McCaffrey, who is also a finalist for the Heisman Trophy and was a finalist for the Walter Camp, Doak Walker and the Maxwell Awards as well, broke Barry Sanders’ 27-year-old record of 3,250 all-purpose yards in a season during Stanford’s victory over USC in the Pac-12 Championship and will have a chance to extend his lead atop the record books in Stanford’s Jan. 1 matchup with Iowa in the Rose Bowl.

He demonstrated unparalleled versatility this season, finishing second in the nation with 1,847 rushing yards and also second among running backs in receiving yards this season with 540. He was also the nation’s second-leading kickoff returner with 1,042 yards on 36 returns. He was also 2-of-3 as a passer with two touchdown passes — good for second on the team.

He remarked on the ESPN College Football Awards Show on Thursday night that the one thing he wished he could have done this season was return a punt for a touchdown — seemingly the only disappointing stat of his remarkable season was 67 yards on his 14 punt returns.

Running back Derrick Henry of Alabama swept the Doak Walker, Maxwell and Walter Camp Awards. McCaffrey and quarterback Deshaun Watson of Clemson were both finalists for the Maxwell Award, rounding out the identical group of finalists (including Henry) that will take the stage for the Heisman Trophy in New York on Saturday. The group of finalists was also nearly the same for the Doak Walker, but instead of Watson, LSU’s Leonard Fournette was a finalist.

In addition to those trio, Desmond King of Iowa and Baker Mayfield of Oklahoma were the other finalists for the Walter Camp.

The other finalists for the Hornung Award were Adoree’ Jackson of USC, Robert Nkemdiche of Ole Miss and Jabrill Peppers of Michigan.

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

1. Madden in real life: Forty-nine-yard screen pass touchdown catch vs. California

Any Heisman highlight film for McCaffrey must feature this play, which demonstrates every facet of McCaffrey’s game as a runner and a receiver.

McCaffrey takes a screen pass in the backfield and before he can even turn his head completely around, he’s hit and wrapped up by a linebacker, who was all over the play. McCaffrey shows off his strength by staying upright and running through the tackle.

Then, 280-pound defensive tackle James Looney gets two hands on him and appears to be in position to bring him down. The 205-pound McCaffrey keeps his legs churning and escapes the tackle. Despite all the hard work, McCaffrey has only made it back to the line of scrimmage at this point.

Now, it’s all about McCaffrey’s ability to change direction. With linebacker Hardy Nickerson racing in from the right side, McCaffrey slows to a stop before jumping to the right, avoiding any contact with Nickerson, who lunges by him without laying a hand on him.

It’s off to the races for McCaffrey, whose acceleration sends him flying by the defenders who were once at his side. Again, the change of direction — this time with a single firm planting of the left foot — sends Cal safety Griffin Piatt sprawling to the ground and McCaffrey moving back to the middle of the field.

With about 27 yards to the endzone, McCaffrey recognizes he’s miles ahead of just about everyone except for two final players, corners Darius Allensworth and Darius White. He patiently follows the blocking of his receivers, Michael Rector and Francis Owusu, before making one final cut to the right side and plunging into the endzone.

Vision, acceleration, change of direction, strength — it’s all on display for McCaffrey here. As my colleague Vihan Lakshman said on the KZSU call of this play, this was Madden-style moves happening in real life.

2. The #WildCaff is born: Seventy-yard cutback touchdown run vs. UCLA

Oct. 15, 2015 will forever live on as the night on which the #WildCaff legend was truly born.

McCaffrey put on a show with a school-record 243 rushing yards and a school-record 4 rushing touchdowns, possibly the best single performance of the college football season to that point against the nation’s No. 18 team. And a large portion of that performance came from McCaffrey’s duties as the Wildcat quarterback.

Twice, McCaffrey took a snap directly out of the Wildcat, with no motion whatsoever, and took the carry into the endzone, including a 9-yard score and this 70-yard score.

In addition to his ability to score out of the Wildcat, in the third quarter Kevin Hogan handed it off to McCaffrey at Stanford’s 30-yard line, and the sophomore initially followed his blocking left. The play appeared slow to develop, but all of a sudden, McCaffrey planted his left foot, pivoted, hit the turbo button and exploded through the huge hole that had opened on the right side. From there, it was all about breakaway speed — no one was catching him at the 5-yard line this time.

Back in his days as an assistant coach, David Shaw talked about how he teaches running backs to deal with cutbacks.

“We teach our backs that sometimes, a giant cutback lane will open on the backside A gap, if they see it they should take it, but they shouldn’t be looking for it all the time,” Shaw said. “It’s like a $20 bill. If you are walking down the block and see a $20, you should take it, but if you spend your whole life walking around looking at the ground hoping to see a $20 bill, you’ll get hit by a bus.”

Well, McCaffrey saw a $100 bill, picked it up and ran away before the bus even turned the corner. And just like that, the #WildCaff was born.

3. The Swiss army knife: touchdown throws

All season long, McCaffrey’s calling card has been his versatility — this week, he was named the Paul Hornung Award winner as the nation’s most versatile player. He can run the ball between the tackles and outside of the tackles, he can take passes out of the backfield and lined up in the slot, he can return kicks and punts, he can run the option and he can run the Wildcat. Yet, the one tool missing from his resume was the ability to throw. Against Colorado, we found out he has that one too.

Despite Stanford already owning a 35-10 lead, Stanford whipped out a new play from the playbook. Hogan pitches the ball to McCaffrey who’s running right on the halfback option. McCaffrey sells the run, then quickly pulls the ball up into a throwing motion before throwing the ball with perfect touch over the Colorado defense and into the waiting arms of Austin Hooper, who takes it into the endzone.

Against USC in the Pac-12 Championship Game, McCaffrey took the ball from a pitch on the reverse while running right. Still moving to the right, McCaffrey sends a beautiful throw to Kevin Hogan in stride for another touchdown pass.

Quite literally, Christian McCaffrey can do it all. His quarterback rating also happens to be higher than DeShaun Watson’s, the Clemson quarterback named a Heisman finalist.

4. Hei5man: Kick-return touchdown vs. California

At this point in the season, the Heisman campaign for McCaffrey was already in full swing. Despite another 7:30 p.m. start time, McCaffrey gave another Heisman-worthy performance to continue vaulting his name up the charts.

The major component missing from his resume was the lack of a kick-return touchdown despite taking kicks back all season long –- he had returned two kicks over 60 yards already, but neither finished in the endzone. Against Cal, that bullet point found its way onto the Heisman resume.

With under a minute left in the second quarter, McCaffrey obliterated the need for the two-minute drill offense by taking the lane given to him by his blockers and showing off superb breakaway speed. He initially took the kick up the middle but kicked out to the right sideline while breaking an arm tackle. From there, it was all about the speed as McCaffrey outraced everyone on his way to a 98-yard kick return touchdown.

The touchdown largely contributed to another school-record performance, this time with 389 all-purpose yards, the record which McCaffrey again broke in the Pac-12 Championship against USC.

5. Who you gonna call? Sixty-seven-yard catch vs. USC in the Pac-12 Championship

For the first (and only) time, Stanford trailed USC in the Pac-12 Championship. The Trojans scored a touchdown to take a 16-13 lead with just over three minutes left in the third quarter. The Stanford offense had sputtered so far in the second half, with just a combined 22 yards on its two drives. On the other side, the USC offense scored back-to-back touchdowns to open the half. Momentum had swung squarely in the Trojans favor, and Levi’s Stadium was rocking for USC.

Stanford had only thrown the ball eight times thus far all game, as opposed to 38 runs. Yet facing a third-and-six, it was absolutely a passing down. With the season on the line, needing to give its defense a breather and retake some momentum, who did Stanford call upon? The #WildCaff.

McCaffrey ran the angle route out of the backfield, shook off linebacker Olajuwon Tucker with a single cut and made the catch in stride right at the first-down marker. From there, it was off to the races.

He cut in-and-out while waiting for Devon Cajuste to come in and deliver a monster block on USC safety Chris Hawkins. Because he waited for the block, USC cornerback Kevin Seymour caught up and made a shoestring tackle to keep McCaffrey out of the endzone, dragging him down at the 6-yard line.

Stanford’s favorite matchup all season long has been an opposing linebacker on McCaffrey, and it paid off yet again with the season on the line.

McCaffrey finished with 207 rushing yards, 105 receiving yards and a grand total of 461 all-purpose, a school-record and the fifth-best total in FBS history, not to mention a passing, rushing and receiving touchdown. Oh, and he broke the 27-year-old record of 1988 Heisman winner Barry Sanders for the most all-purpose yards in a single season in college football history, while needing seven fewer touches to do it.

6. McClutch: Tiptoeing 30-yard run down the sideline at Washington State

With 3:27 remaining, Stanford trailed Washington State by one and had just taken over at the Cougars’ 39-yard line after Quenton Meeks’ interception. However, the Cardinal had struggled to move the ball on offense all day – to that point, the Cardinal had managed just 275 yards of offense, their lowest total since the season opener at Northwestern.

Stanford runs Power to the left side and there didn’t appear to be much room. McCaffrey was first hit at the 38-yard line and should have been brought down for a short gain. He immediately escapes a second tackle aimed at his legs, all while accelerating into the second level of the defense.

Starting at the Washington State 34-yard line, McCaffrey tiptoes down the sideline with incredible speed. He breaks another diving arm tackle at the 25-yard line and manages to stay inbounds while stumbling forward in reacting to the attempted tackle. Finally, McCaffrey is spun down at the 9-yard line.

If McCaffrey is stopped at the line of scrimmage, as most running backs would have been, who knows whether Stanford marches down the field to put Conrad Ukropina in good enough position to hit the game-winning field goal. Without that field goal, Stanford doesn’t win the Pac-12 North.

7. Sometimes-I’m-not-down-at-the-one-yard-line McCaffrey: UCLA touchdown runs

All season long, it seemed like McCaffrey had the propensity to fall just short of the endzone on his runs. When you have Remound Wright, arguably the nation’s best goal-line back, in the wings, it’s not a problem. Even still, though, McCaffrey made a statement by finishing with a school-record 4 rushing touchdowns against UCLA

McCaffrey finished three chances on runs starting in UCLA territory.

First, McCaffrey showed off his own ability to be a power runner, pushing through his own blocker, Bryce Love, and UCLA corner Jaleel Wadood (who later became more infamous as the victim of “The Catch”) at the 1-yard line to plow into the endzone from a 9-yard run out of the Wildcat.

Just six minutes later in the second quarter, McCaffrey took the handoff out of the I-formation and raced through the wide-open lane created by his blockers to sneak into the left side of the endzone untouched for a 28-yard score.

After the 70-yard score that stands at No. 3 in this list, McCaffrey scored his fourth and final touchdown on another handoff out of the I-formation, this time running right. McCaffrey sailed right into the lane created by his blockers and again absorbed contact again at the 1-yard line to plunge into the endzone.

This game and performance put McCaffrey on the national map for the first time, despite yet another 7:30 p.m. start time.

8. Running back or receiver? Fifty-yard touchdown catch vs. Washington

The only FBS player to lead his team in both rushing and receiving yards, McCaffrey put on a show against Washington, finishing with over 100 rushing yards and 100 receiving yards for the first time in his career.

In the third quarter, McCaffrey ran a wheel right down the right side of the field, blowing through the zone coverage in the flat, making the catch in stride and not losing a step in breaking a final tackle before strutting down the sideline and into the endzone for a 50-yard score.

Though Derrick Henry, the other running back named as a Heisman finalist, might be able to stake claim as the best true running back in the nation — though McCaffrey finished with an equivalent yards per carry average and just 139 less rushing yards — McCaffrey certainly separates himself from Henry when it comes to serving as a receiving threat out of the backfield. McCaffrey finished the season with 540 receiving yards in comparison to Henry’s 97.

9. Off to the races: UCLA 96-yard kick return

McCaffrey largely struggled returning kicks over the first few games before breaking out a 67-yard return the previous week against Arizona. However, this return truly marked his entrance into college football as one of the best kick returners in the nation.

McCaffrey found the lane created for him by his blockers and kicked out to the left sideline at the perfect time. He wasn’t quite able to outrace UCLA kicker Kaimi Fairbairn — if you were averaging 269 all-purpose yards per game, you’d get tired too — for the score and was dragged down inside the 10-yard line.

McCaffrey finished the game with 369 all-purpose yards, just 10 shy of what was then the school-record held by Glyn Milburn.

10. Goodnight, Marvell Tell: Fifty-yard run vs. USC in the Pac-12 Championship

Among the plethora of long runs to choose from, McCaffrey’s 50-yard scamper against the Trojans stands out for the way he made USC safety Marvell Tell completely whiff.

On Stanford’s first drive of the second quarter, McCaffrey takes a first-and-10 carry behind the right guard, splitting the nose tackle and linebacker and speeding into open space. With Tell standing directly in front of him, McCaffrey fakes to the right and cuts slightly to the left, all while maintaining his forward momentum to burst past the defenders at either side. That slight change of direction sends Tell sliding by McCaffrey to the ground without even putting a hand on McCaffrey, enabling him to sprint for another 35 yards before he’s pushed out of bounds after a gain of 50.

McCaffrey’s elite ability to change direction while maintaining speed propelled him to plays just like this all season long.

Contact Michael Peterson at mrpeters ‘at’ stanford.edu.

McCaffrey, who is also a finalist for the Walter Camp Football Foundation Player of the Year Award, is looking to become the second Heisman winner in Stanford history after quarterback Jim Plunkett won the award in 1970. He is the fifth Heisman finalist in school history, joining Plunkett (1970), John Elway (1982), Toby Gerhart (2009) and Andrew Luck (2010, 2011).

The other Heisman finalists are running back Derrick Henry of Alabama and quarterback Deshaun Watson of Clemson.

McCaffrey was one of the premier forces in the nation in all three phases of the game: rushing, receiving and returning. The sophomore is currently second in the nation behind Henry with 1,847 rushing yards, second in the nation among running backs with 540 receiving yards and second in the nation with 1,042 kickoff return yards.

In all, his 3,496 all-purpose yards lead the nation by a margin of over 1,000 yards, shattering the previous all-time record of 3,250 set by Barry Sanders in his legendary 1988 season. His 2,387 yards from scrimmage also lead the nation by a wide margin.

Although McCaffrey has drawn criticism for needing 13 games to set the all-purpose yardage record (as opposed to Sanders’ 11), he actually set the record in seven fewer touches than Sanders, the winner of the 1988 Heisman Trophy.

The 2015 Heisman Trophy will be awarded to one of the finalists in a ceremony in New York City on Saturday.

This post will be updated.

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

McCaffrey truly did it all for Stanford, gaining 207 on the ground, 105 in the air, 149 on returns and even completing an 11-yard TD pass to quarterback Kevin Hogan, good for a total of 461 all-purpose yards. The performance put a cherry on top of a historic season for the sophomore, who broke Barry Sanders’ NCAA single-season all-purpose yards record with a two-yard scramble in the second quarter.

A resurgent USC kept the game close through three quarters, but ultimately the Trojans couldn’t keep pace with the Cardinal’s powerful offensive performance. Trojan quarterback Cody Kessler completed 22 of his 37 passes for a respectable 187 yards, but the senior lost a fumble in the third quarter that sophomore Solomon Thomas returned for a touchdown to put the game out of reach.

