for a key block downfield on his touchdown run. Got to love seeing the guys bond like that.

The last 38 minutes of offense were completely lackluster. But I’m not sure we were really running a full offense, and Kansas State usually has a good defense, so we’ll wait and see. I’m not going to read too much into the 2^nd half just yet.

3. Defense – The Meaning of Life

It has been the defense that as kept us in so many games over the years, and the defense set the tone of the game again in this one. Of course, it is hard to tell if Kansas State really brought anything to the table. KSU quarterback Jesse Ertz was throwing feathers in a windstorm. It was clear that the best plays for the Wildcats were going to come from quarterback scrambles or broken plays that went on for a second too long.

The Stanford secondary established itself with four interceptions. Except one was lost in the sun, and one was a safety instead. So the unit had to settle for two picks. Still that places them 13^th in the country in interceptions per game, far better than any time in the past five seasons. Statistically significant? Not yet, but I expect us to stay inside the top-20 in interceptions per game for the entire season.

It certainly helped the secondary that the defensive line was able to get to the quarterback. I knew we had a few sacks, but I was shocked to see the box score later. Stanford recorded 8 sacks, and currently leads the nation in sacks per game. While the interceptions are novel, the sacks are not. Stanford was 2^nd, 5^th, and 4^th in the nation in sacks per game in 2012 through 2014. Peter Kalambayi recorded 2.5 sacks—also good enough to be the current national leader. When Kansas State was driving to make it a one-score game, Kalambayi recorded a huge sack that knocked the Wildcats out of field goal range.

4. Coaching

A few plays into the first series on offense, we saw what can happen when Stanford gets too predictable. Stanford lined up on 1^st and 10 with only one wide out and McCaffrey took the pitch to the left. Fully 10 Kansas State defenders were within a few yards of the line of scrimmage with all eyes on McCaffrey. Pretty tough to find a gap when 10 guys are meeting you at the line. The play lost five yards.

Kansas State safety Dante Barnett was poaching the line of scrimmage all game. The play-action pass could have done some serious damage, but Shaw kept the playbook close the vest. Stanford only led 3-0 after the 1^st quarter, and Shaw had some time during the quarter break to draw up the next play. Play-action fake to McCaffrey, Dante Barnett rushing in to make a tackle, and Rector was wide open downfield for a 40 yard touchdown pass.

Shaw is still punting from the opponent’s territory. But Jake Bailey, Stanford’s punter, pinned KSU inside the 5 a couple of times. It paid off… with four minutes left in the game, Stanford recorded a safety.

Kansas State lined up to kickoff after the safety and recovered an onside kick. I didn’t even know you could try an onside kick after a safety, or at least I’d never considered it since it is such a rare situation. Stanford wasn’t anticipating it either, and I don’t blame them. It was a weird game. There were only two Stanford guys up on the line on the side where the ball was kicked and they weren’t the hands team.

So give the staff a break on the onside kick. But when McCaffrey broke through for the late 4^th quarter TD scamper, Stanford vaulted to a 12 point lead. The game was so weird at that point that I didn’t blink when we sent in Ukropina to kick the extra point. But man—this is an unacceptable mistake for the coaching staff. It still means that Stanford has no system for playing the numbers properly at the end of the game. Seems to me if the budget of the coaching staff is well into the millions of dollars, we could allocated one guy to specifically tell Shaw whether or not to go for one or two in the 4^th quarter.

5. Coming Up – USC… and a decent blog post.

I got lost in time and this post was similar to Stanford’s 3^rd quarter offense vs KSU. Next week, I’ll have much more on USC-Stanford, the Playoff Picture, the top-25 rankings, and the Pac-12. Go Card.