The day will come when the streak will end, but that day is not yet here.
For much of the season these new UCLA Bruins had looked like the worst team in the conference, and there was a time when they looked at risk of entering this final game of their season at 0-11, but things began to look up over the past month or so, and instead Chip Kelly's team looked much improved, and they brought the fight to the Cardinal early.
Stanford took the ball first, as usual, in front of an uninspired crowd that must've been one of the smallest in recent Rose Bowl history. The afternoon was typically gorgeous, but the holiday weekend and the disappointing 3-8 record of the home team combined to keep most fans away. I sat on the more crowded shady side of the stadium, shoulder to shoulder with loyal UCLA season ticket holders, but the sun shone on vast swaths of empty seats on the other side of the field. The official attendance figure was 38,391 -- much less than half the Rose Bowl's capacity -- but even that number seemed a bit inflated.
And so when K.J. Costello dropped back to pass on the third play of the game and delivered a room-service interception for safety Darius Pickett, there wasn't much response from the UCLA crowd, even when it looked for a moment like Pickett might return the ball for a touchdown. He was tackled at the Stanford 23, but the Cardinal defense stood strong from there, and the Bruins had to settle for a 38-yard field goal from J.J. Molson.
That interception from Costello was problematic. His pass was aimed directly at our seats, so I saw exactly what Pickett saw -- Costello locked onto his receiver and didn't seem to know the safety was lurking. The ball wasn't half way to its intended target before everyone in the stadium knew it would be going in the other direction. David Shaw addressed this in his post game presser, but not in the sense you might expect. He cited Costello's reaction to the play as evidence of his growth and potential as a quarterback. Costello took full responsibility for the mistake, and Shaw explained that he sees Costello's coachability as one of the main reasons he expects him to be one of the top quarterbacks in the nation next season. (More on that in a bit.)
The Stanford offense didn't really get going until the third possession of the game. After passing on all eight plays of the first two series, Costello finally handed the ball to Bryce Love on the first play of this drive and watched his running back gobble up 12 yards. The ball was in the air again two plays later, and the result was typical -- first J.J. Arcega-Whiteside drew a holding penalty for 10 yards, then Costello found Trenton Irwin for 17 yards to set up 1st and 10 at the UCLA 19.
From there, Shaw reached deep into his bag of tricks and pulled out the fumble-play-action play from the 2016 Rose Bowl. Instead of Kevin Hogan and Michael Rector, on Saturday it was Costello and Arcega-Whiteside. Costello wasn't quite as dramatic as Hogan had been, and perhaps that's why the safety didn't bite as hard as the Iowa safety did back then (of course, the entire Iowa defense was fairly shellshocked by that point in the afternoon), so Costello's target wasn't completely unguarded. But when your target is the best wide receiver in the country, regardless of what the Biletnikoff people might think, he doesn't have to be completely unguarded. Costello fired the ball to the back of the end zone, and Arcega-Whiteside outfought his defender for the touchdown.
After the two teams exchanged field goals to move the score to 10-6, the Stanford offense got busy again. In perhaps the most balanced drive of the afternoon, Costello completed three passes to three different receivers (Arcega-Whiteside, Michael Wilson, and tight end Cobly Parkinson), before Love capped off the series with a 2-yard touchdown to stretch the lead to 17-6.
It certainly felt like the Cardinal had been dominating (UCLA didn't get a 1st down until their fourth possession), but the plucky young Bruins were hanging around. The concern coming in was running back Joshua Kelley, who had rushed for 289 yards the week before against USC, but the Stanford defense would limit him to just 55 yards on 18 carries. The surprise was quarterback Wilton Speight, a transfer from Michigan brought in as a placeholder between Josh Rosen and whomever Chip Kelly might be able to recruit. Speight had done what was expected throughout the second half of the season, but I can't imagine that anyone in the UCLA braintrust expected what would happen on Saturday against Stanford.
Speight engineered a touchdown drive to answer Stanford's score, and then Costello hit Irwin with a beautiful pass in the corner of the end zone for a 37-yard touchdown to push the lead back to eleven at 24-13. After that, Speight struck again, and he struck quickly. The Stanford defense has ebbed and flowed over the past ten years, but there's generally been one constant -- an emphasis on keeping the ball in front of the defenders and limiting big plays. In this game, however, Speight and the UCLA offense repeatedly punished the Cardinal with chunk plays. On this particular drive, the first three plays were passes to three different receivers for 29, 19, and 25 yards to put the Bruins on the Stanford 2. After a valiant stand by the defense, Kelley finally pushed his way into the end zone (with the help of the replay officials) on a 4th and goal play that was initially ruled short of the goal line. But the officials got the call right, and the Stanford lead had dwindled to four at 24-20.
The chunk plays would haunt the Cardinal all afternoon, specifically in the passing game. Speight's previous career high was 362 yards passing for Michigan in 2016, but he would top that by more than a hundred yards against Stanford, throwing for 466 yards while completing passes of at least 19 yards to six different receivers. I don't think Speight ever looked as good as Costello did, but he was able to find open receivers, and those receivers were able to ramble once they caught the ball.
