It's gotten to the point where we should know better. We might've thought that the third-ranked Oregon Ducks, a team that had opened the season with a statement win over Ohio State in one of the cathedrals of college football, would stomp their way through the afternoon on their way to a Pac-12 Championship and eventually the College Football Playoffs. We might've thought that last week's loss to UCLA had told us all we needed to know about the Cardinal, and that they'd fold under the pressure of this moment on the national stage.
But we should've known better. Stanford and Oregon seem committed to producing unlikely results with miraculous finishes while destroying each other's playoff chances, and so it was on Saturday as the Cardinal rose from the dead (well, technically they were 99.9% dead) to force overtime and eventually beat the Ducks, 31-24. If all you know about the game is that final score, you don't know a damn thing. Be glad that you've come to the right place.
Obscured by the fourth quarter failures in last week's game is the fact that the Cardinal essentially gave the Bruins a twenty-minute head start as the offense opened the game with five straight three-and-outs. With those ashes still lingering in their mouths, the Stanford offense no doubt approached its first possession with a heightened sense of urgency. This first series, in some ways, would be the most important of the afternoon, so while Tanner McKee's 14-yard pass to tight end Ben Yurosek on the second play of the game didn't put any points on the scoreboard, it brought a sense of relief -- at least to me, and probably to the rest of Mighty Card Nation. We had our first 1st down.
And that wasn't the only relief on this first drive. In December of 1938 a coelacanth was pulled up by a trawler working off the coast of South Africa. Experts believed the fish had been extinct for sixty million years, and while I can't imagine the surprise of the museum curators who made the identification back then, it can't have been much different than the feeling on this opening possession as we rediscovered the previously extinct Stanford running game. Nathaniel Peat ran three times for 19 yards (he'd finish with 78 yards on 15 carries), and Austin Jones carried twice for seven more.
It was quite a revelation, but I'm still wondering about Jones's second run. He took a handoff on 2nd and goal from the 4 and was momentarily delayed by an arm around his legs, but he never fell to the ground. Legs churning, he burst out of the scrum and dove across the goal line for an apparent touchdown -- but an official had already blown his whistle, ruling that forward progress had been stopped. (This is non-reviewable, even if the official himself acknowledges the error.) Watching live I was sure a touchdown had been stolen, but after watching the replay a dozen times or so, I think Jones's knee was probably down before the ball broke the plane of the goal line. Even so, the Cardinal should've had 3rd and goal inside the 1; instead the ball was spotted at the 2.
An incompletion on the next play led to a field goal and a 3-0 Stanford lead. While this opening to the game was much better than last week's, I still lamented the four points left on the table. Heading into the game, Stanford's narrow hopes for an upset rested on their ability to play mistake-free football and take advantage of every scoring opportunity. The three points were nice, but the other four points loomed large.
The two offenses traded three-and-outs, and the Ducks came back out on the field, taking over at their own 35 midway through the 1st quarter. The scouting report on Oregon quarterback Anthony Brown, Jr., was that he was not going to beat the Cardinal with his arm, and his first three passes of the game fell incomplete. When he dropped back to pass on 3rd and 2, he rolled to his right and located his receiver in the flat, but he clearly didn't see linebacker Gabe Reid, who was lurking beneath the route. Brown's pass hit Reid in the hands, and the Cardinal had a crucial turnover.
McKee wasted no time. On 1st down from the Oregon 43, wide receiver Elijah Higgins lined up wide to the right and ran a simple pattern that we would see over and over from the Cardinal throughout the day. He ran at a defender who was giving him a ten-yard cushion then bent to the left on a post route. McKee had only to worry about a linebacker sitting underneath, but his pass was perfect, hitting a wide open Higgins in stride and producing an easy 25-yard gain to the Oregon 18. On the next play McKee looked to his left and found another favorite target, Brycen Tremayne, streaking down the sideline in single coverage. McKee zipped the ball to Tremayne's back shoulder, and the former walk-on went up for the ball and out-wrestled his defender as he came down in the end zone for the touchdown and a 10-0 Stanford lead.