The remaining Stanford players were left with little to do on McCaffrey’s big night, but still managed a number of solid individual performances. Quarterback Kevin Hogan went 9-for-12 for 144 yards and a touchdown, and running back Remound Wright added 24 more rush yards on 8 carries.

The victory should pave the way for the Cardinal to appear in the 102nd Rose Bowl game, their third such appearance in the last four years.

Contact Andrew Mather at amather ‘at’ stanford.edu.

It was a move meant to show the team that even though USC was ranked No. 6 at the time and Stanford was unranked, the Cardinal were no underdog — while USC’s status was anointed through preseason hype and speculation, Stanford had earned the right to be confident through its track record of big wins in big games.

We thought the stage was big then, but three months later, the stage has never been as big as it will be on Saturday for Stanford at Levi’s Stadium.

As the Pac-12 season comes full circle with the two teams that began conference play set to close it out, a Rose Bowl berth lies at stake for both the No. 7 Cardinal (10-2, 8-1 Pac-12) and the No. 24 Trojans (8-4, 6-3) in the Pac-12 Championship Game as Stanford seeks a return to Pasadena for the third time in four seasons and USC looks to salvage what once looked to be a lost season.

“It’s been a tough road, a hard road,” said head coach David Shaw. “Our guys have fought every single week. We’ve got one game left in our season before bowl season starts so we’re going all-in.”

What’s more: For the first time in a very, very long time, Stanford will be playing with national title hopes at stake this late in the season, with the Cardinal needing just one loss by Clemson or Alabama to have a clear shot at the College Football Playoff.

Not that the Cardinal will be checking those other scores, of course.

“I’m not on the committee and nobody on our team’s on the committee,” Shaw said. “We’re a football team. We have to try to win a football game. If we’re easily distracted by stuff that happens off our field, then we don’t deserve to win.”

Even though Stanford outdueled USC 41-31 on the road earlier this season, the Cardinal can’t be caught looking ahead in the most critical juncture of their year; these are two very different teams from the squads that took the field in September in Los Angeles.

“You have to treat them like completely different games,” Shaw said. “There’s no carry-over outside of looking at what worked and what didn’t work.”

“You’ve got to look even more intently at what they’ve done since we played them and what we’ve done since we played them. We’re a different team emphasizing different things since we played them back then.”

While Stanford ran a balanced, pro-style offense and USC ran a spread in that September game, both Stanford and USC have since re-found their identities as power-run teams — in fact, Shaw believes that the Cardinal and Trojans are the only two power-run teams left in the conference.

That USC game was the first in a stretch of a school-record nine consecutive games in which sophomore running back Christian McCaffrey eclipsed 100 rushing yards. Since then, all McCaffrey has done is become the centerpiece of the Stanford offense and presumably cement his status as a Heisman Trophy finalist.

Meanwhile, with the firing of Steve Sarkisian and the hiring of Clay Helton as head coach, the Trojans have also returned to their roots as a run-first team behind the two-headed rushing attack of Justin Davis and Ronald Jones, taking a lot of the onus off of the right arm of quarterback Cody Kessler.

“Both very, very talented running backs,” Shaw said. “[Jones] is just explosive. He’s so fast and so quick. It’s a great 1-2 punch. They’ve got a couple of other backs that they roll in there too, but those two have had really good seasons.”

Even with the running game likely to be the focus of USC’s offense, make no mistake: The Trojans’ absurd talent at wide receiver, led by stud sophomore JuJu Smith-Schuster, is poised to continue the recent streak of big plays that have plagued a Stanford secondary playing without its two best corners in Ronnie Harris and Alijah Holder.

“I know USC is watching our last couple of games and getting excited, because we’ve given up a lot of explosive plays in the last couple of games,” Shaw said. “We have to limit those with a very talented USC team.”

Luckily for Stanford, news on the injury front is promising for both Holder and Harris: Shaw said this week that Holder would likely play as part of a rotation at the very least, and that Harris was ahead of schedule in his recovery and could return as soon as Saturday.

Given that Smith-Schuster had a 153-yard day against a healthy Stanford secondary in September and the talented Darreus Rogers and Steven Mitchell, Jr. have also had successful seasons, the welcome injury news couldn’t have come soon enough, particularly with Stanford having allowed 100-yard receivers in each of its last two weeks.

“The biggest thing that we need to do is eliminate big plays,” said senior safety Dallas Lloyd. “If we can do our job and eliminate those big plays and make offenses work to move the ball incrementally down the field on us, then we’ll have a lot more success.”

Stanford’s front seven will also have a tall task ahead of it, as the Trojans’ running game has found its rhythm despite losing three starting offensive linemen to injury (Max Tuerk, Toa Lobendahn and Kahliel Rodgers) since the teams last met.

That very same battle on the other side of the ball might well dictate the game.

Although McCaffrey was held to below 100 rush yards for the first time in 10 weeks last Saturday by Notre Dame, the Trojans will be playing without two of the key pieces of its run defense in linebackers Cameron Smith and Lamar Dawson, giving McCaffrey and the Stanford offensive line a more favorable matchup to work with as the Cardinal will look to dictate the tempo of the game and hold the ball.

With fifth-year senior quarterback Kevin Hogan coming off of the best game of his career and finding his best rapport of the season with receiver Devon Cajuste, all phases of the Cardinal offense are clicking at the right time.

It’s just a matter of whether the Cardinal can show up on Saturday and play a big game on their biggest stage of the season — and if history is any indication, they’re absolutely prepared to do so.

“We know that’s what’s going to happen this week,” Lloyd said. “It’s going to be head-to-head, physical football. That’s what we live for; that’s what we train for all year.”

In 2012 and 2013, that determination was enough to give Stanford the edge in rematches against UCLA and Arizona State to give the team one last push into Pasadena. With another Rose Bowl — and possibly a Playoff berth — at stake, the Cardinal will no doubt have their eyes on the prize.

Stanford and USC will duel with the Pac-12 title at stake at 4:45 p.m. Saturday. The game will be televised on ESPN.

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

Michael Peterson: Stanford 38, USC 35

Stanford fans rightfully fear the Cardinal playing USC. The Trojans have as much talent as anybody in the conference — Cody Kessler, Juju Smith-Schuster, Adoree’ Jackson, Su’a Cravens and Ronald Jones are among the best at their respective positions in the conference. If Alijah Holder and Ronnie Harris can’t play on Saturday, Stanford could be in for a rough night trying to slow down Smith-Schuster, who is seventh in the nation with 109 receiving yards per game, and Kessler, the Pac-12’s second most efficient quarterback. However, Stanford owns a clear advantage when its offense is on the field. USC lost linebackers Cameron Smith and Lamar Dawson to injuries and has struggled for much of the year to slow down opposing offenses, surrendering 400 total yards of offense per game, which is 70th in the nation.

Against Notre Dame, the Stanford offense overcame its inability to truly establish the run to win in another brilliantly called and executed offensive game. However, against USC, Stanford should be able to do a much better job establishing the run, which will only help red-hot Kevin Hogan. I expect this game to play out similarly to the Stanford-Notre Dame game, where turnovers, red-zone performance or a big play here and there will determine the winner. Whoever has the ball last might very well win the game, but ultimately, Kevin Hogan pulls out another clutch fourth-quarter scoring drive to give Stanford the win in yet another back-and-forth, nail-biting classic in what’s becoming one of the better rivalries in college football.

Vihan Lakshman: Stanford 41, USC 37

This game feels eerily reminiscent of the 2013 clash between Stanford and USC: a revitalized Trojan squad playing its best football under an interim head coach versus a Cardinal team coming off of an emotional, field-storming victory at home over a would-be national title contender. But those kind of cute comparisons can only take you so far — the game on the field promises to be of a much different flavor than the defensive struggle of two years ago. Under Clay Helton, the Trojans have rallied around a physical brand of football and will almost certainly look to attack Stanford on the ground behind their massive offensive line and emerging running back in Ronald Jones — a formula that worked brilliantly for both Oregon and Notre Dame against the Cardinal. Meanwhile, the looming nuclear threat of Juju Smith-Schuster and Adoree’ Jackson could blow up Stanford’s bend-but-don’t-break style of defense at any instant. However, Stanford’s offense looks equipped to match Southern Cal blow for blow behind an absurdly efficient Kevin Hogan and the reemergence of his favorite targets, Austin Hooper and Devon Cajuste, who made the difference in this matchup back in September. Behind a big day from Hogan and a record breaking performance from Christian McCaffrey, Stanford rallies from an early deficit and holds on at the end to claim its third Pac-12 title in four seasons.

Do-Hyoung Park: USC 42, Stanford 21

HOW AM I THE ONLY PERSON NOT PICKING STANFORD IN THIS GAME? My god, people. And I’m usually the crazy optimist, too. Here’s the deal: Teams with physical fronts have been running roughshod over the Cardinal over the last few weeks. This defensive line is tired. USC has a very physical front and a supremely talented running back in Ronald Jones. Opposing No. 1 receivers have been racking up the yards against Stanford’s injured secondary. JuJu Smith-Schuster, Darreus Rogers and Steven Mitchell, Jr. are fantastic receivers. Stanford’s offensive line has gotten pretty bad push against the last two defensive fronts that it has played against (Cal and Notre Dame), and even though USC is injured at linebacker, the Trojans have more than enough talent to make up for a few injuries with their tremendous recruiting.

This game is going to be a back-and-forth affair, but ultimately, USC’s ridiculous big-play potential and newfound reliance on the power run game will prove to wear Stanford’s defense down, while the Stanford offense will be stopped just enough times, especially if the Trojans get good push on their defensive line, to put this game out of reach by the time the fourth quarter starts. I don’t want to believe it as much as you guys, but I just have a really, really, really bad feeling about this game. Stanford heads to the Holiday Bowl.

Winston Shi: Stanford 38, USC 37

Red zone, red zone, red zone. That’s what this game is going to come down to. Offenses thrive when they have space, and the exact opposite happens when defenses are backed up inside their own 20. Can Stanford continue to weather its overall defensive troubles by holding strong in Stanford territory?

Stanford did very well against Cal and Notre Dame by holding its rivals’ offenses to field goals in the red zone. Now, I give props to Stanford for what it did in the red zone against Cal: Cal scores touchdowns inside the 20 at a 65 percent clip. But Sonny Dykes also made many questionable decisions to kick on fourth-and-short against Stanford. And Notre Dame’s had problems winning in the red zone all season — they’re only a 56-percent team. Stopping USC will be harder.

USC’s red zone touchdown percentage is a sparkling 68 percent. The Trojans will be going up against what seems like an immovable object — Stanford’s defense only gives up red zone touchdowns a mind-numbing 44 percent of the time, a figure that’s likely unsustainable. I don’t know whether Stanford will be able to keep USC from getting into the end zone in the first place, but when the Trojans do get inside the 20, Stanford had better be able to hold them from there.

Oh, and the score? The game’s a coin flip. But I’m not picking against Stanford. Not when this is the last Stanford-USC game I will ever cover for The Daily. I don’t normally do sentimentality. But this one’s for all the Stanford teams that could never beat USC. How many seniors on the Stanford football team have the chance to go out with a winning record against the University of Southern California? The first Stanford loss I ever attended in person was against USC and I hope Stanford never loses to USC again. Certainly not on Saturday night.

Andrew Mather: Stanford 45, USC 34

This game, like almost every installment of this rivalry, is quite difficult to get a handle on. As much as I criticized the Trojans at the beginning of this season for being an incomplete team (most of which, I might add, turned out to be quite well-merited), I’ve been impressed with how well they handled the difficult circumstances they faced and still managed to look like the clear champions of the Pac-12 South. Furthermore, I think the Trojans have finally found a good coach in Clay Helton, and I have no doubt that they will continue to improve under him in the coming seasons and eventually deliver in the way their fans expect.

This game, however, isn’t about how future years will play out. This game is about which team is better right now. From what I’ve seen, that answer is still the Cardinal. The bottom line is that –Stanford is just playing too well to allow the Trojans a serious shot at the upset this weekend. Just watch the team’s game-winning drive against Notre Dame last weekend – everyone thought the game was over when the Irish took the lead with 30 seconds remaining, but Stanford’s players simply refused to lose. One Cardinal player after another stepped up, and somehow the team walked away with the victory.

I haven’t been David Shaw’s number one fan this year, but I think his remarks before the September Stanford-USC matchup perfectly encapsulate the Cardinal’s advantage. Before kickoff, Shaw made every player who had won two Pac-12 Championships stand, driving home the point that, regardless of Stanford’s low-ranking at the time, the team knows how to take care of business in big games. Though the Trojans and the Cardinal have effectively flipped positions since then, I think the basic point still holds: USC deserves the chance it’s been given, but Stanford has the experience, the will power and the wherewithal to come away with a solid victory. Ultimately, I’ll be surprised if the Cardinal don’t let the Trojans know it.

Goodness gracious, what a finish. Thirty seconds and three timeouts, with Stanford stuck on its own 27-yard-line? No problem.

The thing about wins like these is that when all is said and done, you can easily point to the reasons why Stanford defied the odds to beat then-No. 4 Notre Dame on Saturday. Notre Dame hadn’t really stopped Stanford all night. A blitz-happy Fighting Irish defense was always getting close to Kevin Hogan, but Hogan was not rattled. Notre Dame’s secondary, depleted by injuries, was particularly weak down the middle – and Devon Cajuste had set the Irish on fire the entire game. Also, the prevent defense isn’t really a great play when you stand to lose with a field goal. Was it really that inconceivable that Stanford could connect on a couple long throws against soft zone coverage?

But even though hindsight is 20/20, that insight doesn’t change the fact that most people – myself included – thought the Fighting Irish were going to win the game. Well done, Stanford.

***

Let’s take a look at the 27-yard completion to Cajuste that got Stanford within field goal range. One thing I don’t think we could have predicted was that ND defensive coordinator Brian Van Gorder was going to do utterly un-BVG things with the game on the line. Brian Van Gorder blitzes. It’s what you pay him to do.

So why was Van Gorder running a prevent defense on Notre Dame’s last stand? The prevent defense is terrible. Moreover, it’s a passive defense, which is not very Brian Van Gorder. Last year Van Gorder stopped Hogan cold on Stanford’s last-ditch drive with a daring blitz. This year Van Gorder blitzed and blitzed…until the game was on the line. (Check out the video here.)

Notre Dame is running what’s basically a 2-5 zone coverage, just 10-15 yards further back than usual. It rushed three, kept one linebacker shallow to stop QB scrambles and crossed its fingers that Kevin Hogan would do something stupid.

First off, let’s look at the players that opened things up for Cajuste (X) down the middle. McCaffrey (R) doesn’t do very much on this play (he just checks for a blitz and releases to the flat), but he distorts Notre Dame’s defense right at the start. Notre Dame drops linebackers Jaylon Smith (S) and Joe Schmidt (M) deep to cover Austin Hooper (Y), first because Hogan is well known for his chemistry with Hooper, and second because if Stanford ran an RB screen for McCaffrey on the left, Stanford would pick up about 15 yards easily unless ND devoted that extra man to Hooper. But when you have four guys around the pocket and two safeties deep, and then put two defenders on Hooper, there’s only three men on the other three receivers. And it’s a little difficult to stop Cajuste one-on-one when he’s got a full head of steam.

