Where do you even begin? There have been some improbable Stanford wins in the past, but if we agree to put the 2007 upset over USC in a category by itself, there isn't another game in the last fifteen years that brought a more unlikely result than Saturday night's game at the Rose Bowl.
What separates this game is that it didn't start out in an unlikely fashion. The Cardinal had found its stride over the previous three weeks, even though they had been wandering the West Coast like Odysseus in the Aegean Sea, blown by the winds of Covid-19 from one battle to the next. UCLA was expected to be a formidable opponent, probably the best team David Shaw's squad would face this season, but it still wasn't that much of a surprise that things looked so good for the Cardinal in the early going.
The announcement that UCLA tailback Demetric Felton wouldn't be available seemed to change the dynamic of the Bruin offense (though we'd realize later that the UCLA running game was quite operational), and quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson looked to be feeling the weight of the added responsibility. He took a big sack to end the game's first possession, and the Cardinal got the ball with good field position at its own 39.
The legend of Davis Mills had been growing through the season along with the thickening mustache on his upper lip, and he directed this opening drive flawlessly. With the UCLA linebackers already geared to stop running back Austin Jones, Mills took advantage of them with play action three plays into the drive. On 1st and 10 from the UCLA 43, he faked the handoff to Jones, then turned and casually flicked a thirty-five yard flat-footed pass to Brycen Tremayne, who caught the ball at the 15 and was pulled down at the 9. It wasn't the type of throw that will make Mills's draft day highlight reel, but it's one that scouts will notice.
As we've come to expect in this renaissance season for the Stanford offensive line, the Tunnel Workers took over from there. Jones ran twice to get to the 1, and the hole on 3rd and goal was so massive that he actually slowed to a jog before crossing the goal line. Stanford 7, UCLA 0.
Regardless of his sack and fumble on the Bruins' first drive, there is no quarterback in the Pac-12 that scares me as much as Dorian Thompson-Robinson. If you sat down at a drafting table to design the perfect Stanford Killer, you'd likely end up with DTR, a smart, mobile quarterback who consistently makes the right decision in the read-option running game, scrambles for big chunks of yardage when pressured, and is accurate enough to be a threat from within the pocket.
On UCLA's second possession, DTR took over. He completed four passes for 29 yards and ran three times for 27 as the Bruins marched fairly effortlessly down field. They even got into the end zone, but Ethan Fernea's eight-yard touchdown run was negated by a holding penalty, and the Bruins had to settle for a field goal to cut the lead to 7-3.
If the first Stanford drive was encouraging, the second one was even better, highlighting the depth and diversity of the Cardinal offense. Mills hit E.J. Smith for a quick screen, found Brycen Tremayne for an acrobatic five-yard catch, then earned a 1st down himself with a three-yard sneak, but the highlight came two plays later on 1st and 10 from the UCLA 44. A 19-yard run up the middle from Nathaniel Peat (with some ferocious blocking from fullback Houston Heimuli) had softened up the UCLA defense on the previous down, so Mills naturally looked deep here. Tremayne was galloping up the seam, but Mills had to put some touch on his pass to get it over the underneath linebacker. It turned out to be a bit too much touch, so Tremayne had to leap high and pluck it out of the air with one hand before gracefully coming back to Earth at the 25 and rambling ahead to the 2.
how 'bout the @brycen_tremayne one-handed catch to set it up though⁉️ pic.twitter.com/7AesCLj5II
— Stanford Football (@StanfordFball) December 20, 2020
A quick note about Tremayne. The former walk-on has emerged as one of the Cardinal's most dependable receivers, and Saturday night was his coming out party. After four catches for 58 yards last week against Oregon State, he drew the start against UCLA and had four more grabs for 88 yards, all in the first half. Yes, the wide receiver room is filled with talent, but Tremayne belongs.
