Archive: Stanford clinches bowl berth with win over Oregon

PLUCKED!
Card ends Oregon’s seven-game streak

By WYNDAM MAKOWSKY, SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Stanford football is going bowling.

Check that: No. 25 Stanford football is going bowling.

In Jim Harbaugh’s team’s most defining win to date, the Cardinal (6-3, 5-2 Pacific-10 Conference) topped No. 7 Oregon (7-2, 5-1 Pac-10), 51-42, at home to reach the postseason for the first time since 2001. The win also placed Stanford back in the rankings after an eight-year absence.

“This was the best opportunity in the last 10 years to express who this team is as a football team,” Harbaugh said.

Unlike the USC upset two years ago, when a squad in its first stages of rebuilding pulled out a miraculous win, Saturday’s victory was an emphatic, 60-minute statement that Stanford has a high-quality football program. Simply put, there was nothing miraculous about it.

In a contest where few gave the Cardinal much of a chance, Stanford controlled the game throughout. From sophomore Chris Owusu’s 77-yard kickoff return on the first play of the game, to junior Nate Whitaker’s field goal with 11 seconds left, it was a dominant offensive and special teams performance, with the defense doing just enough to keep the highly dangerous, quick-strike Oregon attack at bay.

The Cardinal scored on nine of its 14 possessions, including an opening field goal by Whitaker to give Stanford a 3-0 lead that it would never relinquish. Then, in one of the more impressive, yet underrated sequences of the game, the Cardinal defense held Oregon, fresh off one of the most impressive offensive outbursts in recent program history, to a three-and-out on its first drive. Stanford’s offense got the ball back and soon after, the Cardinal opened up a 10-0 advantage.

“We weren’t trying to think about anything else but scoring,” Harbaugh said.

Much of the offensive output came from three men: redshirt freshman quarterback Andrew Luck, senior running back Toby Gerhart and sophomore wide receiver Chris Owusu.

Luck was eerily efficient: He completed just 12 passes (on 20 throws), but passed for 251 yards and two touchdowns. Harbaugh and offensive coordinator David Shaw identified openings deep in the secondary early in the game and Luck spent the rest of the afternoon exploiting them. He hit Owusu four times for at least 15 yards on each throw — that included a 31-yard touchdown and a 40-yard post play made possible by an immaculately thrown ball.

“Those throws were nothing short of incredible,” Harbaugh said. “How do you play better as a quarterback? Who could have done better?”

But the star of the day was Gerhart, who broke the school rushing record with 223 yards on the ground. He also tacked on three touchdowns.

“That’s something I’ll be able to look at the rest of my life,” Gerhart said. “It’s a team game. It’s an honor and I think everybody takes pride in it.”

Indeed, one of Stanford’s biggest advantages coming in was the physicality of its offensive attack versus the swift but not terribly big Oregon defense. Gerhart, on 38 rushes, set the tone and the Cardinal’s traditional power running plays, including packages featuring as many as seven offensive linemen, worked to perfection.

“Like a young Mike Tyson said, ‘Your plan is only good until you get hit in the mouth.’ And that happened out there today, but that’s where you go back and credit the players,” Harbaugh said.

“I think we got after them a little bit,” Gerhart said. “I think we just got the better half of them today.”

That being said, the game was still a nail biter. After sophomore cornerback Michael Thomas sacked Oregon junior quarterback Jeremiah Masoli on 4th down to end the third quarter, Stanford appeared to enter the final 15-minute period with a commanding 17-point lead. But Masoli and the Ducks’ offense refused to acquiesce. He led two touchdown drives in the final quarter and with just under three minutes left, the Cardinal’s lead was cut to six.

But Stanford was able to drive downfield and, with 15 seconds left, Whitaker came in to attempt a 48-yard field goal. He had missed from closer in earlier in the fourth and the coaching staff took some time to decide the right course of action. Eventually, Harbaugh showed faith and sent Whitaker out. His booming kick split the uprights and iced the game — he was practically carried off the field by his teammates.

“The offense got me into a position to do that and it gave me a second chance,” Whitaker said. “That was the most important kick I’ve ever made by far.”

“I just had a good feeling about Whitaker and I just felt like he was going to make it,” Harbaugh said. “I knew that was going to seal it and make it a nine-point game so I just went with that feeling.”

Gerhart echoed these feelings on a more general level.

“People were out there saying, ‘I can’t believe you won.’ But I told them, ‘you got to have faith,’ you know? We were confident — there was definitely never any fear going into this game,” he said.

That mentality will certainly persist into next week, when the Cardinal travels south to face No. 9 USC (7-2, 4-2 Pac-10). The Trojans have struggled lately — they lost to Oregon and barely beat Arizona State, a team Stanford dominated. But USC is always one of the most dangerous schools in the conference and poses a major roadblock in the Cardinal’s Rose Bowl hopes.

“Our goal is to win the Pac-10 championship and we are still alive for that. We’ll go next week down to USC and play a great football team on the road to keep those hopes alive,” Harbaugh said. “They can spend 24 hours feeling good about this, but then come back and get ready for USC.”

NOTES: Fullback Owen Marecic also started at linebacker in place of the injured Clinton Snyder, but he was replaced on defense by Nick Macaluso in the first quarter…Luck is now first in the nation in yards per attempt…Gerhart is second in the country in rushing yards and touchdowns…Stanford’s special teams held the dangerous Kenjon Barner to under 20 yards, on average, per return. Owusu, by contrast, had just under 40 yards per return.