It isn't an accident that it's taken several days for the recap of Stanford's opening week loss to Kansas State to show up here. I needed time to digest it. To ruminate. To contemplate. To investigate. Try not to hate. All of that.
Had I opened my laptop and pounded out my thoughts in the minutes following the game, my thoughts would've been dark and without hope. If you ventured into Stanford Twitter during the game or after, you know what I'm talking about. Few were able to find any optimism in the Cardinal's effort, some called it Stanford football's lowest point since the arrival of Jim Harbaugh, and most were ready to give up on a season that was one game old.
The worst of all that? Unlike previous panics, this one seemed justified. This time it was hard for me to tell the villagers to put away their torches and pitchforks. Perhaps the emperor really had no clothes.
The game began with optimism, though, as most openers do. The quarterback question still hadn't been answered, however. Senior Jack West would get the start, but whether he'd earned that with his seniority or the flip of a coin, we'll never know. We did know that he would split time with sophomore Tanner McKee, and depending on your point of view, their extended competition added either extra excitement or extra trepidation to the start of the season.
West was in the huddle for Stanford's first two drives, and neither was impressive -- nineteen total yards on the first possession, seven on the next. In between, the Kansas State offense moved the ball with distressing ease, using chunk plays of 17, 22, and 16 yards on three of their first four plays, eventually getting all the way to the Stanford 23.
But on 2nd and 4, Wildcat quarterback (and sixth-year senior) Skylar Thompson lofted a ball towards the corner of the end zone where Kyu Blu Kelly was locked up in single coverage with wide receiver Phillip Brooks. We've heard nothing but enthusiastic praise for Kelly since he arrived on campus, and this year David Shaw has touted him as one of the best cornerbacks in the country. On this play, Kelly showed what all the hype has been about. He played the ball perfectly and leapt over Brooks's shoulder to pick the ball out of the air. He was initially ruled out of bounds, but the replay showed he had clearly gotten his right foot down before rolling out of the side of the end zone. It was a play that stands comfortably alongside Paulson Adebo's diving Big Game pick as one of the most amazing Stanford interceptions I've ever seen.
Kansas State's second possession was quick and concerning. One 1st down from their own 38, the Wildcats lined up with two balanced receivers out wide and Phillip Brooks in the left slot. Brooks ran a simple route, but it led to devastating confusion in the Stanford secondary. As Brooks crossed over the middle, safety Kendall Williamson watched him run past to his left as he focused instead on two covered receivers to his right. Brooks then sprinted into wide open space, waited for Thompson's pass to settle into his arms, then raced down the sideline to complete a 56-yard gain. Thompson kept the ball on a read option on the next play and trucked over Kelly on his way to the end zone for a 7-0 Kansas State lead.
When McKee took over the huddle on Stanford's next drive, the offense suddenly looked different. Facing his first 3rd down, McKee drilled a beautiful back shoulder pass to receiver John Humphreys for a 1st down and a twenty-yard gain. That one play was enough for me to install McKee as my QB1. First of all, he had checked out of another play at the line when he saw the advantage Humphreys had on the outside, suggesting that maybe he does know the playbook. And the ball was delivered on a line in exactly the right spot. It was a professional throw, the type of ball we saw from Davis Mills last season, the type of ball we've never seen from Jack West.
The drive continued into K-State territory, but a holding penalty on 2nd and 10 pushed the ball back to the 40, and the Cardinal eventually watched the promising drive die when Ryan Sanborn punted from the 43.
Meanwhile, it wasn't yet 10:00am California time, but the Stanford defense was beginning to show signs of waking up. Tight end/defensive end Tucker Fisk produced the first sack of the day and the first sack of his newfound two-way career to help stifle one Kansas State drive, and things were looking even better on the next series when the Wildcats were pushed back into a 3rd and 13 at their own 41. Like most sensible coaches, K-State's Chris Klieman went with a safe handoff, no doubt looking to punt the ball away on the next down. Eager to get off the field with a three-and-out, the Stanford defense came with a run blitz, but there was no pre-snap awareness of their gap responsibilities. Linebackers were stacked over the right side of the offensive line, so by the time Deuce Vaughn took the handoff, you knew exactly what was going to happen. He sprinted through the center of the line untouched, and fifty-nine yards later he was celebrating with friends in the end zone.
That 14-0 score would hold up until halftime, and while it hardly seemed like Kansas State had been only fourteen points better than the Cardinal in the opening half, those two blown defensive plays had led directly to those fourteen points. The game that didn't seem as close as the score indicated, actually could've been much closer. (In fairness, K-State fans would point out that Kelly's spectacular interception had stolen points from them.)