One of the newer faces, graduate transfer Isaiah Sanders, came in at quarterback on 1st and goal and easily got into the end zone for his first Stanford touchdown. Still buzzing from the big throw and catch to Tremayne and the emotional response of Sanders's teammates to his score, many Stanford fans (including me) didn't notice Jet Toner's missed extra point. It didn't seem to matter much with the Stanford offense rolling like it was, but it would eventually loom large.
Meanwhile, the Stanford defense continued to struggle, but things were beginning to look better. The defensive front had been able to get pressure on DTR, but they simply weren't able to contain him. When they sent extra defenders, he would either escape for big yardage or find open receivers down field. The solution, then, was to rush only three, with the fourth defender hanging back to spy DTR and limit his scrambling. It worked, and the UCLA offense slowed. After six plays and a punt, the Cardinal offense had the ball back.
This third drive started at the Stanford 3, but I truthfully wasn't concerned in the least. I fully expected a 97-yard touchdown drive, and when Jones picked up a 1st down after just two carries, my faith seemed about to be rewarded. On the next play, Mills dropped another highlight reel throw, this one a perfectly placed ball down the left sideline to Simi Fehoko for a 24-yard gain. (Looking back, it's hard to believe that Fehoko's first catch of the night came with nine minutes left in the second quarter. If this game was a coming out party for Tremayne, it was Lollapalooza for Fehoko. Much more on him later.)
The drive churned into UCLA territory, reaching a key decision point on 3rd and 9 at the UCLA 33. Shaw took a timeout to discuss the play, and he came up with the perfect call. Fehoko lined up in the slot and simply ran past his defender. He was three yards beyond the defense for what would've been an easy touchdown, but the normally accurate Mills overthrew him by about ten feet. It was stunning.
What followed probably drove much of the fanbase crazy. On 4th and 9 from the 33, Shaw chose to punt. Toner had missed that earlier extra point, and cameras had found him on the exercise bike, presumably trying to work something out, so it's possible he wasn't right. Given that, maybe it would've made sense to run the ball on 3rd and 9 to set up something more manageable on 4th. (Of course, as stated earlier, the 3rd down play call had been perfect, and had Mills hit Fehoko, we wouldn't even be discussing what happened next.)
This was another decision that would grow larger later in the game, but even at the time, it worried me a bit. The best way to help this current version of the Stanford defense is to score points at every opportunity. The margin of error is always small when they're on the field, so the prospect of a three-score advantage, I felt, was too great to walk away from. But that's not how it happened.
The Bruins responded by erasing the 22-yard punt on the first play of their drive, a 23-yard scramble by the uncontained DTR, and the play after that put them into Stanford territory at the 42. It was... disheartening. The drive would stall a few plays later, however, when DTR was injured on a scramble and the Bruins eventually missed a 37-yard field goal attempt.
The Cardinal took over at its own 20 and went to work. Wide receiver Elijah Higgins, another future star in this offense, had two catches, but Fehoko was beginning to assert himself. We've seen Fehoko the Flash, a receiver with 4.3 speed who can terrorize defensive backs, but here we saw Fehoko the Fierce. On 3rd and 3 from the UCLA 22, he took a short crossing pass from Mills and turned up field, meeting and obliterating defensive back Qwuantrezz Knight at the 5. Jones walked into the end zone two plays later with his second score of the day and a 20-3 lead for the Cardinal. Things couldn't have looked better.
When the second half opened with the Stanford offense on the field and DTR on crutches, the outcome seemed assured. Surely Davis Mills would direct another touchdown drive, surely the UCLA offense would struggle with a backup quarterback at the controls, and surely Stanford fans would enjoy a relaxing evening.
But that's not the way it played out.
The Bruin defense showed signs of life for the first time, sacking Mills twice and forcing a punt, and the UCLA offense took advantage, marching quickly, building on a 29-yard run from tailback Brittain Brown (just the beginning of a huge third quarter and second half for Brown) to find the end zone for the first time and cut the lead to 20-10.