Oregon's next drive ended when Brown threw his fifth pass of the day without a completion on 3rd and 2, and the Cardinal took over deep in their own territory. But remember that rediscovered running game? Nathaniel Peat lined up deep behind McKee on 1st down, and by the time McKee had handed him the ball, it was already clear a big gain was coming. The left side of the offensive line, along with help from fullback Houston Heimuli, had opened a wide gap in the Oregon defense, and Peat hit it hard, bursting untouched into the open field for a 23-yard gain. Thirteen more yards from McKee to Higgins pushed the ball close to midfield, but the drive reached a decision point when Jones came up short of the marker on 3rd down, bringing up 4th and 1 at the Oregon 45.
There are probably three distinct categories of criticism routinely leveled at David Shaw. Fans are frustrated by the conservative nature of the offense, they're concerned about player development, and they abhor his tendency to punt or kick field goals instead of keeping the offense out on the field in situations where analytics (or common sense) might dictate otherwise. The criticism has become so consistent that Shaw even opened his Tuesday press conference by defensively explaining his rational on a few specific plays from the UCLA game.
Agree or disagree with him, his decisions are rarely surprising, so it was no surprise when he kept McKee and company out on the field here. If he has a two score lead with the ball on the plus side of the field, Shaw will always go for it on 4th and short. So McKee took the snap, dove into the right side of the pile, then left the decision to the whims of an official who would make his best guess as to where to spot the ball. It's always bothered me that some of the most important plays in football are decided on guesswork as an official does his best to determine where the ball might have been was when a runner was stopped, and so it was here. The official ran in from the sidelines, a butterfly flapped its wings in China, and the ball was placed a foot or so beyond the original line of scrimmage. When the chains were brought out onto the field (because that's the technology we should be using in 2021), it was scientifically determined that McKee had been one inch shy of the 1st down. (Shaw would then challenge the spot, but that's kind of like challenging the number of peas in a bowl of pea soup. It didn't work.)
So instead of continuing down the field and putting more points on the board -- perhaps even grabbing a 17-0 lead -- Stanford gave the ball back to Oregon. After spending almost the entire 1st quarter without completing a pass, Brown was three for three for 31 yards on this drive and ran the ball three times, the last being a three-yard touchdown run to cut the lead to 10-7. That sequence of events was exactly what I had feared, a missed opportunity for the Cardinal followed by points -- and new life -- for the Ducks.
It was the perfect opportunity for the Oregon defense to come up with a big stop and impose their will on the game, but instead it was the Stanford offense that responded, producing its longest drive (by time and snaps) of the game. It took 12 plays for the Cardinal to move methodically down field, with the biggest chunk of yards coming on a 15-yard pass interference penalty that converted a 3rd and 1.
Midway through the drive, the game became unimportant for a moment. McKee found Brycen Tremayne over the middle for 15 yards and a 1st down, but when the camera found Tremayne he was screaming in pain and his foot was rotated ninety degrees. The telecast broke away from the horrific scene, but when the network returned from the commercial break, the entire Stanford team was on the field, surrounding Tremayne as he was lifted onto a cart and driven off the field.
Tremayne's backstory doesn't make this any more or less tragic, but his rise from walk-on obscurity to the top of the depth chart has been stunning. His five touchdowns are second in the Pac-12, and after the game David Shaw described him as "on his way to becoming one of the best receivers in America." But if there was any doubt about the severity of his injury, Shaw let something slip, following up his praise with "we'll see how bad it is, and if he comes back next year..." The whole thing was heartbreaking.
In what is always one of the more difficult and disconcerting moments of a football game, Tremayne's cart was barely off the field when the two teams dug in again at the line of scrimmage, with Stanford players no doubt struggling to push thoughts of their teammate out of their minds in order to focus on the next play.
The ball was on the Oregon 28, and the Cardinal offense would stay on the ground the rest of the way. McKee scrambled for 6 yards, Jones gained 11 on two carries, and then Peat rushed twice for nine to bring up 3rd and goal at the 2. Enter Isaiah Sanders.