Cajuste’s route is dictated by the defense: He runs up the field against Cover 2 (a middle-of-the-field-open “MOFO” read) and heads upfield against Cover 1 or Cover 3 (middle-of-the-field-closed/“MOFC”). The route name is instructive. It’s formally called a seam route. Some West Coast offense coaches just call it “win.” Win your matchup and run towards space. After the game, Cajuste told me that all he was thinking about during the play was how he could “bend the route” – the middle of the field was open, so that’s where he ran.

After the snap, no deep pass is easy, but this one was easier than most. Van Gorder clearly does not trust nickelback Matthias Farley (N) and his safeties – in other words, the defensive backs that patrol the middle of the field, where Cajuste has historically done the most damage. Notre Dame is giving Cajuste massive cushions even before the play begins. And in the prevent, ND’s backfield is so spread-out that if Hooper could hold ND’s linebackers 10 yards deep on his dig route, Cajuste is going to get open behind them. ND is also setting up the defense so far down the field that Cajuste can hit top speed.

Free safety Max Redfield (F/S) focuses on the route on the left sideline. Strong safety Elijah Shumate ($) messes up in coverage; since Farley is playing with outside leverage and funneling Cajuste inwards, Shumate needs to aggressively cover Cajuste on the inside, and doesn’t. For his own part, Farley gives Cajuste too much space and Cajuste adjusts by breaking inwards a little earlier than Farley expects.

“We got to close down inside-out on that seam route,” Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly admitted after the game. “I thought we probably played it a little bit too much outside-in, worried about backing up. We got to be more aggressive to a seam route.”

With space, Hogan and Cajuste made the play look easy. “I didn’t even see the ball coming,” Cajuste explained. That’s chemistry right there – that’s the legacy of five years of practice for the Hogan-Cajuste duo. Hogan hit Cajuste in stride 14 yards deep and Cajuste dragged Notre Dame defenders down the field for another 13. Two plays later, Conrad Ukropina sank Notre Dame’s national championship hopes.

All credit to the Fighting Irish. They battled through a lot of adversity and somehow got to No. 4 in the country. They were a great team, with a dominating offense and (for most of the season) a very solid defense. Notre Dame huffed, and puffed, and when it was about to blow the house down it decided to run the prevent defense.

Both teams deserved to win the game. But only one team could, and it ended up being the one that wasn’t giving Devon Cajuste massive holes in zone coverage.

***

Some points on David Shaw’s decisions at the end of the game.

During the game, I’ll admit that I was utterly shocked by – if not apoplectic towards – Shaw’s decision to hoard his timeouts on Notre Dame’s clock-killing final drive. Shaw said that the coaches talked about what to do with the TOs, and decided that they were going to ride or die with the defense. Somehow Stanford got away with it.

It became increasingly clear with hindsight that:

1) Even if Shaw was rightly confident in Stanford’s red zone defense, not calling timeouts was excessively risky. To be fair, Stanford’s red-zone TD allowed percentage is 44 percent, which is otherworldly. And ND has had red-zone problems all season long. But that TD percentage is artificially depressed by the fact that most teams are operating on three downs on offense. For Notre Dame, it was TD or bust, and Brian Kelly was working with four downs. Moreover, it was clear that Notre Dame was not going to be limited by the clock – it had two timeouts left on its final drive. Notre Dame was methodical on offense even in the final minute of the game. Stanford was not going to win by forcing Notre Dame into a hurried, last-ditch prayer to the end zone. The Irish have a fantastically well-drilled offense – and they are going to be downright terrifying next season.

2) To be fair to Shaw, calling timeouts on defense would have imposed a very real opportunity cost on the offense. Shaw wanted to save timeouts in order to throw posts and seams into the middle of the field, because that was where the big-play opportunities were – and first downs down the middle like Cajuste’s win route in crunch time don’t stop the clock for very long. Moreover, throwing deep down the middle is easier than throwing deep down the sideline. It’s fair to say that Shaw’s decision-making, though perplexing, made some sense. That doesn’t mean that Shaw made the right decisions, but these decisions weren’t baseless either.

If you want to complain about a coaching decision, I’d say that Shaw’s decision to run Christian McCaffrey up the middle on Stanford’s penultimate play was the real shocker. McCaffrey did a great job on Saturday of grinding out yardage, even when the yards weren’t blocked for him, but running up the middle is rarely a recipe for a solid gain. Even Power, Stanford’s signature play, is off-tackle. Just because Ukropina converted a 45-yarder doesn’t mean that his odds of success wouldn’t have been much higher if he had been kicking a 35-yarder instead.

But I don’t know who made the call on that play. It might not have been Shaw. The decision is more complicated than you might expect.

The best way for Stanford to pick up yardage would likely have been speed out routes, and at the very least, Stanford could have taken more time to gauge how much of a cushion Notre Dame was giving Stanford’s wideouts on the outside. But completing out routes would have forced Ukropina to kick the ball from a hash mark. Running the ball up the middle was the only way to guarantee that Stanford would center the field goal attempt. And if the kicker wants the ball in the center, he gets the ball in the center. I’d have preferred a slant route if Stanford was going to center the ball. But all in all, if Stanford handles kickers like many football teams, the decision to center the ball or go for extra yardage would ultimately have been Ukropina’s to make.

Contact Winston Shi at wshi94 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

But even in their last ever 30 seconds playing in front of their home crowd, there was no sense of desperation or distress in that final huddle — only excitement and confidence.

“Where else would you rather be right now? This is the best moment ever,” said fifth-year senior wide receiver Devon Cajuste about the conversation in the huddle. “We were all excited. We weren’t worried.”

And to cap a send-off drive for the ages, Cajuste and classmate Kevin Hogan connected one last time on a career night for both seniors with a 27-yard completion up the seam in their final act at Stanford Stadium to set up a game-winning field goal attempt.

Conrad Ukropina’s kick from 45 yards perfectly split the uprights as time expired, and mayhem ensued as Stanford’s players and fans all stormed the field to celebrate a dramatic 38-36 victory for No. 13 Stanford (10-2, 8-1 Pac-12) over No. 4 Notre Dame (10-2) in one crowning triumph for Stanford Football’s class of 2016 on a dramatic Senior Night.

Senior kicker Conrad Ukropina (above) nailed a no-doubter from 45 yards as time expired to make sure that Stanford’s seniors wouldn’t walk off the field for the final time with the bitter taste of defeat in their mouths. (Stanford Athletics)

“For our fans to be able to come out on the field and celebrate with us at the end of the game was awesome,” Hogan said. “Perfect way to finish the season.”

Before all of his kicks, Ukropina likes to say a few words to his holder, senior safety Dallas Lloyd.

This time, it was pretty simple.

“Shoot, man. Might as well make it.”

Ukropina’s ensuing no-doubter made sure that Stanford’s seniors didn’t walk out the tunnel for the final time with the bitter taste of defeat in their mouths and made sure that Stanford didn’t put to waste titanic efforts from Hogan and Cajuste that were still barely enough to hold back an injured yet supremely talented Notre Dame squad.

Hogan, the Pac-12’s leader in passing efficiency and the winningest quarterback in Stanford history, had perhaps the best start of his storied career, going 17-of-21 for 269 yards, 4 touchdowns and no interceptions. On the other end of his passes, Cajuste caught five passes for a career-high 125 yards and a touchdown.

Fifth-year senior quarterback Kevin Hogan (above) completed 17 of his 21 passes for 269 yards and 4 touchdowns against the team that he and his late father fervently supported growing up. Hogan notched his 34th win as a starter, the best mark in program history. (SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily)

“I couldn’t have pictured it going any better,” Hogan said. “It’s awesome to just kind of put it all together. It’s a huge game for me; it meant a lot.”

“It’s kind of a blur right now,” Cajuste added. “I had so much fun tonight playing with my team… I’m still smiling from it.”

In a barn-burner of a game that featured 955 yards of combined offense and nine lead changes, Stanford needed every bit of the career-best efforts from both Hogan and Cajuste to keep up with the Irish on a night when Stanford’s offensive line and sophomore Christian McCaffrey couldn’t get much going on the ground against a stout Notre Dame front seven.

McCaffrey was held to 3.48 yards per rush — his worst mark since the UCF game — and failed to top 100 rushing yards for the first time in 10 games.

“They have an unbelievable defense and some unbelievable players and when they’re stacking the box it makes it’s tough to run,” he said.

Meanwhile, Notre Dame’s playmakers were popping off big plays at an alarming rate: The Irish scored three times on plays of longer than 60 yards and had seven offensive plays of longer than 15 yards on Stanford’s normally-stout bend-but-don’t-break defense.

Notre Dame was able to do that in part because it was winning at the line of scrimmage and was able to effectively run the ball at will, averaging 8.5 yards per carry as it rushed 35 times for 299 yards. Running back Josh Adams (168 yards) and quarterback DeShone Kizer (128 yards) became the first pair all season to rush for over 100 yards on Stanford in the same game.

Senior inside linebacker Blake Martinez described the Irish offensive line as the best he’s faced all season.

“They’re exactly like our offensive line,” he said. “They’re a physical group, and you have to be able to play perfectly on every single play or they’re going to offensively outmaneuver you.”

When they weren’t running the ball down Stanford’s throats, the Irish were also burning Stanford through the air with a 234-yard passing day from Kizer and six catches for 136 yards by standout wide receiver Will Fuller.

But the difference in the game was that Notre Dame couldn’t convert when it needed to most, and Stanford did: The Irish had to settle for field goals on their first three red-zone trips, while Stanford scored touchdowns on all five of its own forays into the red zone.

A first-quarter touchdown pass to Remound Wright on a play-fake from the heavy set was followed by a fade touchdown to Cajuste and a perimeter touchdown pass to senior Michael Rector, who broke a tackle before sprinting into the end zone. A Wright 1-yard run and a play-fake reverse-field pass to junior Austin Hooper accounted for the remainder of the scoring.

Fifth-year senior wide receiver Devon Cajuste (left) had a field day matched up against an injured Notre Dame secondary, notching five catches for a career-high 125 yards and a touchdown. He also caught the 27-yard pass that set up the game-winning field goal. (SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily)

And even when the offense stalled late in the game, the defense, which had one of its roughest outings of the year, bailed the Cardinal out with some huge stops.

“Right before the fourth quarter happened, I brought our defense together,” Martinez said. “I told them, ‘Hey, this is our time, this is where we need to just nut up, basically, and say we’re not going to let anything get past us.’ We’re going to make those stops for our offense. They’ve been doing it for us the whole game and it’s time for to us make that stop and contribute in this game.”

The only time Notre Dame scored a touchdown in the red zone was on its final drive with 30 seconds remaining in the game, when Kizer appeared to be down short of the goal line on a quarterback keeper but the play was ruled a touchdown anyway, which set the stage for the late heroics from Hogan, Cajuste and Ukropina.

For his efforts on an emotional Senior Night against the team he supported with his late father growing up, Hogan was awarded the game ball and got a heartfelt and emotional congratulations from head coach David Shaw after the game was over.

But in classic Hogan fashion, he wasn’t too caught up in the moment — no matter how big. Instead, even as his storied career draws to a close, he’s still forever looking ahead at the next task that lies ahead.

“Thanks, coach,” he said. “But we’ve got to play USC next week.”

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

Saturday’s regular-season finale between No. 13 Stanford (9-2, 8-1 Pac-12) and No. 4 Notre Dame (10-1) will mark the fifth consecutive time both teams will be ranked going into their meeting, and on what is sure to be an emotional Senior Day at Stanford Stadium and in a matchup with College Football Playoff implications, don’t expect the string of tight games to be snapped on Saturday.

“They’re a really good team,” said fifth-year senior linebacker Kevin Anderson. “We’ve definitely got a challenge this week, but as far as rankings and standings, we don’t really look into that.”

That said, it’s impossible to ignore the dichotomy in the stakes for the two teams this week: Stanford is essentially playing with nothing to lose this week, with the Pac-12 North already on lock and fringe hopes at best for the Playoff, while Notre Dame is playing with everything to lose, as Saturday will practically serve as a play-in game for the final four.

With that said, don’t expect head coach David Shaw to be looking for a “statement win” to impress the Playoff committee or whatever on Saturday — he’s got more pressing matters to attend to. He’s very vocally made his distaste for Playoff talk known all season, and even with the implications this weekend, his response this week was no different.

“Instead of wasting my time and effort on trying to guess what might happen, I’d rather just play our games and see what happens,” Shaw said.

He’ll instead look to dedicate that time and effort to one of the most talented teams Stanford will have faced all season. Despite a rash of injuries to several key players, the Irish’s immense recruiting draw has meant that they have filled in adequately at all of those positions and have still won 10 games despite having 14 players listed on the injury report.

“There’s a whole lot of them. They’ve done a good job of recruiting,” Shaw said. “Very well-coached. All very aggressive and physical and they got after us last year.”

Although the Irish lost starting quarterback Malik Zaire a few weeks into the season, sophomore DeShone Kizer has quickly become a dynamic dual-threat replacement at the position. He’s accounted for 2,362 passing yards and 371 rushing yards this season and a combined 26 touchdowns, and despite the Irish’s recent struggles with turnovers and in the red zone, Kizer represents one of the most talented quarterbacks the Cardinal will have faced all season.

In order to combat the Irish’s attack, Stanford’s defense has been focusing especially hard on forcing turnovers this week while in practice. The Cardinal currently sit at 10th in the Pac-12 with a -2 turnover margin.

“We haven’t been doing a great job getting takeaways, so there’s definitely an emphasis on that this week,” Anderson said.

Given that Stanford could potentially be without its top two cornerbacks (Ronnie Harris and Alijah Holder) on Saturday, Stanford could probably use some turnover help, especially with dynamic receiver Will Fuller leading the charge for the Irish.

Fuller is currently averaging over 20 yards per reception and has accounted for 1,009 yards and 12 touchdowns on the season and will be looking to take advantage of a battered Stanford secondary that gave up a season-high 397 yards against Cal last Saturday.

The Irish also have two more dynamic receiving threats in seniors Chris Brown and Amir Carlisle, meaning that Stanford’s young secondary has a tall task ahead of it.

That’s not to say that it’ll be easy for the front seven, either: Although star running back C.J. Prosise will likely miss the game due to injury for Notre Dame, the Cardinal are taking the challenge of having to meet Notre Dame’s talented offensive line and freshman running back Josh Adams very seriously.

“Their O-line is probably the most physical and probably the best group that we’ve gone against,” Anderson said. “They’ve got some really good athletes as well.”

Because of Notre Dame’s big-play potential, Stanford’s offense will need to have a big day against the talented Irish defense, which limited the powerful Clemson and Navy offenses to 24 points apiece.

Fifth-year senior quarterback Kevin Hogan will have a more favorable matchup in his last home game with top Notre Dame cornerback KeiVarae Russell set to miss the game due to injury, which will also deprive the Irish of their second-leading tackler.