All that score seemed to mean was that the Bruins weren't going to curl up and die, but when Mills threw his first interception of the season and UCLA cashed that in with another touchdown, suddenly it was 20-17 and suddenly the game had everyone's attention again. The UCLA touchdown, a 17-yard throw to tight end Greg Dulcich, their leading receiver, was troubling not just because of the six points on the scoreboard. As discussed here repeatedly, the Stanford defense struggles with consistency, and is good for at least one blown coverage per game. If there's one UCLA receiver to pinpoint at all times, it's Dulcich, but on this play there was no one within ten yards of him as he cradled the ball for the touchdown. It was disappointing.
David Shaw said earlier in the week that Stanford will never run too many screens, but when you've got one of the biggest, fastest receivers in the Pac-12, you get him the ball any way you can. On the first play of the Cardinal's next drive, Mills hit Fehoko on a well-designed screen. The receiver caught the ball a step behind the line of scrimmage, which allowed the offensive line to release down field for blocking, and Fehoko the Flash (Flashoko?) sprinted in a straight shot that ended up gaining 45 yards and momentarily righting the ship. The righting of the ship was momentary, because two plays later Mills threw his second interception of the game, this one a ball forced to a receiver surrounded by five defenders. It was ill-advised.
It would only take four plays for UCLA to cash Mills's check, the last two going for 41 yards to Brittain Brown and 23 yards on a touchdown pass to Chase Cota -- who was uncovered in the end zone. The Stanford defense was reeling, the offense had disappeared, and the Bruins led 24-20.
The third quarter had been an absolute disaster. In the space of fifteen minutes, the Bruins had done much more than outscore the Cardinal 21-0. With a backup quarterback under center and a defense presumably geared towards stopping the run, Brittain Brown had rushed for 123 yards in the third quarter alone, and there were no signs that he could be stopped. The Bruins hadn't just gotten back into the game, they were embarrassing the Cardinal. Things looked bleak, but it would get worse. So much worse.
The Stanford offense could do nothing to stop the bleeding, as they punted the ball back to UCLA after just five plays, and the Bruin run game kept churning. Brown would finish with 229 yards on 29 carries, and he started off this drive with runs of 11, 16, and 8. The Cardinal defense clearly couldn't stop him, but the Bruins did, coming up with two penalties that doomed their drive and forced them to settle for a field goal and a 27-20 lead.
If you're like me, you were probably doing your best to channel your most optimistic thoughts. That UCLA field goal, after all, hadn't really changed anything. The Stanford offense still needed to put together a touchdown drive, and if they could do that, everything would be okay. If you're like me, you kept reminding yourself of that (everything would be okay) as Mills threw an incompletion on 1st down (everything would be okay) and Jones gobbled up eight yards on 2nd down (everything would be okay) and Mills dropped back to pass on 3rd down (everything would be okay).
But then it wasn't.
No doubt carrying the weight of those two earlier interceptions and feeling the pressure of the moment, Mills locked on to Fehoko on the left and launched a pass, apparently without bothering to check on the defender. (The thing was, even if there hadn't been any defenders, the pass would've missed Fehoko by five yards; it was a terrible miscommunication.) UCLA's Jay Shaw accepted the gift, sprinted into the end zone to complete the pick six, and gave the Bruins a fourteen-point lead with 5:39 to play in the game.
After thoroughly dominating the first half, the Cardinal had been outscored 31-0 in the first 24 minutes of the second half. It was absolutely stunning. A turnaround so complete that it immediately erased all of the optimism built up during the three game winning streak.
How bad was it? It changed the present and the future of the program. The Stanford sideline was demoralized, and we knew the postgame locker room would be a m0rgue, Coach Shaw's presser would resemble a firing squad, and the the offseason would hold nothing but questions. It seems overly dramatic to make a statement like this while young men are entertaining us as hundreds of thousands of Americans are dying, but that moment in the Rose Bowl as the UCLA sideline erupted in celebration of a sure victory was perhaps one of the darkest moments in the recent history of Stanford football. That isn't hyperbole; that's just how bad it was.