Probably no aspect of the Stanford offense under David Shaw has been as controversial as the wildcat. Actually, it probably isn't right to call it controversial, because that term implies disagreement, and the wildcat is almost universally derided as a waste of a down. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the wildcat in all its iterations, but this year's version could be the best. (Scratch that. The best was when Kelsey Young was running jet sweeps in front of Tyler Gaffney.)
Anyway, Sanders's time as an option quarterback at the Air Force Academy gives him the experience to be patient when he takes the snap, and he showed that here, pausing for just a second before spotting the opening in the right side of the line and accelerating into the end zone for the touchdown. Stanford 17, Oregon 7.
I like plays that work, and the wildcat works. What I'm really waiting for, however, is when Sanders throws a pass out of this look. He completed more than sixty percent of his passes in 2018, so I think it's only a matter of time before Shaw and Tavita Pritchard are ready to break tendency and allow Sanders to throw the ball. You heard it here first.
Two punts later Oregon looked to put points on the board before the close of the half. A long, almost-82-yard drive arrived at the doorstep of the Stanford end zone, and when tailback C.J. Vardell was stopped at the 1 on 3rd down, Oregon head coach Mario Cristobal had a decision to make, and just like Shaw earlier, he kept his offense out on the field. Even though he only needed a few feet, quarterback Anthony Brown lined up in the shotgun and looked to run the read option. The easy criticism is that Brown should've been under center, but I'm guessing teams put their quarterbacks back in the shotgun to give them space and an extra beat to read the defense. In this case, Brown read wrong. He kept the ball and was immediately overwhelmed by the Stanford front who dropped him for a one-yard loss.
With the half coming to a close, this goal line stand to deny the Ducks seven points they likely felt were already in their pockets was really no different than if the offense had scored a touchdown. In fact, it was better, as it allowed the much-maligned defense to head into the locker room on a high note.
Things were different in the second half. The defense continued to play well enough to win, but the offense would make things difficult. After both teams went three and out on their first possessions of the second half, the Ducks took advantage of a short field courtesy of a rare bad punt from Stanford's Ryan Sanborn. It took just eight plays to cover 48 yards, but much more concerning than the seven points was the rhythmic nature of the drive -- six solid runs and two completed passes. Stanford still held a 17-14 lead, but it certainly felt like momentum had changed, and it was difficult not to look back at all the missed opportunities from the first half.
The Ducks followed another Stanford three and out with a field goal, and the game was tied heading to the 4th quarter.
The Cardinal offense had earned its first 1st down of the half on the final play of the 3rd quarter, but it wasn't long before they were punting the ball back to the Ducks and all of us were wondering if we were about to watch the game slip away.
You were either perched on your seat in Stanford Stadium or sitting comfortably on your couch, but I was at a friend's birthday party. There were a handful of other Stanford alums on the guest list, but since most of them had the social skills of normal adults, they were able to have conversations and catch up with friends while occasionally checking in on the score. But I didn't bother pretending -- because long ago I realized I'm never going to outgrow this. I am who I am.
So while the Cardinal offense was sputtering, so was I. I sat alone or stood and paced. Occasionally I'd mutter something to myself or gesture towards the screen, and the normal people would indulge me for a minute by asking about a player they remembered from two years ago or giving me their thoughts on David Shaw, and then they'd return to adult conversation. They might've been talking about me, but I honestly didn't care.
So I’m at a friend’s delayed 50th birthday party. I’m the jerk ignoring everyone else and watching the game.