However, the more important matchup will likely be that of Notre Dame’s front seven against Christian McCaffrey and the Stanford offensive line, and the presence of linebackers Jaylon Smith and Joe Schmidt could prove the biggest obstacle yet in McCaffrey’s quest for the Heisman Trophy.

“If you like football, you watch film and you gain appreciation for a guy like this that really can do it all,” said Shaw about Smith. “There are a lot of guys that are fast and quick but not tough and not physical. The guys that are tough and physical and fast and explosive, you get a lot of respect for them.”

“Extremely fast and physical,” McCaffrey added. “They don’t put themselves in situations to fail. They put themselves in situations to succeed. Guys play their gaps right, and it’s definitely going to be a huge challenge.”

After McCaffrey’s school-record 389-yard performance against Cal on Saturday, he only needs 444 more all-purpose yards to break Barry Sanders’ all-time NCAA record of 3,250 yards and only 326 more rushing yards to break Toby Gerhart’s Stanford record for rushing yards in a season.

Another big day from McCaffrey will likely be a huge key for Stanford to win, especially because a slow day from the sophomore will mean that Stanford won’t be able to establish its running game as it likes to and will thus be out of its comfort zone.

But given the stakes — not just in terms of Playoff and rivalry value, but also with the emotions of Senior Day — look for Hogan, in his home swan song, to rebound from two rough career outings against the Irish (1 touchdown, 4 interceptions) to find a way to push the Cardinal to victory against an injured Irish secondary, with or without McCaffrey, as his storied Stanford career finally begins to draw to a close.

“It’s definitely a bittersweet moment because [Hogan is] someone that you want on your side forever,” McCaffrey said. “He’s such an unbelievable leader, an unbelievable person on and off the field, and the legacy that he’s left here is right up there with all the greats.”

Stanford will look to use the strong emotions from Senior Day and a Heisman moment or two from McCaffrey to push past Notre Dame at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday. The game will be broadcast on FOX.
Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dhpark ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Michael Peterson: Stanford 34, Notre Dame 13

Stanford smells blood. Notre Dame has put together a valiant season, rising to No. 4 in the country despite losing its starting quarterback and running back to injuries in back-to-back weeks to open the season. But since losing to Clemson in early October, the Irish have played almost no one of note — they faced USC in the Trojans’ first week post-Sarkisian and their win over Temple has been devalued given that Temple was later blown out by South Florida. Last week, Notre Dame hung on to win despite its offense coughing the ball up five times.

On the other side, Stanford is humming along, consistently performing offensively every week. Yes, this game will most likely prove meaningless for the Cardinal… Unless Stanford puts an eye-opening beatdown on a potential Playoff team on primetime television to give itself at least an outside argument for a top-four spot heading into championship weekend, where who knows what might happen. The Cardinal have nothing to lose and everything to gain — a loss just officially affirms the already assumed fact that Stanford is out of Playoff contention, while a big win could send Stanford up into the top five or six. This class of seniors is 23-3 when playing at Stanford Stadium, and I expect them to go out with a load roar.

Winston Shi: Stanford 34, Notre Dame 20

I’m torn on this prediction, because I think that Stanford has the advantage in this game at home, with a roster that’s healthy for the most part. And if Stanford has an advantage, we all know that David Shaw has to exploit it for all it’s worth: When it comes to the Playoff, two-loss Stanford has to absolutely ROCK Notre Dame. (And now that the Selection Committee has sent a warning to ND by moving it out of the top four, ND is out for blood against Stanford too.)

The thing is, Stanford can’t rock ND without scoring almost at will against it. We all want to say that the Cardinal can do just that, but despite last week’s injury to ND starting cornerback KeiVarae Russell, Notre Dame has a good defense. Navy and Clemson have great offenses and the Domers held them to 24 points each. ND also held USC — no slouches on O — to 31 points. The Irish played ugly against Boston College last week, but everybody plays ugly in Boston. And even if Notre Dame has played a lot of mediocre offenses, it has still crushed them all.

David Shaw doesn’t normally try to run up the score, but I think he’ll have to in this game. The question is: will he be able to do that? I’m not so sure ND will break that easily — I’m not sure it will break at all. The team’s fighting for a Playoff spot, too. I believe my predicting a two-score victory already counts as drinking the Kool-Aid. And while I believe Stanford is the better team, particularly at home, it’s not inconceivable (although it is improbable) that this game could be a two-score loss.

Andrew Mather: Stanford 31, Notre Dame 24

By all obvious measures, Stanford and Notre Dame have absurdly similar records going into this game. If you exclude the Cardinal’s still-incomprehensible opening drop to Northwestern, each team’s only loss comes when it failed to force overtime by missing a 2-point conversion with under 10 seconds to go in regulation. What’s more, both teams beat USC, the only common opponent they’ve faced, by literally the exact same scoreline. It’s almost as if the gods of the college football world wanted to see what would happen if they pitted two identical teams against each other.

As has happened all too often this year, injuries may prove to be the key difference on Saturday. The most notable absence is that of Notre Dame starting running back C.J. Prosise, who is listed as doubtful after picking up a high ankle sprain last week against Boston College. I’m no doctor, but listing a player as “doubtful” for a high ankle sprain sounds to me like coach-speak for “he’s not playing, but let’s make them watch his film anyways.” Yet should Prosise show up anything less than 100 percent this weekend it should hurt the Irish tremendously — he’s been by far the most consistent offensive performer for Brian Kelly’s side this year, and I doubt backup Josh Adams has the experience to be an effective every-down back against the Stanford defense.

Notre Dame still has more than enough assets to keep things close, but I think the loss of Prosise breaks this theoretical tie in Stanford’s favor. If that weren’t enough, karma assuredly must catch the Irish at some point for thinking they could don these uniforms without consequences. Ultimately, all signs point to to Kevin Hogan’s last home start going the same way as his first and Stanford completing its fifth 10-win regular season in the last six years.

Vihan Lakshman: Stanford 34, Notre Dame 31

While a big Stanford win would obviously send a resounding message, such talk might be more than a little premature. Notre Dame is an extremely well-coached and talented group and by far the best team that Stanford will face this regular season. While the loss of Prosise will undoubtedly sting for the Irish, don’t sleep on backups Josh Adams and Dexter Williams having a big day behind one of the most experienced offensive lines in the nation. Quarterback DeShone Kizer will also be expected to contribute heavily in the run game and mobile quarterbacks have given the Cardinal some headaches this season. As Winston mentioned, the Domers’ defense held up extremely well against some top-tier offenses and will present a strong challenge all night long.

In a game that almost feels too close to call, home-field advantage tips the scale in Stanford’s favor. Playing for the final time in Stanford Stadium, Kevin Hogan looks poised for a big day and Stanford may very well take some shots early to test an already depleted Irish secondary sans KeiVarae Russell. In games shaping up to be close, turnovers often make the difference, and I like Stanford’s chances of taking care of the ball at home. Emerging from the tunnel in the black jerseys, Stanford rides another big day from Christian McCaffrey and a late defensive stop to turn the Irish away and earn a season-defining win.

Do-Hyoung Park: Stanford 24, Notre Dame 34

Although the numbers have certainly been there for Christian McCaffrey and the Stanford offensive line over the last few games, this Cardinal offense has seemed a lot less dynamic over the last few weeks, particularly in the passing game. Hogan seems to have lost touch on his deep passes and the offensive line has increasingly struggled to get good push on Stanford’s bread-and-butter power iso runs up the middle, and this Notre Dame defense, despite being ravaged by injuries, is as talented as they come due to the Irish’s ridiculous draw in recruiting.

Christian McCaffrey will have his chance to shine and cement a trip to New York on Saturday, but I think a stout Notre Dame defense will present the biggest challenge of the season to the stud sophomore, and Kevin Hogan has also had awful career numbers against Notre Dame (1 TD, 4 INT), which I can’t see improving given his lack of touch as of late. DeShone Kizer is a very dynamic dual-threat quarterback (26 total touchdowns), and with Stanford possibly down its best two cornerbacks, the Cardinal might very well have trouble bottling up the Notre Dame attack. Stanford is playing with nothing to lose and Notre Dame is playing with everything to lose; I think the Irish show up with a great game.

Stanford’s jack-of-all-trades once again demonstrated how vital he is to the team in last week’s victory against Cal, singlehandedly accounting for nearly 70 percent of the team’s yards and allowing the Cardinal to win comfortably despite being dominated statistically. The nation’s all-purpose yardage leader will need another strong outing in order to keep the team’s College Football Playoff aspirations and his own Heisman hopes alive.

vs.

Jaylon Smith, LB (Jr.)

A finalist for the Butkus Award, awarded to the nation’s top linebacker, Smith has had another remarkable season for the Fighting Irish. A Second-Team All-American selection in 2014, Smith leads Notre Dame in tackles with 98, 30 more than any other player on the team. He is also the team leader in pass breakups with 5 and has posted 8 tackles for loss on the season.

***

Stanford secondary

Stanford’s pass defense is on shaky ground, as No. 1 and 2 cornerbacks Ronnie Harris and Alijah Holder are huge question marks going into Saturday’s game. Regardless of who is able to start in the secondary, the unit will have its hands full dealing with the arm of quarterback DeShone Kizer, who ranks top 20 in the country in passer efficiency, and his talented wide receiver squad.

vs.

Will Fuller, WR (Jr.)

Leading the charge in the passing game for the Fighting Irish is Fuller, whose 1,009 yards on 50 receptions are a team-best. The junior is a formidable deep-threat, as he averages 20.2 yards per catch, and has 12 touchdowns, good for seventh-best in the country. 

***

Joshua Garnett, OG (Sr.)

The senior’s play this season has raised eyebrows across the country, earning him recognition as a finalist for the Outland Trophy, given to the nation’s most outstanding lineman. Garnett may also be the best pulling guard in the country, paving the way for the Cardinal backfield, while also making the weekly highlight reels for his obliteration of defenders.

vs.

Sheldon Day, DT (Sr.)

Day is the most disruptive player on the Notre Dame defense, as he leads the team with 14.5 tackles for loss. Both Day and and Garnett figure to be playing on Sundays next year, and the matchup will surely be an intriguing one.

Contact Neel Ramachandran at neelr ‘at’ stanford.edu.

In Harris’ absence last Saturday, Stanford’s secondary gave up a season-high 397 yards through the air to Cal quarterback Jared Goff and his air raid offense. Sophomore Alijah Holder initially started as the Cardinal’s top cornerback alongside sophomore Alameen Murphy before suffering an injury of his own and leaving the game. Sophomore Terrence Alexander assumed Holder’s duties upon the latter’s exit from the game.

Shaw said that the team is “still holding out hope” on Holder, who ran around for a good chunk of Wednesday’s practice before being held out for the remainder of the session. Shaw will look to better evaluate Holder’s health on Friday and make a decision then.

“He looked good when he was running today, but we cautiously pulled him out,” Shaw said.

Earlier in the week, Shaw announced at his Tuesday press conference that sophomore fullback Daniel Marx will miss the remainder of the season with a lower leg injury suffered in the Cardinal’s 35-22 win over California.

“It’s tough,” Shaw said. “Daniel has had a phenomenal year. This is a guy who is going to play on Sundays. He’s that good — a very versatile football player.”

The loss of the 6-foot-2, 254-pound sophomore means that senior Chris Harrell will start at fullback for the Cardinal for the remainder of the season. When Marx limped off of the field during the Cal game, Harrell, who had previously only seen garbage-time action, filled in for Marx adequately.

“We have a lot of faith in Chris,” Shaw said. “We have a combination of guys we may use at that position. Chris has prepared as a starter.”

Marx’s efforts have been a significant contributor to sophomore running back Christian McCaffrey’s Heisman Trophy campaign, in which he leads the Pac-12 with 1,549 rushing yards and just eclipsed the 2,700-yard mark in all-purpose yardage.

Marx has also been instrumental in setting up Stanford’s goal-line success with Remound Wright in the “ogre” package, in which Marx is one of two fullbacks in the backfield, along with offensive lineman Brandon Fanaika. Wright currently leads the conference with 12 rushing touchdowns, all of which have come in goal-to-go situations.

Shaw insists that the loss of Marx will not have any effect on the way he approaches short-yardage and goal-line situations.

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

As we get set to celebrate another Thanksgiving, with the most important Saturday of the regular season right on its heels, I want to take a moment to give thanks for another wild, wacky football season and specifically the team that practically defines my existence.

David Shaw 2.0

We’ve all seen the shirt, the op-ed pieces, the raw emotion from Stanford’s head man that incites enough adrenaline to run through a brick wall. I love the new David Shaw just as much as everyone else — it adds pure joy to a game that couldn’t get any more exciting. But that’s not exactly why I’m thankful for David Shaw 2.0.

Instead, I go back to the 2014 UCLA game and the story of cornerback Ronnie Harris feeling compelled by some mystical force on the sideline to implore his head coach to “let it out” and share those in-game moments with his players. In the process, Shaw affirmed his status as a player’s coach, one who truly cares about the well-being of his guys and is willing to adapt to maintain that commitment. Can you imagine Nick Saban making such a significant adjustment in his approach after a sideline conversation with a player? Stanford should feel grateful to have a native son in Shaw leading the charge and, rebounding from a rough stretch in 2014, he and his coaching staff are doing as fine of a job as anyone in the country.

Brennan Scarlett

You are stranded on a deserted island, in anguish from the beating sun and rendered immobile by severe dehydration. Then, a neatly wrapped package washes up on shore at just the right time to save your life. Is it food? Is it water? No, it’s something much better: defensive end Brennan Scarlett.

It’s hard to understate just how much Scarlett has meant to this team both in terms of on-field production and as a locker room presence. Prior to training camp, Stanford was looking perilously thin at defensive line — long gone were the days when the Cardinal had the luxury of bringing in an NFL player in Josh Mauro off the bench. As if the situation weren’t dire enough, Stanford then lost Harrison Phillips for the season against Northwestern. Scarlett, the first graduate transfer in program history — from that other school across the Bay, no less — went from a key piece expected to add depth to a key piece expected to keep the Cardinal’s season afloat. And he has done exactly that.

A former team captain at Cal, Scarlett has proven to be a valuable voice of leadership and, in the course of just four months, has emerged as one of the best interviews on the team. If that’s not enough of a reason, at least we can all agree to be thankful for the picture below. Pure, unadulterated bliss.

#BeatCal pic.twitter.com/o4sK2rsijB

— Alan George (@treeSIDjorge) November 22, 2015

The Tunnel Workers Union

No matter what type of gameplan an opponent demands, Stanford’s offensive identity revolves around dominating in the trenches, and this year’s O-line has more than lived up to the task, launching Stanford right back into the thick of the national conversation after a disappointing start. There’s a lot to be thankful for amongst this group. For starters, there’s Outland Trophy finalist and the nation’s best left guard Josh Garnett, who forms half of the formidable “Bash Bros” duo with Kyle Murphy along the left side of the line. Then, there’s everybody’s favorite teammate center Graham Shuler, not to mention the host of other talents that see the field including Johnny Caspers, Casey Tucker and “jumbo” linemen David Bright, Brendon Austin, Nick Davidson and Brandon Fanaika.