With only 37 seconds left on the clock after the Kelley touchdown, it appeared the half would end with Costello taking a knee, but Cameron Scarlett put an end to those thoughts with a 74-yard kickoff return that brought the end zone into immediate view. A pass interference penalty drawn by Simi Fehoko moved the ball to the UCLA 11, but three passes to Arcega-Whiteside from there produced nothing but two incompletions sandwiched around a pass interference penalty, and with ten seconds left on the clock there was no choice but to settle for a short field goal and a 27-20 halftime lead.
In the second half, things got crazy. UCLA opened the half with a long touchdown drive to tie the score at 27, but when the Cardinal answered with a score of its own, recovered a UCLA fumble on the next play, then scored again (both touchdown passes to Arcega-Whiteside), suddenly it was 41-27 with just five minutes left in the third quarter.
For the first time all afternoon, Stanford fans could relax. The game was in hand, and I looked forward to seeing how many points we might score. Some Bruin fans in our section began gathering their belongings and heading to the exits, and even more followed their lead when UCLA's subsequent drive ended with a Paulson Adebo interception at the Stanford 3.
My friend and I mused about the possibility of a back-breaking, game-sealing, streak-stretching 97-yard touchdown drive, but in the time it took you to read all of that, everything changed again.
Looking for some breathing room for his offense, Costello did what everyone knew he'd do -- he handed the ball to Love. The problem was there had been a missed blocking assignment on the right side of the line, and UCLA's Martin Andrus burst through the pile and arrived in the backfield just as Love took the ball from Costello. Love never had a chance. Andrus wrapped him up for the safety, and the Bruins were alive at 41-29.
As Jake Bailey bent over the tee at the 20-yard line for the ensuing free kick, I wondered aloud about the choice to kick instead of punt. I started to explain the benefits of hang time, but before I could finish my explanation UCLA's Darnay Holmes was providing an excellent illustration of my point. Bailey's booming kickoffs normally sail to the back edge of the end zone or beyond, eliminating any returns. His clear directive is simply to kick the ball as far as he can, but that only works when you're kicking from the 35. In this situation, Holmes took the kick at his own 7, and because Bailey had kicked far beyond his coverage, Holmes was able to run for freely for twenty yards before encountering any resistance, and even then it was slight. He sprinted 93 yards in just eleven seconds. The Bruins had scored on two consecutive plays, and the Cardinal's comfortable two-touchdown lead was now only five points.
After the Cardinal offense sputtered on its next possession, the Bruins took over with a chance to take the lead. The turning point for the drive -- and possibly for the game -- came as UCLA faced a 3rd and 8 from their own 27. The Cardinal defense had managed to get some pressure on Speight from time to time, and on this play they chased him out of the pocket and forced him to run for his life. He foolishly ran back towards his own goal line, and a Stanford defender wrapped him up near the 10 yard line for what looked to be a crushing sack -- until Speight wriggled free and floated an ill-advised pass that somehow found Caleb Wilson for a 24-yard gain and a 1st down just a yard past midfield.
Eight plays later Speight was sneaking his way into the end zone, and after the two-point conversion attempt failed, the Bruins were ahead 42-41, and suddenly it looked like the streak might actually come to an end. Somewhere Kevin was smiling.
The problem for the Bruins, of course, was that their defense was bleeding just as profusely as Stanford's. The Cardinal opened this critical drive with back-to-back runs from Cameron Scarlett for 12 yards and then 11, and then Costello stepped to the line of scrimmage at his own 48 with an array of options. The Stanford offense had lined up with three wide receivers on almost every play throughout the day, and that was look they showed here. When Costello surveyed the defense from behind center, he certainly saw the same thing I did from Section 20; there were mismatches everywhere and no safety in sight.
Possibly because of those gash runs from Scarlett on the two previous plays, there were no safeties deep. Each of the three receivers had single coverage, and all three defenders were crowding the line of scrimmage. I saw what was coming immediately, but it turned out that David Shaw had seen what was coming a week ago.
When he was asked about this play after the game, he smiled uncharacteristically and explained that USC's Amon-Ra St. Brown had scored against UCLA last week on a deep ball off of play action. As Amon-Ra hit the end zone, Shaw picked up his phone and texted older brother Osiris, "Let's get you a touchdown on that same play next week."
So Osiris lined up in the right slot, just as his younger brother had the week before, and I pointed to him as soon as he broke off the line of scrimmage. He was past his defender in two or three strides, and with no safety help in sight, it was the easiest of Costello's five touchdown passes, and a reminder that the Stanford passing game can do more than just bully people. The Cardinal had a 49-42 lead.
