McCaffrey, offense show no signs of slowing as Stanford races past Washington

Whenever Stanford has been involved in one of those proverbial battles between the unstoppable force and the immovable object, the Cardinal have usually had to play the role of the immovable object.

Senior offensive guard Joshua Garnett (center) made a highlight-reel block in the second quarter, paving the way for a 15-yard gain by fullback Daniel Marx. Garnett and the offensive line have been stellar for the Cardinal, allowing only 1.43 sacks per game while allowing the rush game to average 5.04 yards per carry. (SAM GIRVIN/ The Stanford Daily)

But on Saturday at Stanford Stadium in front of a packed homecoming crowd, it was the No. 10 Cardinal (6-1, 5-0 Pac-12) that won the battle as the unstoppable force for once, as Christian McCaffrey again reached 300 all-purpose yards and Stanford’s rejuvenated offense plowed through a stiff Washington (3-4, 1-3) defense in a 31-14 victory.

“I give a lot of credit to the mentality of our football team, the maturity of our football team, knowing that we’re not going to rip off 30-yard runs and 50-yard passes play after play after play,” said head coach David Shaw. “It was going to be hard. It was going to be tough sledding. We had to stay with our plan and our guys did a good job.”

Saturday marked the sixth straight game of over 30 points for the Cardinal, the team’s longest such streak since 2011. With its sixth win of the season, Stanford also achieved bowl eligibility for the seventh straight year.

“It means a lot,” said senior quarterback Kevin Hogan. “You cherish all the time that you get to spend with these guys and so we’re guaranteed one more game. That’s one of our goals is to get bowl eligible and get that extra game. It’s not our end goal, but it’s a goal along the way.”

Although the Washington defense entered the game near the top of the conference by most defensive metrics, Stanford’s offense was still able to gain 478 total yards on Saturday — the second-highest yardage total the Huskies have given up all year — and Stanford’s 31 points represented the best scoring output against Washington this season.

McCaffrey eclipsed 300 all-purpose yards for the third time in four games, while also eclipsing 100 yards in both rushing (109) and receiving (112) for the first time in his career. He is now averaging 259.7 all-purpose yards per game, which still keeps him on track to eclipse the all-time single-season record of 3,250 held by Barry Sanders.

“I’m at the point where I don’t know what else I can say other than watch him,” Shaw said. “Just watch him. The little guy never gets tired.”

The Cardinal have shown the ability to beat opponents in a variety of different ways this season, and Saturday was no different — although Stanford only averaged 3.9 yards per rush, Hogan had another efficient 17-of-24 performance for 290 yards and 2 touchdowns, helping to move the chains and shuttle plays away from Washington’s fierce front seven.

“They’re strong, strong guys and heavy,” said senior center Graham Shuler. “They’re really physical and standing there and going toe-to-toe with us, which a lot of teams do or don’t. I’ve got a lot of respect for those guys and they’re a young group that’s playing really well.”

Not to be outdone, Stanford’s defense also quietly had an outstanding day, holding Washington to just 58 yards on a meager 18 total plays in the first half. Although freshman running back Myles Gaskin had 18 rushes for 108 yards, Washington was hurt by the absence of its starting quarterback, Jake Browning, who sat out the game nursing a shoulder injury.

Because the Huskies’ backup, sophomore K.J. Carta-Samuels, never found a rhythm in the pocket (he went 9-of-21 for 118 yards) and Washington was playing from behind the entire game, the Huskies’ offense struggled to move the ball all night, although it did do better in the second half.

“We’ve played a bunch of young quarterbacks and you can tell they get a little bit flustered back there sometimes,” said junior outside linebacker Peter Kalambayi. “It’s always good for the defense. It basically means they’re going to run the ball more.”

In total, Washington only mustered 231 yards of total offense, which marked the worst offensive output against the Stanford defense this season by a Power Five team (only UCF did worse, with 181 yards).

“Everyone was talking about [Washington’s defense] all week,” said senior inside linebacker Blake Martinez. “All right, best Pac-12 offense against best Pac-12 defense. And we’re like, ‘Hey, what about us?’ So we went out there with chip on our shoulders and I think we proved a big thing today.”

Stanford took the ball to start the game and immediately scored on a six-play, 62-yard scoring drive in which McCaffrey and the offensive line had their way with the Washington front and Hogan’s returned mobility bailed Stanford out for two big gains.

Hogan found paydirt when he connected with Austin Hooper on a deep route down the sideline after most of Washington’s secondary bit on a screen fake to McCaffrey, giving Stanford an early 7-0 lead.

“Yeah, so that was a play that we put in this week,” Hogan said. “I executed really well. I kind of put the safety in a bind with a guy coming over the middle and Hoop going over the rail. So [I] just tried to put it on him, and he carried the guy into the end zone. He’s a big, physical guy. He wasn’t going to be stopped.”

Although Washington’s front seven swarmed the ball more effectively on future runs, Stanford did a great job of mixing up the play-calling, particularly with Bryce Love and McCaffrey out in space, as well as with timely screen passes that gashed Washington for big gains.

On one of those screens in the second quarter, senior left guard Joshua Garnett, already in the midst of an All-American season, awed the nation with a monster block on a Washington defender to help clear the path for sophomore fullback Daniel Marx, who took his first career reception for a 15-yard gain.

Even outside of that play, Garnett had a great day in general, making all of his blocks at the second level when he pulled and even getting involved in the play side on broken plays to help turn smaller gains into bigger chunks of yardage.

“I like to get a little nasty with them,” said Garnett, a Washington native. “I told the guys on offense today, sometimes it’s okay to be the villain a little bit. You’ve got to come out hard and obviously it was my hometown team and I wanted to put something on tape.”

Thanks in large part to the stellar interior blocking of Garnett and Shuler, Washington was selling out against the run on a lot of its defensive plays, particularly as the game wore on.

Of course, that meant that Stanford’s timely play fakes were extremely effective, as was the case on Stanford’s third-quarter touchdown, when Stanford faked the outside zone handoff to Bryce Love, took out the safety on an inside-cutting route from Michael Rector and threw to McCaffrey on the flat, who evaded a defender and drifted 50 yards into the end zone for a touchdown and a 24-7 lead.

McCaffrey later found the end zone one final time on a 7-yard run, stretching the lead to 31-7 and effectively sealing the game.

“Our guys are fighting, they’re battling,” Shaw said. “We talked about being a second-half football team. The second half of football games in the second half of the season. That’s where our training shows up, that’s where our mentality shows up, and the guys did that tonight.”

With the win and a Utah loss to USC, Stanford became the only Pac-12 team to remain undefeated in conference play on Saturday. That means the Cardinal will have a chance to effectively clinch the Pac-12 North (barring a late-season meltdown) with a victory over Washington State next Saturday on Halloween, with whisperings that College GameDay might make its first ever trip to Pullman in what should be a tough matchup.

“The good teams also, they might lose one, but they’re going to bounce back,” Shaw said. “They have to bounce back. That’s what happened to us week one, that’s what happened to Washington State Week One. They came out and played really, really good football the last couple weeks. It should be a really good game.”

Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dhpark ‘at’ stanford.edu.