For a group that builds its reputation by serving up pancakes every Saturday, the Tunnel Workers Union is always approachable and never fails to provide an honest, intelligent interview. They are as nice off the field as they are menacing and merciless on it.

Speed, speed and more speed

In Tuesday’s press conference, Christian McCaffrey was asked to put together the best relay team out of the current roster. After some thought, he named Isaiah Brandt-Sims, Michael Rector and Bryce Love, before hesitating once more. McCaffrey speculated that he might not be in the top five or six on the team before quickly adding, “I’d fight for it.”

But just think about that for a second. The Cardinal’s Heisman Trophy contender, the supersonic playmaker set to eclipse Barry Sanders’ NCAA all-purpose yards record and Toby Gerhart’s single-season rushing mark, may not even be one of the five fastest players on the team. Speed absolutely kills, and I’m thankful we get to live in an age where we can see so many otherworldly athletes take the field at once and flip the script on the narrative of Stanford’s offense as slow and lumbering in 4.3 to 4.4 seconds.

Meanwhile, McCaffrey deserves his own moment of thanks. As someone who missed watching Andrew Luck by a year and Gerhart by several more, No. 5 is the most breathtaking player I have seen in college and he’s truly special to watch.

The seniors

Through the highs and lows of four years, the members of this senior class have maintained the culture of excellence on the field instilled by their predecessors, while pushing the ceiling even higher with three Pac-12 Championship appearances in four seasons. It will be tough to watch so many of them run through that tunnel at Stanford Stadium for the final time, but the gratitude for so many great memories should outweigh any premature nostalgia. After all, despite 40 wins under their belts since 2012, there’s still plenty of big time football left. And that’s something for which I’m sure we can all agree to be thankful.

Ask Vihan what foods he will be consuming on his way towards eating himself into a coma at vihan ‘at’ stanford.edu

Stanford football’s class of 2016 will go down as the 13th senior class in school history to have never lost the Stanford Axe. To make it even sweeter for them, in running out to a 35-22 victory over archrival California (6-5, 3-5 Pac-12) in the 118th Big Game behind a school-record 389 all-purpose yards from Christian McCaffrey, No. 15 Stanford (9-2, 8-1) also officially clinched the Pac-12 North for the third time in four seasons.

“Pac-12 North champions? It’s got a pretty good ring to it,” said freshman running back Bryce Love.

“I got the question throughout the week about guys bouncing back [from the Oregon loss], and I’m telling you, it’s Cal week,” said head coach David Shaw. “When it’s Cal week, we don’t worry about anything else. This is a big game, it is the Big Game and our guys were phenomenal in practice all week. They really wanted this game.”

Sophomore running back Christian McCaffrey (center) cruises into the end zone on his 98-yard kickoff return touchdown with less than a minute left in the second quarter that gave Stanford a 21-6 heading into halftime. (SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily)

Almost exactly 25 years from the day when Glyn Milburn set Stanford’s old all-purpose yards record of 379 in the legendary 1990 Big Game playing alongside Ed McCaffrey, the younger McCaffrey couldn’t have picked a better time — or opponent — to set yet another Stanford record with a final tally of 389 yards.

“Has anybody seen a football player better than Christian McCaffrey this year? Tell me,” Shaw said. “Show him to me. I haven’t seen anybody.”

McCaffrey took 29 carries for 192 yards, added a highlight-reel 49-yard receiving touchdown and added 148 kickoff return yards — including a 98-yard return touchdown — that allowed Stanford to beat its biggest rival for the sixth straight year despite losing the time-of-possession battle and being outgained by 140 yards.

“I’ll be able to go out 4-0 and be able to say forever that hey, I never lost the Axe,” said senior guard Josh Garnett.

“When you see the seniors going around with the Axe, you can just tell how much it means to be a part of this team and to keep the Axe, keep it home,” Love added.

On the other side, a third consecutive class of Cal seniors will leave Berkeley never having won the Axe, and this time around, it was McCaffrey that made sure that they were going to once again leave The Farm empty-handed.

He first found the end zone on his 49-yard touchdown reception, on which he took a screen pass, broke three tackles and made three cuts while weaving through Cal defenders and Stanford blockers to put Stanford up 14-3 late in the second quarter.

After Cal scored another field goal with a minute to go in the half to cut the lead to 8 points, McCaffrey put any semblance of Cal momentum heading into the break to rest by taking the ensuing kickoff return 98 yards down the right sideline to give Stanford a 21-6 lead at the half.

Even outside of his contributions in the passing game and special teams, McCaffrey’s workmanlike 192 rushing yards gave him a school-record ninth consecutive game of over 100, adding yet another impressive outing to his growing Heisman Trophy candidacy.

Fifth-year senior running back Remound Wright (left) scores the first touchdown of the 118th Big Game on a 2-yard run in the first quarter. Wright would later add another in the second half to stretch his two-year total in the Big Game to 6 touchdowns. (SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily)

“I love that guy to death and I’m trying to go there all-out and give him the recognition he deserves — the recognition he’s earned across the country,” Garnett said.

Fifth-year senior running back Remound Wright added two short-yardage rushing touchdowns to run his total in the last two Big Games up to six, and Love also added a 48-yard scamper into the end zone late in the fourth quarter to put the game on ice.

The efforts of Stanford’s offensive line and running back corps were more than enough to make up for a minimal outing from Kevin Hogan (7-of-12 passing, 96 yards) and a defense that gave up 495 total yards to Cal’s potent offense — the second-most against Stanford’s defense all season. That said, the defense held Cal to three field goals on its first three drives into the red zone, which ultimately kept Stanford just out of reach of the Bears all evening.

“Cal came in and played well,” Shaw said. “We’re not used to losing the time of possession. They kept the ball for a long time. They were very efficient. But give [defensive coordinator Lance] Anderson a lot of credit, keeping the ball in front of us, not giving up touchdowns, giving up field goals in the red zone. That was huge. That was huge.”

Cal quarterback Jared Goff had a solid day in the pocket, completing 37 of his 54 passes, throwing 2 touchdowns and leading Cal to convert 10 of its 18 third downs. However, most of those crucial third-down stops for Stanford came in the red zone, meaning that though Goff was able to move downfield at will, he couldn’t hit paydirt to bring those drives to fulfilling finishes.

Senior linebacker Blake Martinez (center) finished second on the team with 9 tackles, while fifth-year senior Brennan Scarlett (right) won the Axe for the first time in his career after transferring from Cal for his graduate season. (SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily)

He didn’t have much help from his receivers, who had several key drops, or from his running game, which only notched 98 yards on the ground.

In the end, Cal’s inability to keep McCaffrey in check and finish drives and a lack of aggression in its game management were just enough to give Stanford a two-score victory and a spot in the Pac-12 Championship.

A matchup with a top-five Notre Dame squad now looms next week before the Cardinal will meet the winner of the UCLA-USC game with the Pac-12 title on the line. But even though winning the Pac-12 has been the primary goal of the team all season long, it’s still not looking that far ahead.

“It’s a huge honor to establish ourselves as the Pac-12 North champions,” McCaffrey said. “But we’re not satisfied at all. We have a huge game this week, and that’s what our tunnel vision is focused on is Notre Dame.”

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

Do-Hyoung Park: Stanford 48, California 24

I don’t buy the whole “anything can happen in a rivalry game” thing that everybody preaches going into Big Game. Stanford’s football team is better than California’s football team, period. No ifs, ands and buts about it. Cal’s defense is not going to be able to stop Christian McCaffrey and Stanford’s offensive line at the point of attack, and Stanford will hold the ball for more than 35 minutes and score on most of its possessions. Jared Goff and Cal will definitely put up points over the top against a Stanford secondary playing without Ronnie Harris, but Stanford’s front seven is talented and disruptive enough — especially as of late — to pressure Goff into some bad decisions and force Cal into mistakes that will stall the Bears’ offense a few times. I’m not convinced that a good game against Oregon State will have been enough to snap Goff out of his funk. Saturday will mark the 25th Big Game since the dramatic finish of 1990, but there won’t be any drama in this game — Stanford runs away with it, holds the Axe for a sixth straight year and clinches the Pac-12 North.

Michael Peterson: Stanford 49, California 31

Unlike Do, I do buy the “anything can happen in a rivalry game.” Just ask Texas, who somehow pulled off the upset of Oklahoma that could keep the Sooners out of the playoff in the Red River rivalry. However, like Do, I also firmly believe that Stanford is too talented offensively not to dominate this game on that side of the football. If Stanford avoids turning the ball over — Cal’s defense is fifth in the nation in forcing turnovers — it will run ragged against Cal’s defense, which otherwise is again very lackluster. The game will come down to the Stanford secondary showing that it can stop big plays, something it failed doing last week against Oregon. Cal doesn’t have nearly the same kind of offensive weaponry as Oregon, though, particularly at running back, so my bet is on the Stanford defense getting enough stops to get the job done. Chalk up a bounce-back game for the Stanford secondary, another 100-yard game for Christian McCaffrey and more brilliant play calls from David Shaw in a Stanford semi-rout.

Andrew Mather: Stanford 35, California 31

I’m the last person who would ever overreact to a single unfortunate result. In this instance, however, the problem is that Stanford isn’t coming off one tough game as much as it’s coming off two sluggish performances in its last two face-offs against postseason-bound teams ­– a loss to Oregon and a victory that came down to little more than a coin toss against Washington State. What’s more, David Shaw’s side struggled in both of these games for pretty much the same reason. Once the Cardinal’s opponents were able to slow down Christian McCaffrey, the rest of the team proved incapable of moving the ball at anywhere near the clip it does when #WildCaff shows his true Heisman-candidate self (case in point: Against the Ducks, the Cardinal really only seemed efficient at getting the ball to Michael Rector, a receiver who is probably the least suited to breaking tackles in Oregon’s inconsistent secondary).

I’m not sure Cal’s defense has the chops to completely execute the “anyone but McCaffrey” strategy. However, I think that there’s a good chance that the Bears will be able to do it effectively enough to give Jared Goff and the Cal offense a chance to break open this game. Though I’ve been a little bit underwhelmed by the scoring prowess of Sonny Dykes’ squad thus far this season, it still has more than enough talent to light up a Ronnie Harris-less secondary if it plays to its potential. Stanford will need to bring its A game to maintain the advantage against this group, and even then I don’t think it does so by some historic margin. The Cardinal end up on top, but only because they succeed in scoring touchdowns (and don’t just settle for field goals) when they enter the Bears’ side of the field. It just might be time for the Big Game to become big again.

Winston Shi: Stanford 41, California 27

We know Stanford’s offense will come out to play, but as Oregon reminded the Cardinal, there are… you know… other phases of the game, too. Despite the Oregon debacle, Pete Alamar has put together another stellar special teams unit. Once again, nobody plays field position better than Stanford, and nothing matters more in Air Raid defense than forcing the Bears to work for their points.

On defense, Stanford has obviously got a daunting challenge. Cal quarterback Jared Goff needs no introduction, and the offense he runs has done a great job of cutting down on the dumb penalties that have hamstrung the Bear Raid for so long. But I think Stanford’s very good at making Air Raid teams string together 10 or 11 plays in order to score. It can play the percentages and wait for Cal to make mistakes.

That doesn’t mean that Stanford will shut out the Bears. Cal is too good for that. But I think Stanford can get some critical red zone stops and generate key turnovers. I see the game on defense as one of these times when Cal racks up 400-450 yards but struggles its way to 27 points. With the Stanford offense backing up the Card, 27 should be enough.

Vihan Lakshman: California 99, Stanford 0

To put it simply, Stanford does not deserve to be on the same field as Cal. The Bears outclass the Cardinal in every respect. After all, only a superior institution would dare to build a stadium on top of a fault line. Jared Goff and his golden arm are destined for NFL greatness and Stanford’s young secondary will only be a minor nuisance in his Air Raid destruction. Rumor has it Christian McCaffrey dreams of being as good as Daniel Lasco when he grows up. Sonny Dykes will stake his claim as Pac-12 Coach of the Year by running circles around Shaw while the much-maligned Cal defense unleashes five years of frustration in one blistering evening of yellow and gold domination.

Just kidding…Stanford 45, California 24. It seems right to pick Stanford for once.

With starter Ronnie Harris sidelined with an injury, sophomore cornerback Alameen Murphy (right) will play a big role in the defense against Jared Goff and the strong Cal offense.  (JIM SHORIN/stanfordphoto.com)

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Welcome back to bowl eligibility! It looked for a while like Cal might suffer another collapse akin to last year’s, but the Bears bounced back from a tough losing streak by blowing Oregon State away on Saturday. What does it mean for the program and for Sonny Dykes to get that sixth win?

Alaina Getzenberg (AG): This season as a whole for Cal has been a disappointing one, so the win last weekend is going to put a more positive spin on everything that has happened this year, whether it is justified or not. Overall, getting the bowl game is important because it has been four years since the team has been to one. Besides that, this is still a team that has performed mediocrely throughout the season.

TSD: That being said, do you think this success is sustainable in the years to come with Jared Goff (and, rumor has it, Sonny Dykes) set to leave the program after the end of this season?

AG: I don’t know about the success being sustained, but there will be some consistency going into next season as Sonny Dykes is currently in the middle of contract negotiations. With him continuing his time in California, most of the schemes and style of play will remain the same. The biggest problem will be whether the Bears will have the talent to make up for what they are losing after this season. With Goff most likely leaving for the draft, and many prominent seniors leaving with him, I would be surprised if the team improves after this year. Despite losing the quarterback, the many parts departing will leave behind an inexperienced team.

TSD: This year might very well be the Bears’ best shot in the last several years to take the Axe back to Berkeley, with Stanford’s best cornerback, Ronnie Harris, out with an ankle injury. This means that Stanford will be playing first-year starters at every position in the secondary. Can Goff and his receivers keep up their hot play from Saturday?

AG: The fact that young cornerbacks are playing for Stanford on Saturday is quite promising for Goff & Co. to have success. Coming off its record-setting offensive performance last week, the offense has been successful when Goff is able to find receivers open downfield. With the cornerbacks being so young against the senior Bear receivers, it is very likely that Goff will have a significant amount of success on Saturday night and will be able to put up a lot of yards and points.

TSD: What’s wrong with Cal’s defense? It’s definitely not as bad as it’s been in years past, but I think a lot of people expected more progress, especially up front, in year two of the Art Kaufman reign. Is it recruiting? Coaching? Both? And more importantly, is it fixable?

AG: The defense has suffered a significant amount of injuries this season, which is by far what has ailed it the most. Both starting safeties, Damariay Drew and Stefan McClure, have been injured in recent games and many other important pieces on the defense have missed large amounts of playing time. This has created a lot of problems for the defense. Beyond that, the defense has had a hard time simply because it has played tough offenses that are more talented. There have been noticeable improvements from last year as the defense has become more comfortable with defensive coordinator Art Kaufman’s system, but the unit hasn’t been consistent, which is its biggest problem.

TSD: That leads into this question: Can Cal stop Christian McCaffrey’s ungodly romp through the Pac-12’s defensive fronts? What will the Bears need to do to keep him in check? Are they capable of doing that?