When Mills carried his scars back out onto the field and completed five of his first six passes to move the ball to the UCLA 26, I felt good for him, but it wasn't enough to engender anything close to optimism. There might've been signs of hope, but those disappeared after the next play. A four-yard run from Jones left the clock running, which was fine, but instead of rushing to the line for the next play (less than four minutes remained at this point), the Cardinal decided to send in a substitution.
This is an error the coaching staff makes repeatedly. If the offense gets to the line without huddling, the defense can't risk a substitution, but if the offense makes a personnel change, NCAA rules dictate that they cannot snap the ball until the defense also has an opportunity to substitute. So the Stanford offense stood at the line of scrimmage and the official stood over the ball waiting for new UCLA defenders to shuttle onto the field. Roughly thirty precious seconds spun off the clock during all this, which was bad enough, but then things got worse when Shaw called a timeout.
Down by fourteen points with four minutes to play, there was nothing more valuable than the time left on the clock and the timeouts in Shaw's pocket, and they had foolishly squandered some of both. It was like using your garden hose to fill the backyard pool while your house burned down, and it was the moment I knew for certain that the game was over. When Mills hit Fehoko in the end zone with a beautiful back-shoulder fade, it almost made me angrier than I had been a few moments earlier. Yes, the lead had been cut to 34-27, but with only two and half minutes to play, it didn't seem to matter much. Stanford's hopes rested on the slim chances of an onside kick recovery, and when UCLA not only recovered the attempt but advanced it 16 yards to the Stanford 27 -- in field goal range -- I felt foolish for having harbored even those thin hopes.
Here's what UCLA could've done to seal the win:
- Kneel three times. This would've moved the line of scrimmage back to the 30, but the Cardinal would've burned two timeouts, and with roughly 1:45 to play, Chip Kelly would've been able to decide between a 47-yard field goal attempt and a possible ten-point lead or a short punt to pin Stanford 90+ yards from the end zone. Or...
- Run the ball up the middle three times, knowing that the worst case scenario would be gaining five yards or so while burning those Stanford timeouts and setting up a shorter field goal attempt from less than forty yards.
But because Chip Kelly is Chip Kelly, he stuck with his offense. In his defense, the read-option had been working like a charm throughout the second half, but it obviously carried a risk. On 3rd and 8, quarterback Chase Griffin looked to hand the ball to tailback Brittain Brown (mabye), but linebacker Stephen Herron rocketed around the left edge and arrived on the scene just as Griffin was deciding whether to leave the ball in Brown's lap or pull it back, and suddenly the ball was on the turf and I was leaping off my couch. Stanford lineman Dalyn Wade-Perry secured the ball, and the Cardinal had possession at the 28 with 1:38 to play.
It was stunning that the Cardinal even had a shot, but they still faced steep odds. They were 72 yards from the goal line with just 98 seconds and a single timeout to get there. Mills's first two passes were relatively short -- nine yards to Scooter Harrington and thirteen to Austin Jones -- but I can't imagine the Bruins were too concerned. When the next pass went to Fehoko for 20 yards to the UCLA 29, everything was possible again. Probable? Certainly not. But possible.
Simi Fehoko hadn't just been good, he had been spectacular, so I have no doubt that all eleven UCLA defenders were keying on him at all times, which made it hard to believe that he was able to get free on a skinny post. Mills put the ball on his hands just as he crossed the goal line and the Cardinal had the touchdown it needed.
Stanford Twitter was a sea of capital letters and exclamation points, but Fehoko just handed the ball to the official and Mills calmly unsnapped his chin strap and jogged to the sideline as if it had been a second quarter touchdown in September. They could be as cool as they wanted; the rest of us were losing our minds.
The transformation was remarkable. Here's what Stanford's second half possessions looked like: punt, interception, interception, punt, pick six, touchdown, touchdown.
Has a team ever looked so good and then so bad and then so good?