And so when Big Game hero Stephen Herron sacked Skylar Thompson to force a three-and-out on the opening drive of the second half, and then when McKee led the Cardinal all the way to the Wildcat 24 on the ensuing possession, things were suddenly interesting. As dark as things got later in the game, it's easy to forget that if Stanford had been able to navigate those twenty-four yards and come up with a touchdown to halve the deficit, the rest of the morning might've looked decidedly different.
But they weren't able to navigate those twenty-four yards. McKee was sacked on 1st down and again on 3rd down, leading to a punt on 4th and 27 from the Kansas State 41.
Putting aside for a moment the predictable questions about punting from that spot on the field (and it's easy for me to put that aside because there aren't too many plays that look good on 4th and 22), the sequence was frustrating because of the ineptitude. The plain truth is that this was perhaps the most unprepared Stanford team I've seen in the past fifteen years.
Quarterback sacks happen from time to time, but most of the pressure Stanford quarterbacks felt on Saturday came from a three-man rush. (What a luxury for Kansas State to be able to drop eight defenders against two inexperienced quarterbacks.) If there was one known commodity for Stanford entering the season it was the offensive line, but this group allowed four sacks, committed false starts on consecutive plays in the first series, and only produced 39 yards rushing.
Those deficiencies would rightly be classified as errors of execution, but the Cardinal offense produced its usual litany of delay of game penalties and narrowly avoided flags. While some teams choose to keep their timeouts for clock management during endgame situations, Stanford instead burns them early and often to save themselves from substitution confusion. In this game they used two on the opening series of the second half.
From the outside looking in it can be difficult to know the cause of all this confusion, to understand why this team simply did not look ready to play. The offensive line appeared nervous at times, but while first game jitters are probably natural, you wouldn't expect them to last for four quarters. And as Shaw said about the false starts, "It was loud, but it wasn't that loud." As for the defensive lapses, perhaps the lack of communication in the secondary and at the line of scrimmage can be chalked up to inexperience; even some of the older players were playing together for the first time.
But there is one more variable that cannot be ignored. If there is one offense in which a two-quarterback platoon would seem to be ill-advised, it's the Stanford offense. I'm not sure if you've heard, but the playbook is fairly complicated. As a result, David Shaw and offensive coordinator Tavita Pritchard typically give 100% of the practice reps to QB1. (When K.J. Costello was forced into duty after an injury to Keller Chryst a few years ago, he admitted to having had only "mental reps" during practice that week.)
So if it's true that the Stanford quarterback needs a full week of practice to prepare for game day, it would seem that Shaw's decision to play both West and McKee left him without a prepared quarterback in the huddle. I don't want to believe that this might be true, but the questions must be asked: Was this game just a dress rehearsal for the games that count? Did Shaw make a calculation that a road game against Kansas State didn't really matter since his team has no designs on a national championship? Instead of putting his team in the best position to beat the Wildcats, did he instead use this game to gather a few final bits of data on McKee vs. West?
All of that seems preposterous, but there was another concerning moment deeper in the second half. The Cardinal finally produced a solid drive on its final possession of the game. McKee was at the controls for a ten-play drive that covered 75 yards in 3:54 and featured some of his best work. He completed 6 of 7 passes for 40 yards, including a nice 14-yard touchdown pass to Brycen Tremayne that cut the K-State lead to 24-6 with 3:16 left to play.
It would've been a long shot, but the shot was still there, and a two-point conversion would've kept the Cardinal within two scores. Watching from my couch, I knew the game was over, but when Shaw didn't go for two, he told us that he knew the game was over also. When the ball went through the uprights to make it 24-7, it was.
We'll never know the answers to any of the questions posed above, but earlier this week Shaw gave us the answer to the only question that really matters -- Tanner McKee will be Stanford's QB1. I'd imagine the decision isn't just based on the boxscore (McKee was 15 of 18 for 188 yards and a touchdown, while West finished 8 of 12 for 76 yards with two interceptions), but also on McKee's stature and presence. He was simply the better quarterback, and I'd expect that he'll look even better after a full week of practice, then better still after several full weeks of practice.
If you need more reason for optimism, you can find it while sifting through the ashes of the Pac-12 North. Oregon was the only team to manage a win last week, but they were less than impressive in their 31-24 victory over Fresno State, and the four other teams all lost to non-Power 5 opponents, including Washington's shocking 13-7 loss to Montana.
So is there a method to the madness we witnessed last Saturday in Arlington? Will the Cardinal right the ship and ride the strong right arm of Tanner McKee back not just to relevance but into conference contention as well? The USC Trojans will let us know soon enough.