The last half of the fourth quarter was an emotional rollercoaster for both sides, first when UCLA failed to answer the St. Brown touchdown and inexplicably attempted (and missed) a 53-yard field goal with 5:09 to play. Then, with Stanford Twitter no doubt raging, Costello dutifully handed the ball to Love three times on the ensuing drive, the last attempt coming up short on 3rd and 1. Shaw had burned off a minute and twenty-seven seconds and forced Kelly to use his first timeout, but he had also sent ripples of angst through his fanbase -- or at least through the portion that didn't read my recent piece examining and supporting Shaw's conservative nature in these situations.
Jake Bailey pounded a punt to the UCLA 15, and there was comfort in the fact that the Bruins would have to cover 85 yards in 3:34 to tie the game, but when Caleb Wilson took a short pass from Speight and galloped through the defense for 66 yards, that comfort evaporated like a puddle in the California sun. For much of the second half the Stanford defense had shown almost no resistance, but with the game suddenly on the line, the unit stiffened. On 1st and 10 from the 19 Speight scurried in and out of the pocket, but all his receivers were blanketed, and Gabe Reid finally pulled him down for a sack. After two incompletions brought up 4th down, this time it was safety Malik Antoine, who had missed a key tackle on Wilson's long run, who shrewdly ran in to cut down Speight for a sack and an eight-yard loss.
Once again the game rested in the hands of the Stanford offense, but with 2:05 left on the clock and two timeouts in Chip Kelly's pocket, the Bruins would get the ball back once more if the Cardinal failed to get a 1st down. If you've been paying attention at all during the past ten years, you know what happened next. The two most valuable commodities in football are time and field position, and Shaw is loathe to risk either, so he chose to run the ball three times. Kelly burned his final two timeouts along the way, so when the UCLA offense came back out onto the field for what was certainly their last final chance, they faced the daunting task of covering 79 yards in 63 seconds without the luxury of a single timeout.
The first play of this final drive became a microcosm of the entire fourth quarter. Speight found Caleb Wilson, his favorite target on the day, and the big tight end rambled down the left sideline to the 40-yard line for what appeared to be a huge to start to this desperate drive. What remained of the Rose Bowl crowd came to life, sensing the possibility that this decade-long streak might end in miraculous fashion. But then the Stanford defenders were celebrating, and it appeared there might have been a fumble. After much deliberation, the striped jerseys agreed with the white jerseys, and the ball was awarded to the Cardinal. For the fourth time, we could relax. The game, it seemed, was finally over.
But then there was a review -- the fourth one of the game, by my count -- and the results of the review couldn't have been worse. The turnover was reversed because Alijah Holder had picked up a personal foul for targeting just prior to the fumble. So instead of watching Costello take a knee and celebrate the victory, we watched as the officials marched off an extra fifteen yards to the Stanford 45 and then ejected Holder, who will also miss the first half of Big Game this Saturday. The game that had been over just seconds earlier, was now very much alive.
From there, however, the defense did its job. A UCLA holding penalty helped out, but mainly it was the secondary and linebackers sticking with their marks and not giving Speight anywhere to go with the ball. In the end, facing 4th and 8 from the 43, Speight scrambled away from pressure and finally unleashed a desperate pass that had no clear target. It fell harmlessly to the grass, and the Bruins had finally taken their last breath.
As K.J. Costello took a knee and let the final seconds wind off the clock and make the 49-42 win official, he closed out another stellar game in what is becoming one of the best seasons any Stanford quarterback has ever had. In fact, Costello is quietly putting together a career that will compare favorably to Andrew Luck, John Elway, and Kevin Hogan. Don't believe me? Take a look.
- Saturday was Costello's seventh 300-yard passing game. Only Steve Stenstrom had more, with nine in 1993. Only Stenstrom (15), Elway, Todd Husak, and Luck have more career 300-yard games than Costello.
- Costello has passed for 3,198 yards this season, making him just the sixth Stanford quarterback to reach the 3,000-yard mark. With two games remaining, it wouldn't be a stretch for him break Stenstrom's single-season record of 3,627.
- Costello threw five touchdown passes on Saturday, something only six other Stanford quarterbacks have accomplished.
- Costello has thrown for 28 scores this season, with is third on the Stanford list, trailing just Andrew Luck's 2010 and '11 seasons, and his 42 career touchdowns rank seventh on the all-time list.
Those numbers are impressive, but Costello isn't the only member of the offense putting together an historic campaign. J.J. Arcega-Whiteside, who was inexplicably not named a Biletnikoff Award finalist, has been altogether unstoppable this season. Consider what he's accomplished thus far.
- With 860 receiving yards, Arcegatron has a shot at topping the thousand-yard mark, something no Stanford player has accomplished this century.
- Arcega-Whiteside's three touchdowns against UCLA gave him 14 for the season, which is tied for the best in school history. He also has 28 career touchdowns, which is second on the Cardinal list and just four scores behind the leader, Troy Walters.
On Saturday both Costello and Arcega-Whiteside will have the chance to build on their impressive seasons, but they'll also have a chance at something more important than any of that -- The Axe. Beat Cal!