— Go Mighty Card (@GoMightyCard) December 20, 2020
UCLA got the ball first in overtime and scored in just two plays. This was mildly troubling, but having finally found the beat in the last two possessions of regulation, Mills and the band kept rocking in overtime. There was a pass to Fehoko and another to Houston Heimuli, but Austin Jones did most of the work until the Cardinal was knocking on the door. Isaiah Sanders entered on 2nd and goal from the 3 and powered forward for his second touchdown of the night.
With the score 41-40, there was rising sentiment in the fanbase for the offense to stay on the field and go for the win with a two-point conversion, but that was never going to happen. Shaw has made it clear in the past that he would never go for two in that situation, and he reiterated this after the game, citing advice he had gotten from one of his mentors, John Gruden, who believed games should be won by players not play calls. And so Jet Toner came on to attempt the extra point and send the game to a second overtime. When people sing the song of this game years from now, they'll likely have forgotten the frightening moment that came next. Toner's kick banged hard against the left goal post and ricochetted through to the right. It was good, but barely.
At this point the only thing the Stanford offense knew how to do was score touchdowns, so the only surprise about their next possession was the manner in which they scored. Mills hit Fehoko for eleven yards on 2nd and 10, putting the sophomore wide receiver in the Stanford record books. Fehoko now had a school-record fifteen receptions along with 216 yards and two touchdowns. With the game on the line and having watched Fehoko torch them all night long, you'd have thought the Bruins would have lined up three or four guys across from him and dared anyone else on the Stanford roster to beat them. You'd have thought they'd had enough of him.
But instead they asked for more. Instead they chose single coverage. They chose poorly. Fehoko slipped half a step past his defender in a race to the corner, but that was enough. Mills's pass was perfect, Fehoko gently gathered it in, and the Cardinal had its first lead since the third quarter, 48-41.
The first question posed to Shaw in the presser was about whether or not Mills's pick six had reminded him of the pick six Andrew Luck had thrown in the epic triple overtime win over USC in 2011. He chuckled and said that he and Tavita Pritchard had been talking about it, and that Pritchard had even brought it up during a conversation with Mills, but what Mills did on Saturday night was much more impressive than Luck's recovery nine years ago. Luck had made one mistake that had given the Trojans a seven-point lead. Mills had made three mistakes -- and all three of his interceptions had been his mistakes. The first two had helped give life to an opponent that was down, but the last had essentially gift-wrapped the game for the Bruins.
Given all of that, Mills's performance on Stanford's final four possessions, when anything less than a touchdown each time would've ended his team's hopes, was extraordinary. He completed 15 of 21 passes for 169 yards and three touchdowns. Fehoko's numbers will be recorded in the record books, but Mills's night will live forever in Stanford lore.
Now the game was in the hands of the Stanford defense. If Mills had been scarred by the second half, the defensive unit was likely still bleeding. The Bruins earned one 1st down, but linebacker Gabe Reid made a spectacular play on 2nd and 6 from the Stanford 9. He lined up at the line of scrimmage, but hesitated for a split second at the snap to be sure he wasn't victimized by a run. But as soon as he saw Chase Griffin dropping back to pass, he rocketed into the backfield and wrapped up the Bruin quarterback for a 12-yard loss that brought up 3rd and 18. After an incompletion on the next play, UCLA faced 4th and 18 from the 21. After climbing out of their own coffin, the Cardinal had somehow convinced the Bruins to climb in, and all but one nail had been pounded into the lid. Gabe Reid and Thomas Booker and Stephen Herron each stood, hammers in hand, ready to drive in that nail. The game, it seemed, was over.
If we had been paying attention over the previous two hours, we'd have known better. The Cardinal wisely rushed only three, but this gave Griffin time to improvise a bit. He rolled to his right, then launched a pass towards the front corner of the end zone. Wide receiver Kyle Phillips leapt high to make the catch and extended the ball across the goal line just before falling out of bounds. The lead was one.
It wasn't just crushing, it was damning. And since everyone watching knew -- and had always known -- that Chip Kelly would go for two, the pendulum had swung back again. In the space of thirty seconds, the Cardinal had gone from certain winners to likely losers.