AG: The Cal defense will not be able to stop Christian McCaffrey. The defense has given up huge yardage all season long to running backs, running quarterbacks and basically anyone else who has run the ball. The Beras would need to transform into a different team to stop him. It seems entirely unlikely that anything the defense could do would be incredibly effective against the run.

TSD: What does Cal need to do to pull off the upset and steal the Axe from its rightful home? What’s the most pivotal matchup in this game? How do you see the 118th Big Game ultimately playing out?

AG: In order for Cal to pull of a win, Goff will have to put up enough points and hold on to the ball for a long enough period of time that the defensive performance will be rendered less important. The only way the Bears will win is if the Big Game turns into an old-fashioned shootout. One of the most important match-ups is probably between the Cal wide receivers and whether or not they can actually be effective against Stanford’s defenders. My score prediction is for the game is 52-45 Stanford.

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

Laura Stickells: After watching Stanford and Oregon battle it out to keep national championship hopes alive for the past four years and after witnessing upsets three out of those four times, I wasn’t shocked when the Cardinal fell from the ranks of the one-loss teams.

The Stanford front seven, particularly in the first half, had a hard time with the Oregon linemen and struggled getting to the quarterback. This gave Vernon Adams plenty of time to pick a target and the wide receivers plenty of time to escape their cornerbacks and complete passes. Adams finished the night with a 0.83 completion rate, averaging 20.8 yards per completion and throwing no picks.

Although I think Stanford is likely to come out on top in Saturday’s matchup, Cal’s offense should still provide another tough challenge for the Stanford defense. The Bears are hot off a big win against Oregon State and are ranked second in the Pac-12 in total offense, averaging 511.6 yards per game, and their 6-4 record doesn’t show that two of those losses came within one touchdown. Also on the roster is likely first-round draft pick Jared Goff, who was on point last weekend, passing for 453 yards and 6 touchdowns, helping lead Cal to a school record of 760 yards in total offense.

With No. 1 cornerback Ronnie Harris out, Goff will likely have another big day in the air, which could present a problem for the inexperienced Stanford secondary, as all five are first-year starters. That being said, the Bears are not as strong defensively, ranking fourth from the bottom in rush defense in the Pac-12, so the Cardinal will likely be able to employ one of their favorite strategies, controlling the clock for the majority of the game.

In short, if the Stanford defense can keep a powerful Cal offense off the field, then they should find themselves playing in Levi’s Stadium come Dec. 5.

Neel Ramachandran: Despite Stanford’s resounding success this year, there have been warning signs along the way that the defense, and in particular the secondary, might not be up to par with Cardinal defenses of years past. Elite passers such as Cody Kessler of USC and Luke Falk of Wazzu carved up the secondary earlier this year, but Stanford was able to get away with wins, due at least in part to the fact that neither team possessed a particularly strong rushing attack (USC ranks ninth in the Pac-12 in rushing offense, while Washington St. ranks last).

The same could not be said last Saturday, when Stanford had to deal with both the inspired play of Oregon quarterback Vernon Adams Jr. and the beast of a running back that is Royce Freeman. Freeman, coupled with wide receiver Charles Nelson, put up 193 yards on just 18 carries, forcing Stanford to respect the run and get burned by Oregon’s speed in the passing game as a consequence.

The injury to Harris didn’t help, and the news that he will be out for Big Game certainly shifts the dynamics of the matchup greatly in Cal’s favor. Goff, a far better passer than Adams Jr., will likely have a field day passing the ball around the Cardinal’s young and inexperienced secondary.

However, while Cal’s uptempo spread offense resembles Oregon’s, it lacks the same talent at the skill positions, especially in the running game. Vic Enwere and Khalfani Muhammad, the Bears’ primary ball-carriers, have just 991 yards combined on the season (Freeman, for comparison, has nearly 1400). Look for the Stanford defense to have a bounce-back game and effectively shut down the Berkeley rushing attack.

Ultimately, I don’t see Cal being able to sustain drives for four quarters based purely off the arm of Jared Goff, and meanwhile, Christian McCaffrey & Co. should have no problem running all over the Bears’ inadequate defense. While I suspect that Stanford’s rivals from across the Bay will hang close for about a half, the Cardinal will pull away and keep the Axe on the Farm for the sixth straight year.

Olivia: The short answer? No.

The Cardinal were outplayed by an Oregon offense that has hit its stride and figured out how to fill its Mariota-sized gap. As painful as it was to watch, there’s no shame in that.

Coming into last week’s matchup, no one doubted that Oregon’s offense was capable of playing to win. Despite the Ducks’ slow start to the season, they lead the Pac-12 in total offense, with 532.6 yards per game, and they showcased their big-play ability on Saturday as they tore through Stanford’s defense.

Cal, on the other hand, has struggled recently, with its only win in the last five games coming against a mediocre Oregon State squad. The team has yet to beat a ranked opponent, and Stanford fiercely defends its home turf. While Goff and the Bears have registered the second-most yards per game in the conference, their 6-4 record proves they haven’t always managed to capitalize on the yardage.

With the sting of an upset fresh on their minds, the Cardinal defense will be keyed in for Saturday’s matchup. For the first time in a few years, Big Game is a big deal, and something tells me that Stanford won’t be willing to give up the Axe.

Contact Laura Stickells at lauraczs ‘at’ stanford.edu, Neel Ramachandran at neelr ‘at’ stanford.edu and Olivia Hummer at ohummer ‘at’ stanford.edu.

But as Kevin Hogan’s desperation pass into the end zone fell just short of Austin Hooper to cut short a potential game-tying comeback, so fell Stanford’s aspirations at making college football’s final four — and the significance of that wasn’t lost on the Cardinal.

“It stings, man,” said fifth-year senior defensive end Brennan Scarlett. “It stings. It stings.”

Such was the somber mood on the Stanford side after the No. 7 Cardinal (8-2, 7-1 Pac-12) struggled on defense yet came oh-so-close to finishing a dramatic last-second comeback against Oregon (7-3, 5-2), failing to complete the game-tying two-point conversion to seal a heartbreaking 38-36 home loss.

“We didn’t do enough in any of the three phases to give ourselves a chance to win,” said head coach David Shaw. “We gave ourselves a chance to tie — but we didn’t give ourselves a chance to win.”

Fifth-year senior quarterback Kevin Hogan (above) completed 28 of his 37 passes for 304 yards but yielded two critical fumbles in the fourth quarter that allowed Oregon to build the 8-point lead that Stanford was unable to overcome in the end. (SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily)

Even after Hogan fumbled away two snaps in the fourth quarter and let Oregon set up a late 38-30 lead, the defense got a big stop and the offense executed a flawless one-minute drill with the clock running out, punctuated by a 4-yard end zone fade touchdown to junior tight end Greg Taboada — his second of the game — with 10 seconds left on the clock.

With Stanford needing the two-point conversion to force overtime, Hogan was hurried by a blitzing Tyson Coleman and let loose an inaccurate pass that fell incomplete and sent the Oregon sideline into a frenzy.

“There was a guy coming after [Hogan] scot-free, which we knew if they blitzed us was going to happen,” Shaw said. “We just didn’t make the play — either the throw or the catch.”

Stanford can still clinch the Pac-12 North with a win next week or an Oregon loss, but in a seemingly scripted saga between the two schools, the tradition of each ruining the other’s championship aspirations dragged on for yet another year — this time, with Stanford coming out on the wrong side of history.

Even though Stanford outgained Oregon on offense 506-436 and converted on 12 of its 17 third downs, the Cardinal had to settle for too many field goals in the red zone and suffered with Hogan’s uncharacteristic fumbles. Stanford also suffered from big penalties at pivotal times that stalled its own drives and kept Oregon scoring drives alive.

And on the other side, the defense gave up too many big plays to an athletic Oregon offense, yielding a season-high 9.1 yards per play and suffering some crucial blown coverages that allowed the Ducks to pick up easy points.

“We made big plays, and we gave up too many big plays,” Shaw said. “The effort was outstanding. The fight was outstanding. Our guys never stopped fighting, and I take my hat off to our guys for that. We gave them way too much in all three phases.”

All five of Oregon’s touchdown drives involved explosive plays of longer than 30 yards. Oregon fired out of the gate with a 49-yard run from running back Royce Freeman to set up a score and a 75-yard touchdown run from wide receiver Charles Nelson, which set the tone for the rest of the game.

“For us, it was just misfits,” said Scarlett, who had a career game with 2.5 sacks of Oregon quarterback Vernon Adams. “We didn’t defend the run like we should have. We’ve done pretty good all season in limiting big plays, but tonight we didn’t bend like we should have in order to win this game.”

Fifth-year senior defensive end Brennan Scarlett (center) had 2.5 sacks of Oregon quarterback Vernon Adams in one of the best performances of his career. He also forced a fumble with a strip-sack that was returned deep into Oregon territory by Kevin Anderson. (SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily)

Oregon later added two passing touchdowns of 49 and 47 yards on a pair of blown coverages by Stanford’s secondary, the latter of which gave the Ducks a 35-23 third-quarter lead — its largest lead of the night.

“[Adams is] a dynamic athlete, and he can make plays take a long time,” Shaw said. “And he was able to scramble back there and move back there and then find big plays down the field. And we just cannot give those up and we did.”

Meanwhile, the Cardinal were their usual slow, methodical selves, with four of their scoring drives eating more than four minutes of clock apiece. The difference for the Cardinal was that Stanford failed to convert effectively in the red zone, forcing field goal attempts instead of touchdowns. Stanford lost despite dominating the time-of-possession battle, 42 minutes to 18.

“You combine [Oregon’s big plays] early in the game, offensively, with being down in the red zone and having chances for touchdowns and getting field goals,” Shaw said. “That’s how this game balanced out. We were moving the ball down the field and we didn’t capitalize in the end zone.”

The outcome put a damper on career games from Taboada and senior wide receivers Michael Rector and Rollins Stallworth, as well as a solid outing from Hogan (28-of-37, 304 yards, 2 touchdowns).

Sophomore running back Christian McCaffrey also added 244 all-purpose yards, setting a new school record for single-season all-purpose yards. He also set a school record with his eighth straight 100-yard rushing game, with a final tally of 147 yards on 33 attempts.

But in the end, all of those individual accolades were trumped by the end result on the scoreboard, which means that Stanford will need to wait one more week for another chance to wrap up the division title — this time, against Cal with the Axe on the line.

Despite the loss, Stanford still has plenty to play for — although the playoff dream is over, the Rose Bowl hopes live on.

“Any time you lose, it stings,” said fifth-year senior linebacker Kevin Anderson. “It’s tough. But if you told me at the beginning of the season that we would have a chance to beat Cal to win the Pac-12 North, play in the Pac-12 Championship and potentially go to the Rose Bowl, I would say that’s awesome. So we need a little bit of perspective here.

“But it definitely stings right now.”

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

The last such time was in 2011, when the Cardinal started 9-0 overall and 7-0 in Pac-12 play. And Stanford fans don’t need to be reminded of what happened next — Oregon came to The Farm, stunned Stanford 53-30 and likely knocked the Cardinal out of the national title game in Andrew Luck’s final collegiate season.

Though the 2015 edition of the Stanford-Oregon rivalry lacks the titanic matchup value that some of those gladiatorial clashes of the early 2010s offered, make no mistake: Oregon still has lots left to play for on Saturday when the Ducks (6-3, 4-2 Pac-12) visit the No. 7 Cardinal (8-1, 7-0).

Although the Ducks are far out of national title consideration, they can still stay alive in the Pac-12 race with a win over Stanford; kicking Stanford out of national title contention again would just be the cherry on top. Meanwhile, a Stanford win would officially clinch the Pac-12 North title for the Cardinal and inch them one step closer to the College Football Playoff.

Not that they’re looking that far ahead.

The message from Stanford’s players has been unanimous: Win the Pac-12 first — that’s what’s in their control — and just let the Playoff picture unfold around them.

“The last four years, the winner of this game has won the Pac-12 Championship, so it’s everything,” said fifth-year senior outside linebacker Kevin Anderson. “For us, the ultimate goal is to win the Pac-12, and we have an opportunity to do that on Saturday, so this game’s huge.”

Even though Oregon has had one of its toughest seasons in recent memory (with home losses to Washington State and Utah already in the books), the Ducks are peaking at the right time, with quarterback Vernon Adams healthy and re-establishing the identity of Oregon’s patented “blur” offense. The Cardinal aren’t fooled by the Ducks’ poor record; they’re expecting a tough, hard-fought game with the Pac-12 North at stake.

“Whether there’s anything riding on this game or not, in our minds it’s Stanford-Oregon,” said head coach David Shaw. “There could be everything on the line; there could be nothing on the line. This is a physical, fast game where both teams are going to walk off the field knowing they played a hard football game.”

For the first time in a long time, the battle between Stanford’s offense and Oregon’s defense might overshadow the battle on the other side of the ball.

This year, it’s Stanford — not Oregon — that leads the Pac-12 in scoring offense during conference play, as the Cardinal have averaged 42.4 points per game on the back of a resurgent season from the offensive line and timely throws from quarterback Kevin Hogan — the Cardinal also lead the conference in third-down conversions.

Meanwhile, the Ducks enter the game having regressed on defense more than anybody could have expected over the course of one offseason: After having fielded the No. 2 defense in the conference last season, Oregon ranks dead last in both scoring defense and passing defense this season, setting the stage for another prolific effort from the Stanford offense.

With that said, Oregon is coming off a decent defensive performance against Cal, in which it held the high-flying Bears offense to just 10 points in the first half and 28 overall, and Shaw isn’t willing to write off the Ducks’ defense yet.

“I just think they’re playing better [recently],” he said. “I know they’ve made some changes to the secondary. They’ve got size and length on one corner and speed on the other corner. They’ve got athletic safeties.”

Given Stanford’s run-first offensive identity, this game might well come down to how well Oregon’s front seven can hold up to Christian McCaffrey, Remound Wright and Stanford’s rushing attack. Although the Ducks enter the game sixth in the conference in rushing defense, they have also allowed 273 yards on the ground to Utah and 344 to Arizona State at points this season as well, setting a good precedent for Stanford’s runners.

Stanford will likely need to keep moving the chains on the ground and hold the ball for as long as possible to keep the ball out of the hands of Oregon’s dangerous offensive attack.

Although the Cardinal lead the conference in third-down defense and are second in red-zone defense, they likely haven’t faced an offense like Oregon’s yet this season, and — with due respect to scout-team quarterback Jay Tyler — also haven’t seen a quarterback that can be as dynamic as Adams.

“There’s a lot of athletic quarterbacks,” Shaw said. “This guy is in his own category.”

“That puts a lot of pressure on the defensive backs to cover for that long; that puts a lot of pressure on the guys chasing him,” he added. “They think they have him, then they miss him. Then they get another opportunity on the same play sometimes, then they miss him again.”

Adams might as well wear the name “Houdini” on his back — he’s been a master escape artist this season, improvising to keep plays alive and making crucial throws long after plays were thought to be over in order to keep the Ducks clawing at opposing defenses. (“Like improvizational jazz,” Shaw says.) Stanford’s defenders have emphasized the importance of playing sound contain and wrapping up tackles, but that’s much easier said than done.

And even if they can limit Adams, they’ve still got to account for running back Royce Freeman, who might well be the hardest runner to bring down in the conference.

