Cardinal dismantle Arizona behind another stellar offensive performance

Saturday was a day full of chaos and drama for most of the favorites in the Pac-12, but it didn’t look like Stanford got the memo.

Instead, the No. 18 Cardinal (4-1, 3-0 Pac-12) stood firm amidst all the turmoil and played every bit like a 14-point home favorite on both sides of the ball, riding their brutally efficient offense and a solid defense to a blowout 55-17 statement win over Arizona (3-2, 0-2).

“We’ve got to play our best football from here on out,” said head coach David Shaw. “Everybody in our conference can be beaten; everybody in our conference can beat anybody in our conference. That’s just the Pac-12. We talked about it from the beginning of the year. Every game is going to be tough, and you’ve got to be ready for anything.”

It’s hard to argue that Stanford is playing anything but its best football right now.

The Cardinal have scored at least 40 points in three consecutive games for the first time since the Andrew Luck era, and the Cardinal outgained what had previously been the Pac-12’s top offense in yardage, 570-314. Stanford scored on each of its first eight drives against Arizona — 2 field goals followed by 6 touchdowns — and didn’t punt until the fourth quarter.

Fifth-year senior quarterback Kevin Hogan had a fourth straight elite game with a deadly 17-of-19 line for 217 yards, 2 touchdowns and no interceptions, with good pocket presence and accuracy on all throws, from screens to a beautiful deep ball to senior wide receiver Michael Rector.

That was more than enough to complement another outstanding game from the running backs. Sophomore Christian McCaffrey eclipsed the century mark for a third straight game, powering forward for 156 rushing yards on 17 carries and also notching the first rushing touchdown of his career.

As is tradition, fifth-year senior Remound Wright added two short-yardage touchdowns — and the first receiving touchdown of his career, as well — and senior Barry Sanders hit another home run with an eye-popping 65-yard touchdown run in what has quickly turned into a weekly spectacle.

“First off, hats off to those guys up front on the offensive line,” McCaffrey said. “It all starts with them. Without them, none of that would be happening. So they’ve been playing so well, and it’s so exciting to see from a running back’s perspective.

“Whether it’s me, Remound, Barry or Bryce in the backfield, there is so much we can do with our guys and it’s exciting for us,” he added.

On the other side of the ball, Stanford held a Rich Rodriguez offense to just 17 points — a success in and of itself — and held Arizona’s rushing attack, which had averaged 329 yards per game going into Saturday, to just 118 yards. Nick Wilson, arguably the best running back in the Pac-12, was held to just 53 yards on 17 carries and had a streak of three straight 100-yard games snapped.

Senior inside linebacker Blake Martinez, who was the Pac-12’s leader in tackles with 50 going into Saturday’s game, added 13 more to his growing tally, including a monster first half in which he had 11. His efforts were especially critical because with Anu Solomon, Arizona’s starting quarterback, unable to play due to a concussion, the Wildcats were forced to play Jerrard Randall, one of the most electric runners in the conference.

“You fuel off of those tackles, just being able to execute and do your job,” Martinez said. “I think that once those things happen, I get hyped on the field and it fuels the other guys. I can never show that fatigue.”

The tone of the game was set from the get-go, with two long Stanford scoring drives of 43 and 65 yards standing in stark contrast to Arizona’s offense’s difficulty in moving the chains, with the Wildcats only covering 18 yards on eight plays on their first two drives. Two Conrad Ukropina field goals were followed by the Cardinal driving 63 yards for McCaffrey’s 4-yard rushing touchdown to put Stanford up 13-0 at the end of one quarter.

Randall just couldn’t command the Arizona offense effectively due to his inability to throw the ball accurately downfield, as he missed badly on two screen passes and overthrew wide-open targets downfield on at least two occasions. Because of that, Stanford was able to leave its linebackers in the box to defend the run, leaving Arizona unable to consistently move the ball.

Although Randall and the Wildcats drove 20 plays for 73 yards to open the second quarter and kicked a field goal to close the gap to 13-3, the Cardinal effectively silenced any possibility of a comeback: The team would complete two straight touchdown drives ending in a Wright rushing touchdown and Wright’s receiving touchdown, which came on a checkdown screen to the left side.

“Me and Christian are real tight,” Wright said. “You know, he gets a lot of carries. He gets a lot of carries, and I get touchdowns. I guess the coaches won’t let one of us have both. It is what it is. We like tag-teaming.”

Stanford was up 27-3 at the half, and although Arizona’s offense was able to move the ball more effectively in the second half, the Wildcats’ porous defense playing without its top three linebackers just couldn’t mount a stop against Stanford’s offense, and Hogan exited after the fourth quarter with the Cardinal leading 48-17.

With sophomore Keller Chryst in at quarterback to see his second garbage-time cameo of the season, Stanford punted for the first time in the fourth quarter. But Chryst rebounded quickly, leading a 11-play, 57-yard touchdown drive of his own capped off by a beautiful fade to Rollins Stallworth for the first touchdowns of each of their careers.

That wasn’t all Chryst put on the highlight reel, though — in the second quarter, Chryst came in for one play as part of a predetermined package and laid waste to an Arizona cornerback with a monster block that drew gasps from all in attendance.

“He’s a tough kid and he loves plays like that,” Shaw said. “He’s one of those guys that at some point we’ll teach him how to slide. He doesn’t want to slide.”

Although most teams would likely be reluctant to go into a bye week and kill their momentum from the previous weeks, Stanford considers itself lucky to be able to catch a breath before one of its most critical matchups of the season.

“Some people would say going like this you don’t want to take a break,” Shaw said. “We need this bye. We need this bye. Our quarterback needs to heal. Our offensive line took a lot of shots, running backs, et cetera. Our defensive line is thin and banged up. We need this break.”

With Stanford firing on all cylinders and looking as deadly as many expected at the start of the season, the Cardinal now hit their bye week before a monumental Thursday matchup against UCLA on Oct. 15.

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