As expected, Kelly kept his offense out on the field. Perhaps getting trickier than they needed to be, the Bruins looked to win it through the air. The Stanford defense, meanwhile, was selling out at the line of scrimmage, so as Griffin dropped back to pass, it seemed like the entire front seven was breathing down his neck. Griffin had no chance. He did his best to flip a pass forward as Thomas Booker pulled him to the ground, but the ball hit an offensive lineman in the head and fell to the grass. Stanford had won.
But then they hadn't.
A legitimate flag for defensive holding, negated by the penalty on Griffin for intentional grounding, gave UCLA another shot. This time the Bruins went back to what had been working throughout the second half as Brittain Brown took the ball from Griffin and charged into the center of the line. Racing in around the left side of the line, just as when he had caused the critical fumble at the end of regulation, Stephen Herron arrived on the scene and grabbed Brown around the waist, slowing him down long enough to allow the defensive line the shut the play down. He didn't get close to the goal line, and now, finally, the game was over. Stanford 48, UCLA 47.
UN. BEE. LEE. VABLE.
— Go Mighty Card (@GoMightyCard) December 20, 2020
The narrative of the game had taken more turns than a Stranger Things episode, but the Cardinal had emerged from the Upside Down even stronger and more exultant than they'd have been if they'd simply continued the course set in the first half and won in a rout.
We can't ignore the reality that the Cardinal had no business winning this game. Even if the smallest thing had gone wrong in either the final five minutes of regulation or during overtime we'd be asking questions about the direction of the program. We'd be lamenting a mediocre 3-3 season and wondering if the glory days of Stanford Football were gone for food. Such is the nature of sport.
But the fates smiled upon the Cardinal. When our heroes were tested with obstacles and adversity, they never wavered. Davis Mills could have faded after throwing those three interceptions, but he erased them with three touchdown passes. Simi Fehoko could've dwelled on his early dropped passes, but instead he carried his team while setting a school record.
Just as the box score doesn't tell the true story of this game, Stanford's 4-2 record cannot explain the greatness of this team. Will they stand alongside the 2010, 2012, or 2015 teams, probably the greatest in school history? Not in terms of record or production. But when you consider what this team endured -- the cancellation of spring football, the uncertainty of the summer, the late start in the fall, and the longest road trip in school history -- the accomplishments of the 2020 Stanford Cardinal are unmatched. As long as that journey was from Berkeley to Seattle to Corvallis to Pasadena, this group never stopped. They reclaimed the Axe, reclaimed the program's identity, and when things looked bleakest on Saturday, they reclaimed a game that was far out of reach.
This Stanford team was a walk-on like Brycen Tremayne becoming a star. It was Thomas Booker blocking kicks. It was Road Dogs. It was Davis Mills overcoming three knee surgeries and three interceptions to stake a claim as the next great Stanford quarterback. It was teammates mobbing E.J. Smith after his first Stanford reception and Isaiah Sanders after his first Stanford touchdown. It was Drew Dalman making his father proud. It was Houston Heimuli dropping the cheehoo in the postgame celebrations. It was David Shaw telling us how he saved his brother's life.
It was all of this and more. It was an odyssey that none of us who watched will ever forget. In the end it was less about the numbers on the scoreboard, and more about the people in the program.
At the conclusion of the Trojan War, as Odysseus wandered the Aegean Sea for ten years hoping to find his way home to his wife Penelope, he had to battle the Cyclops, escape the pull of the Lotus Eaters, and resist the call of the Sirens. Simi Fehoko and his teammates only had to battle Bears, Huskies, Beavers, and Bruins, but when they emerged victorious and Fehoko reflected on the end of his journey, it was clear that our hero is no different from Odysseus. When asked what he was looking forward to, Fehoko didn't hesitate. "One hundred percent, seeing my wife. It's been a long time, and I can't wait to see her!"
The odyssey is over.