“That guy’s a beast,” Anderson said. “I remember last year, trying to tackle him and not being able to because he’s so big and strong. All he’s done is gotten bigger and stronger.”

As inconsistent as Oregon’s defense has been, the rushing offense has never faded — Oregon still leads the conference with over 300 yards on the ground per game. Luckily for the Cardinal, the linebacking corps is getting healthy at the right time — with both Anderson and Noor Davis at full go on Saturday — meaning that Stanford likely won’t be lacking for depth.

But the challenge of reining the Ducks in still remains as daunting as it has ever been.

“Freeman is a big, physical, bruising back, but at the same time, he’s got breakaway speed also,” Shaw said. “He can make people miss in the open field; he can break tackles. He himself is a game-changer. Vernon Adams coming back healthy only accentuates that, and now you have two guys in particular that are really, really dangerous.”

In a game likely to be chock-full of offense that will produce a score more akin to a basketball game than a football game, it might very well come down to which defense can limit the damage the most.

And if the numbers are any indication, Stanford might well have the edge on Saturday, playing at home with title aspirations on the line.

But regardless of what the numbers might say, the Cardinal certainly aren’t ready to overlook the Ducks. Not with how much is at stake — for the fifth-year seniors on this team, the memories of the 2011 disappointment undoubtedly remain fresh.

“We’ve got a little bit of a rivalry going here,” said senior receiver Michael Rector. “I think in the past few years since they started the Pac-12 it’s been Oregon, Stanford, Stanford, Oregon. This year’s going to be a big one for us. This game’s going to be a big one for us. We’re going to be ready when it comes.”

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

Olivia Hummer: Let’s face it: Oregon has looked nothing like the powerhouse team of past seasons. Sure, after starting the season 3-3, the Ducks are riding a three-game win streak, but their defense also gave up a school-record 742 yards to Arizona State just two weeks ago. Last week against Cal, the defense stepped up and limited star quarterback Jared Goff to his lowest completion rate this season (18-of-41), but he still managed to rack up 329 passing yards and 2 touchdowns in Oregon’s 44-28 victory.

Unless Oregon’s defense improves exponentially before Saturday’s game, I can’t see it being much of a challenge for Stanford’s current offense. So far, Stanford has made short work of weak defenses, putting up 30 or more points in every game except the season-opener against Northwestern.

Plus the Cardinal offense is looking stronger and more diversified than it has all season. In the past two weeks, Hogan has reestablished himself as a threat on the ground as well as through the air, and between McCaffrey, Sanders and Love, the rush attack has been nearly unstoppable.

Regardless of Oregon’s performance, Stanford knows the stakes of this week’s matchup are high: With a win, it clinches the Pac-12 North, and a loss shatters any hopes of reaching the College Football Playoff. The Cardinal will be far from complacent, and with the prolific Cardinal offense keyed in for a victory, the Oregon defense will be hard-pressed to stop them.

Do-Hyoung Park: Yes, it’s a rivalry game. Yes, it’s a game that’s been tightly contested in years past. But no, Oregon’s defense isn’t going to surprise anybody — especially not this Saturday. From both a statistical standpoint and by the eye test, the Ducks’ defense has just been terrible in a way that not even the biggest Oregon downers could have expected at the start of the year.

The secondary takes awful routes to ball-carriers, and even when those defensive backs reach the ball-carriers in space, it’s basically a coin flip as to whether they can actually finish off the tackles or not (this is where Bryce Love and Christian McCaffrey should have their ears perking up). Oregon is dead last in the conference in passing yards allowed per game — by a 30-yard margin — and ranks in the bottom five in opposing yards per rush. Now, it’s one thing if Oregon has the talent in the secondary to mark Stanford’s receivers in tight man coverage and dedicate safeties to crashing Christian McCaffrey (like Washington State and Washington did), but the Ducks’ secondary is just too much of a liability for Kevin Hogan not to have a huge game if that happens.

And more than anything else, this defense won’t be able to stay off the field. Although Oregon is a fairly middling defense on third downs (41.4 percent converted), Stanford’s offensive line will be the toughest challenge this defense will have faced all season in crucial situations. As if that wasn’t enough, Stanford’s third-down defense tops the conference, meaning that even when Oregon’s defense gets off the field, it likely won’t be for long. And Stanford’s poised to take full advantage.

Sandip Srinivas: Well, my colleagues pretty much covered all the bases here. The weak Oregon secondary spells nightmare for the Ducks, and Kevin Hogan is bound to have an incredible day in the air. And, if Oregon isn’t careful, this one could be put away pretty early.

When playing at home this season, Stanford’s offense has been unstoppable, especially early in the game. In the Cardinal’s four home games this year, they have outscored their opponents 89-20 in the first half. That’s an average lead of 17.25 points at halftime, and we’ve seen this year that if Stanford gets up by two touchdowns, that’s pretty much the end of the game.

If the Oregon defense has even a glimpse of hope, it would, interestingly enough, come from its offense. Quarterback Vernon Adams has been one of the best players in the conference over the last two weeks, and a fully healthy Adams will be a tough test for the Stanford secondary. If the Ducks’ offense is able to get some early scores, there won’t be as much pressure on the defense to stop Stanford on offense multiple times (which, again, doesn’t seem like a huge possibility). Adams and the Ducks would love for this to turn into a barn-burner (see Oregon vs. ASU from two weeks ago). However, if the Stanford defense takes that option off the table, it might get ugly for Oregon.

Contact Olivia Hummer at ohummer ‘at’ stanford.edu, Do-Hyoung Park at dhpark ‘at’ stanford.edu and Sandip Srinivas at sandips ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Junior tight end Austin Hooper (above) could do serious damage to a weak Oregon secondary during Saturday’s game. Oregon’s passing defense is currently ranked last in the Pac-12. (DAVID BERNAL/isiphotos.com)

The Stanford Daily (TSD): Is Oregon just suffering a temporary downswing, or are the Ducks on the way down? I don’t think anybody could have expected the defense to regress this badly, and with Vernon Adams transferring over, I feel like the general consensus was that the Ducks wouldn’t skip a beat. But two embarrassing home losses to Utah and Washington State later, it’s looking like Oregon’s system might not be as plug-and-play as it initially seemed, especially at quarterback.

Justin Wise (JW): It’s hard to tell. Vernon Adams was not healthy in the game against Utah and was benched by the second quarter, and then did not play a down in Oregon’s loss to Washington State. Since his return, though, the offense has looked exactly like as advertised. The unit just totaled 777 yards of offense against Cal and scored 61 points – albeit in triple overtime – against Arizona State the week earlier.

TSD: With that in mind, how do people around the program feel about Mark Helfrich? Have fans’ confidence in him taken a hit in light of this season?

JW: Twitter became a place during October for fans to not just cry for the firing of Helfrich, but also a complete overhaul of the coaching staff. But as for the vibe around the program, there has never appeared to be any uncertainty about the head coach. After all, Helfrich just guided Oregon to the national championship a year ago and is now watching arguably the greatest player in the program’s history play on Sundays this season.

TSD: After a string of nationally-relevant matchups, this will mark the second season in a row in which one team has severely underperformed coming into this game. Last year, Oregon was a huge favorite and played like it. This year, the tables are turned and Stanford is the undisputed favorite. How does that affect the Ducks’ mentality going into the game?

JW: It’s definitely something Oregon players and coaches are aware of. Offensive coordinator Scott Frost said on Monday that the underdog role is one “we’re not used to playing.” In addition, Oregon players have talked plenty about salvaging this season and winning out, and I’m sure they’re fully aware that Stanford poses the toughest challenge to doing that.

TSD: Is the defense really that bad? What’s gone wrong for the Ducks on that side of the ball? Are they going to be able to match up with Stanford’s offensive line on power runs and with Stanford’s playmakers (Christian McCaffrey and Bryce Love) in space?

JW: Oregon’s defense had possibly its best performance of the season last Saturday, but yes, it has been that bad. Its secondary is largely to blame for the struggles. After losing three starters from that group last year, filling the void has been a much more difficult process than its coaches may have expected. Its front seven is a strength of the team and is in the top half of the conference in rushing defense and sacks, but I still do not see the Ducks being able to contain Stanford’s rushing or aerial attack. What’s more, I think a tight end like Austin Hooper poses an ever bigger challenge for the Oregon secondary.

TSD: The offense has bounced back under Vernon Adams, but it still seems far from the surgically-efficient death machine that Marcus Mariota ran in the last three years. What’s changed since then?

JW: It really has to do with experience. Mariota guided the offense for three years. Adams was on campus for only a few weeks before he made his first start in a Ducks uniform. He’s clearly been learning on the fly, and it seemed he finally felt comfortable in the pocket in last Saturday’s win against Cal.

TSD: Utah held the Ducks to 20, Michigan State held them to 28 and Washington held them to 26. What’s the key to stopping Oregon’s offense? Can Stanford keep the Ducks at bay for four quarters?

JW: The key to stopping Oregon’s offense has been the same for the past several years: Stop the run. No matter how lethal a passer Mariota was, Oregon’s offense is predicated on rushing the ball, and if it can’t, it struggles to find a rhythm. Currently, that part of the offense is averaging 305 yards per game, and if it can be contained, the unit will undoubtedly struggle.

TSD: Oregon is the underdog for the first time since 2011, but Ducks fans will remember that game fondly, as Oregon came to The Farm and derailed one of the best seasons in Stanford history with a 53-30 rout. What does Oregon need to do in order to repeat history? How do you see the game panning out, and who wins?

JW: Oregon needs to march down the field the way it has in the last two weeks. It needs an efficient game from Adams, but also needs ball-carriers like Royce Freeman to help establish the tempo. On defense, it needs to be opportunistic and force turnovers. If those things happen, it’s clear that an upset could be brewing. But I don’t see the game panning out that way. Oregon has historically had trouble stopping Stanford, and the Cardinal’s strength in regards to time of possession has never boded well for Oregon. I see Oregon staying in the game early, but Stanford simply being too much to contain and running away with it in the second half.

Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dhpark ‘at’ stanford.edu and Justin Wise at jwise ‘at’ dailyemerald.com.

A screenshot showing the landing page of WildCaff.com.

Although Stanford had been notoriously unwilling to formalize Heisman Trophy campaigns for both Toby Gerhart and Andrew Luck in the last several years (making very late pushes for both candidates), Stanford has started its formal campaign to push McCaffrey’s candidacy after its ninth game of the season, with at least four — and likely five — games left to go in the Cardinal’s 2015 schedule.

Head coach David Shaw had also been unwilling throughout the season to offer his thoughts on supporting a formalized Heisman Trophy push for McCaffrey, usually responding with a simple “okay” when asked whether McCaffrey deserved the Heisman or not.

However, after the Cardinal’s 31-14 victory over Washington on Oct. 24, Shaw did offer some more substantiated thoughts on the matter.

“I’m at the point where I don’t know what else I can say other than watch him,” Shaw said.

Another quote from Shaw after the Cardinal’s victory over Colorado on Saturday continued to develop a more outright base of support for McCaffrey’s candidacy — highlighting his versatility and what that versatility adds to the team.

“Christian can really throw the ball,” Shaw said. “There aren’t many positions the young man can’t play; I’d say offensive and defensive line are it. He can play middle linebacker, fullback, receiver, and quarterback. He’s a phenomenal football player.”

McCaffrey leads the nation in all-purpose yards with 2,174 through nine games, needing just 61 more all-purpose yards this season to break Stanford’s all-time single-season record of 2,234. McCaffrey is averaging 243 all-purpose yards per game, which puts him on pace for 3,402 over a 14-game season, which would shatter Barry Sanders’ all-time NCAA record of 3,250 in a season.

As a runner, McCaffrey is currently 10th in the country, averaging 134.1 rushing yards per game. He is also averaging 36 receiving yards per game and 71 return yards per game. His current active streak of seven consecutive games with over 100 yards rushing is tied with Gerhart’s 2009 streak for best in program history.

With previous Heisman Trophy front-runner Leonard Fournette of LSU having struggled against Alabama last Saturday (just 31 rushing yards), McCaffrey could be a strong player in the race for the Heisman down the stretch, especially with a highly-visible matchup against Notre Dame and a likely date with the Pac-12 South winner in the Pac-12 Championship.

Turns out he can throw pretty well too.

The Colorado native did it all in a triumphant homecoming on Saturday, gaining 220 all-purpose yards as a runner, receiver and returner and also throwing a 28-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter as No. 9 Stanford (8-1, 7-0 Pac-12) took care of business in a 42-10 win over the Colorado Buffaloes (4-6, 1-5) on Saturday in Boulder.

“We had it run in practice and coach gave us the go-ahead,” said McCaffrey about his touchdown pass, which he threw while rolling out right after taking a handoff from quarterback Kevin Hogan to put Stanford up 42-10.

Before the play, Hogan looked at McCaffrey and told him only to throw it if tight end Austin Hooper was wide open.

Hooper nudged McCaffrey afterwards and told him to throw it anyway.

There probably wasn’t ever any doubt in anybody’s mind that McCaffrey was going to throw that ball. Given how the all-purpose dynamo has been tearing through opposing defenses all season, nothing he does on the field surprises anybody anymore — not even his head coach.

“There’s not many positions that the young man can’t play,” said head coach David Shaw. “I would say offensive and defensive line are probably it. He can play middle linebacker, fullback, receiver and quarterback. He’s just one of those phenomenal football players that we’re very fortunate to coach.”

Given the offensive creativity that Stanford showed against Colorado, it wouldn’t even be a surprise at this point if McCaffrey exclusively played fullback or quarterback next Saturday against Oregon.

Apart from the McCaffrey halfback pass, Stanford also scored touchdowns on a highlight-reel end-around handoff to freshman running back Bryce Love after a play-fake, as well as on a play-action pass to sophomore tight end Dalton Schultz out of the heavy “ogre” formation on fourth down as part of its offensive clinic in Boulder.

Sophomore tight end Dalton Schultz (above) celebrates after catching the first touchdown of his career on a play-action fourth-and-1 pass to put Stanford up 21-7 in the second quarter against Colorado. (DON FERIA/isiphotos.com)

And through both trick plays and classic, dominate-the-lines Stanford football, the Cardinal outgained the potent Colorado offense 472-231, converted a whopping 10 of their 16 third downs and scored on all but two of their possessions before garbage time.

“[Colorado] made a lot of things very difficult,” Shaw said. “The score doesn’t look like it, but we had to come with reverses and trick plays because we thought they were very sound, fought very hard and were very physical.”

With the win, Stanford is 7-0 in conference play for just the third time in program history and only needs to win one of its two remaining conference games (against Oregon and Cal) to clinch the Pac-12 North title and a spot in the Pac-12 Championship on Dec. 5.

Speaking of history, Hogan became the winningest quarterback in Stanford history with his 32nd win as the Cardinal’s starter, passing Andrew Luck (31 wins) for the crown. He also tied Steve Stenstrom for the program’s all-time lead in games started at quarterback, with 42.

And while we’re on the topic of records, McCaffrey, with his 147 rushing yards, also tied Toby Gerhart’s all-time program record with his seventh straight game of over 100 yards rushing.

“He’s a special player,” Hogan said. “Makes my job so much easier and makes everyone’s job so much easier.”

Hogan also had a quietly efficient day himself, going 17-of-23 for 169 yards and 2 touchdowns while threading some throws into tight windows in a nice bounce-back effort from a rough outing against Washington State a week ago. He also added a rushing touchdown on a broken play in the second half, continuing to demonstrate impressive mobility that has changed the scope of the Stanford offense over the last two weeks.

With Stanford’s win on Saturday, fifth-year senior quarterback Kevin Hogan (center) became Stanford’s all-time leader in wins as starting quarterback, with 32. He also made his 42nd career start, tying for the program lead with Steve Stenstrom. (DON FERIA/isiphotos.com)

And while the offense was its usual efficient self, the defense also had a monster day, limiting a Colorado offense that played excellently against UCLA a week ago to just 231 yards — including just 83 on the ground — and an abysmal 2-of-11 conversion rate on third downs.

Although the defense had a hard time pressuring Colorado quarterback Sefo Liufau on the Buffaloes’ opening drive, in which the team drove 75 yards for a touchdown, the Cardinal front eventually wore down the Buffaloes’ patchwork offensive line and started to pressure Liufau into mistakes.

“They had a really tough offense to stop with a running quarterback, a really tough [running] back and a receiver that makes all kinds of plays,” Shaw said.

Junior outside linebacker Mike Tyler led the way with 2 sacks, while fifth-year senior outside linebacker Kevin Anderson added a sack as well — his second since returning from an injury last week. Sophomore Solomon Thomas added 3 tackles for loss as well.

The eventual pressure forced Colorado’s quarterbacks into key mistakes that led to turnovers: Both senior safety Dallas Lloyd and freshman safety Justin Reid recorded their first career interceptions in the game to keep Colorado’s offense from extending drives.

Just a week after possessing the ball for 41 minutes against UCLA, the Colorado offense was held to just 22 minutes of possession against Stanford, reflecting both Stanford’s ability to extend its own drives and Colorado’s uncharacteristic inability to move the chains.

Stanford’s defense held the potent Colorado offense to just a 2-of-11 conversion rate on third downs, and as the game wore on, Stanford’s defensive front got much better penetration. Junior Mike Tyler (left) and sophomore Solomon Thomas (right) led the team in sacks and tackles for loss, respectively. (DON FERIA/isiphotos.com)

“The difference in the game was them making third downs and us not,” said Colorado head coach Mike MacIntyre. “If we could have got them out on a few third downs and we could have made a few, it would have been a little bit different.”

It didn’t look to be that way at first, though, as the game started out relatively evenly matched due to Colorado’s surprising strength on both its offensive and defensive lines.

Although Stanford drove 81 yards on 15 plays to score a Remound Wright touchdown on its opening possession, Colorado immediately answered, driving 75 yards on six plays to answer with a touchdown of its own.

However, the tide turned on two key plays in the second quarter.

With Colorado’s defensive line making a strong stand with a tackle for loss and sack on consecutive plays to force a third-and-18, Stanford answered back with a 43-yard touchdown pass from Hogan to senior receiver Michael Rector on a simple go route down the sideline to regain the lead at 14-7.

“[Colorado’s defenders] were pressing, so I gave [Rector] a go route and he got around [the corner], stacked him and made a play,” Hogan said.

On the ensuing drive, Colorado again drove 60 yards downfield but missed a 37-yard field goal to kill any offensive momentum that it had. After the missed kick, only one of Colorado’s eight drives resulted in points for the Buffaloes.

Stanford’s offense, meanwhile, never missed a beat.

After capping off another classic Stanford drive (12 plays, 80 yards, 6:23 possession) with the play-action touchdown to Schultz on fourth down, the Cardinal took advantage of Lloyd’s interception to score again on Hogan’s scramble, with time expiring in the second quarter, to take a 28-7 lead into the half.

While Colorado scored a field goal to open the second half, an onside kick recovery by Stanford led to Love’s rushing touchdown, during which he broke a tackle in the backfield, made a cut and hit the seam with unbelievable breakaway speed.

Freshman running back Bryce Love (above) breaks free from the pack for a 47-yard touchdown run in the third quarter to put Stanford up 35-10. The play came on an end-around and Love broke a tackle in the backfield before hitting the seam at full speed and outrunning everyone into the end zone. (DON FERIA/isiphotos.com)

And finally, after a Hogan interception was returned deep into Stanford territory, the Cardinal’s defense held firm on fourth down in the red zone to set up one final 95-yard scoring drive, punctuated by McCaffrey’s passing touchdown to Hooper, to conclude the afternoon.

“Until the game was out of reach, we were going to be in attack mode,” Shaw said. “That’s the mentality of our coaching staff and players. We’re not going to worry about the scoreboard. Whatever the defense dictates we do, that’s what we’re going to do.”

Unfortunately for the Cardinal, the cost of victory was painfully steep: The Cardinal lost defensive backs Alijah Holder and Brandon Simmons and wide receiver Devon Cajuste to injury at various points in the game.

Although Cajuste’s injury seemed serious at first, Shaw later said he was concussion-free and had a strained muscle. Holder will continue to undergo concussion testing over the coming days.

The injuries might present another hurdle for the Cardinal to overcome, but this team has had to persevere through many challenges to get to where it is now — the driver’s seat of the Pac-12 North — and this win over Colorado, no matter how lopsided the score, was just another installment of that saga.

And again, the team prevailed.

“A ranked team going against an unranked team on the road with an early kickoff — it’s the exact same scenario as [the Northwestern loss],” Shaw said. “We put the challenge to the seniors, and the guys responded.”

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

As I’m sure you know, David Shaw put on a play-calling masterclass yesterday the likes of which I haven’t seen this season. But I’m not going to talk about the Christian McCaffrey halfback pass or the Dalton Schultz play-action touchdown (a play-call that, quite literally, brought me to my knees in the press box out of shock and awe).

Instead, I’m going to talk about the play — and the player — that I haven’t been able to stop watching on repeat since I first re-watched the highlight: that 47-yard Bryce Love touchdown run in the third quarter.

Everybody seems to think of Love as just a fast guy — in the Kelsey Young mold of years past — but I don’t think he gets anywhere near enough credit for his elusiveness and his tackle-breaking ability, which are factors that set him apart from any speedster I’ve seen in a long time. This touchdown run exemplifies everything that sets him apart in one neat package.

For example, on that play, Colorado has the play sniffed out — the Buffaloes get an outside linebacker, Jimmie Gilbert, unblocked, who should have had an easy tackle for a 4-yard loss. And Love’s cut isn’t enough to make Gilbert miss — Gilbert still wraps up around Love’s legs.

But somehow, Love sheds the tackle of the 230-pound Gilbert like it’s nothing and then keeps running downfield, making a cut to get past a safety in space — and then looks downfield for his blockers while running, making another cut to get behind the block of offensive lineman Joshua Garnett.

And then the afterburners kick in. Somehow, in the span of 30 yards, Love gains a 10-yard cushion on every defender while he cruises into the end zone — no sweat.

He’s got the top speed of a fighter jet, the acceleration of a Lamborghini, the maneuverability of a BMX bike and the drive of a Hummer. After having watched Toby Gerhart, Stepfan Taylor and Tyler Gaffney work for years, I have to rub my eyes and look again just to make sure that he does, in fact, have the Stanford block S on his helmet.

And when all of those elements come together into one complete package, the results are breathtaking. On several occasions this year, Stanford has thrown screens to him in isolation, with no other blockers near him (which is usually a prerequisite when setting up a screen), trusting him to make the cornerback miss. He does.

When he does get blockers on his screens — well, he busts out 93-yard touchdown receptions, like we saw against UCF. And when he gets met by a defender, he’ll run through the first one or two arm tackles.

Even considering the plethora of talented speedsters to come through the college game in the last few years — De’Anthony Thomas and Dri Archer come to mind — I can’t remember anybody that’s been able to integrate other elements like vision and tackle-breaking ability along with blazing speed.

There are precious few guys in the country that command your attention every single time they touch the ball, but Bryce Love is one of those guys. I can’t turn away when he has the ball in his hands, because I can never be sure that he won’t turn a 4-yard loss into a 47-yard touchdown or a 10-yard gain into a 93-yard score. And he does it in style.

And he’s only a freshman.

With the progress that Love and McCaffrey have made this season, I’m confident in saying that next year, Stanford will have one of the top — if not the top — backfields in the country.

From McCaffrey’s Heisman-worthy hybrid performance as a power back/speed back/slot receiver/quarterback(?!?), to the unfathomable raw skills of Love, to Cameron Scarlett and his 220 pounds of classic Stanford power back, the Cardinal have an insane wealth of riches in their backfield. And the Cardinal won’t be limited to one dimension at the position like they were from 2009 to 2014 — they’ll be their 2015 selves, but even better and even more dynamic (somehow).

Leonard Fournette is a good running back, but he doesn’t have the speed of Love or the versatility of McCaffrey. Nick Chubb has power and vision, but he doesn’t have the breakaway acceleration. There’s no running back crew in the country that can match up to Stanford’s multi-headed monster, and it’s going to be thrilling to see what this wrecking crew can do to Pac-12 defenses in the coming years.

And now, more than ever before, I’m confident that David Shaw is going to be able to use all of the tools at his disposal to their fullest potential. I, for one, can’t wait.

To tell Do-Hyoung Park to get over his man-crush on Bryce Love, contact him at dhpark ‘at’ stanford.edu.

In the second half of last week’s game, No. 9 Stanford (7-1, 6-0 Pac-12) did indeed show an ability to bounce back, even in the face of a hostile road environment and a rainstorm that dampened not just the team’s spirits, but also the passing game. Now, faced with a different set of challenges at Colorado (4-5, 1-4), the Cardinal will have another chance to prove their mettle and settle back into a groove against a porous Buffaloes defense.

For many of the Cardinal, the first half of last week’s escape at Washington State served as an ugly reminder of the offensive futility that doomed the team in its Week 1 loss at Northwestern.

“Every great team has a game like that,” said sophomore running back Christian McCaffrey. “I think we went back to that Northwestern game and looked back to where we came from and said, ‘This is not going to be us.’ We remembered what that felt like and knew that we had to come together rather than start to deplete.”

Given the parallels between the offensive inadequacies in the Northwestern and Washington State games, it has to be a promising sign for Stanford that a reprisal of its offensive struggles yielded a better result for the team this time around — perhaps because it already had the experience of the Northwestern loss under its belt and a new mindset in the wake of that defeat.

So while a loss is never a good thing, there’s a lot to be said about many of the Cardinal speaking to that Northwestern game as a spark that helped save Stanford’s bacon last weekend in Pullman.

“We’re still not perfect, but that [Northwestern] game has been a rallying cry to a certain degree because we didn’t play our best football,” Shaw said. “I also am a firm believer in you are where you are because of where you come from.”

“You never want to lose, but right now, the morale of our team is stronger because of that game,” McCaffrey added. “It’s allowed us to do a lot of different things and allowed us to look ourselves in the mirror and realize who we are and what we have to do to win games.”

This weekend in Boulder, there won’t be rain. Nor will there be a historically prolific pass offense on the other sideline that can cut into leads in the blink of an eye.

That’s not to say that Stanford’s game against Colorado won’t present its own challenges, though. For one, the game will kick off at 10 a.m. Pacific time — Stanford’s only loss so far came on a 9 a.m. kickoff earlier this season — and playing at altitude will no doubt pose additional challenges for players’ stamina as well.

And on the other sideline, the Cardinal will be met by a tenacious Buffaloes team that has had its fair share of success against big-time opponents this season but just hasn’t been able to get over the cusp and finish those games off.

“They just play really, really hard,” Shaw said. “They play the way you want your team to play — whatever mistakes you make, they’re going to capitalize. You watch them play against UCLA, you watch them play against Arizona, they’re very aggressive defensively.

“They play really well, and teams that go in there and aren’t ready end up behind. We’ve got to go in there with a great mindset and play a better football game this week than we did last week.”

Although the Buffaloes sit in last place in the Pac-12 South again, causing many to write them off, make no mistake: The gap between Colorado and many of the “good” teams of the Pac-12 is a lot smaller than many think.

For instance, the Buffaloes were tied with Oregon at the half and played tough with the Ducks before a late surge. Meanwhile, Colorado led both Arizona and UCLA late in the second half but was unable to finish off both of those opponents.

Colorado also enters this matchup with a lot of momentum in tow, particularly on the offensive side of the ball: In their loss to UCLA, the Buffaloes ran a ludicrous 114 plays and held the ball for 41 minutes, constantly keeping the chains moving and getting big stops on defense. It was only red-zone inadequacy and a late turnover that stopped the Buffaloes from actually being able to pull off the upset at the Rose Bowl.

That being said, Stanford has reason to believe that Colorado won’t be able to put up such numbers against the Cardinal due to the ball-control nature of Stanford’s offensive philosophy and the Cardinal’s experience against hurry-up offenses.

“If they have the ball that long, run that many plays, we’re not doing our part,” Shaw said. “The games that we’ve played well, [opponents] don’t run a lot of plays; the games where we don’t play well, they do run a lot of plays. The structure of our offense, if we’re able to keep the ball, control the clock, get first downs and then touchdowns, then we can minimize that.”

For the Buffaloes, it all starts with quarterback Sefo Liufau, who has put up another consistent passing season in his third year under center for Colorado with 2,199 passing yards to date to go with 9 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. Although the control and decision-making struggles have been there throughout his entire career, Liufau has proven to be reliable at moving the chains.

And no conversation about Colorado’s offense would be complete without bringing up senior wide receiver Nelson Spruce, who ranks fifth in the conference with 653 receiving yards on the season. Although Spruce’s productivity has slowed from his breakout junior season, he remains one of the most well-rounded receiving threats in the conference that should present the biggest matchup challenge for the Cardinal’s young secondary this weekend.

“The challenge is the same as every week — learning their tendencies and learning what they like to do and take away their base offense and try to limit what they do really well,” said freshman nickelback Quenton Meeks. “Nelson is a great possession receiver, knows what he’s doing, great route-runner. All of their receivers are really great route-runners, as we’ve seen so far.”

On the other side of the ball, although Colorado’s secondary has been surprisingly adept at forcing turnovers this year (the Buffaloes are fourth in the conference with 10 interceptions on the season), Colorado’s abysmal run defense, which ranks 11th in the conference by allowing 5.08 yards per rush, will likely mean that Stanford will be reluctant to throw the ball in order to get McCaffrey and the offensive line back into a rhythm.

Although the Cougars were able to take away McCaffrey’s rushing capabilities last week by loading the box behind a surprisingly physical defensive line, the Buffaloes won’t be able to rely on the weather to help shut down Stanford’s passing game like Washington State did last week when it sold out against the run.

And while the Colorado road trip only happens once every three or four years, a return to Boulder will likely be a welcome trip for two of Stanford’s biggest contributors on offense: McCaffrey is from the Denver area, while fifth-year senior quarterback Kevin Hogan first took over the reins of the Stanford offense at Folsom Field three seasons ago.

Stanford will get its chance to bounce back in a favorable matchup against Colorado starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday at Folsom Field in Boulder. The game will be carried on the Pac-12 Networks.

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