— Go Mighty Card (@GoMightyCard) October 2, 2021
So the Ducks took over at their own 20 with 11:43 left to play, and it felt like the game was about to be decided one way or the other. It seemed crucial that the defense make one more quick stop to give the Stanford offense time to do something -- anything -- but it wasn't to be. After giving up big plays in each of the first four games, the Stanford defense had limited the Ducks to just 17 points thus far in part because they had avoided the breakdowns that had been plaguing them. But on 3rd and 6 from the Oregon 24, wide receiver Mycah Pittman ran a simple drag route across the line of scrimmage, trailing Kyu Blu Kelly behind him as he ran from left to right. Brown hit him in stride, Pittman was able to skip out of Kelly's diving tackle attempt, and he was off to the races, directing his blockers as he sprinted up the sidelines for a 66-yard gain. Two plays later Brown was sauntering into the end zone to give his Ducks their first lead of the afternoon at 24-17, and it was impossible not to think that the day was done.
The outlook was dim after that touchdown, but the clouds really rolled in after McKee was sacked on 1st down and the Cardinal eventually punted after their third three and out in four second half possessions. Oregon had the lead and the ball and Stanford's heart with 7:10 to play. There would still be plenty of time left for a comeback if the defense could come up with a stop, but the Ducks began rattling off 1st downs, each another nail in the Cardinal's coffin.
The Ducks had the ball on 1st and 10 at the Stanford 39 with 2:21 to play, and victory was certain. David Shaw still had three timeouts in his pocket, but that didn't seem to matter. He'd probably use them, but it would be a fruitless exercise. The Cardinal had certainly made strides in the 24-17 loss, but it was still a loss, and given the missed opportunities from the first half, the narrow margin would sting even more. It was disappointing.
And then the Ducks started to implode. Consecutive false start penalties pushed them back into 1st and 20 at the Stanford 49, but surely that didn't matter. They could run the ball three times, force Shaw to burn his three timeouts, then pin them deep with two minutes to play and no way to stop the clock. But on 2nd and 18 the Ducks did something inexplicable -- Brown dropped back to pass and threw incomplete, stopping the clock. It seemed a small thing at the time, but again -- it probably wouldn't matter. Would it?
So Shaw would only have to burn two timeouts instead of three, and the Cardinal got the ball back at their own 13 with 1:53 to play. I suppose there was hope, but this was an offense that had produced 39 total yards in the entire second half; it seemed a bit much to ask them to somehow come up with 87 yards in the final two minutes. After an incompletion from McKee, the offensive line picked up Stanford's fifth false start of the game, bringing up 2nd and 15 from the 8. On the next snap? Another false start and they were at the 4.
A quick note about all those false starts. As one flag after another fluttered in Stanford's direction, Shaw grew increasingly angry and was just about as livid with the officials as I've ever seen him. He opened his postgame press conference by explaining that while the officials might've been calling the game as directed, he saw a need to look into what the Ducks were doing. He talked about "disconcerting signals," which means he believed the Oregon defenders were making noises that mimicked Tanner McKee's cadence and caused confusion with the linemen, tight ends, and receivers, all of whom drew penalties at one point or another.
I was pretty animated on the sidelines a couple times. I do believe the game was officiated well. There are some conversations I think we need to have, speaking as the head coach at Stanford but also as the guy who leads the rules committee for the NCAA. The definition of disconcerting signals, what constitutes that foul, those are the conversations that we were trying to have. We’ve never jumped offsides so much in a game. That I think needs to be talked about. It’ll be talked about behind closed doors, so don’t expect me to give you any answers. But that’s what I was animated about on the sidelines a couple times. I think we have to clarify that rule.
The next 92 yards and 111 seconds would clarify the state of the Stanford football program. The Oregon defense had been soft over the middle all afternoon, but now they were even softer as they tried to take away sideline patterns that could stop the clock. But that extra timeout allowed McKee to look over the middle, and he found John Humphreys on a seem route for 23 yards and a 1st down.
There was hope, but then there wasn't. McKee dropped back to pass on the next play and the pocket collapsed almost immediately. Kayvon Thibodeaux, the best pass-rushing defensive end in America, and another Oregon defender converged on McKee just after he released the ball, and the quarterback fell the ground in a heap. Thibodeaux's helmet had crashed into McKee's, and although the resulting targeting call gave the Cardinal another 15 yards and sent Oregon's best defensive player to the locker room, McKee also appeared to have been knocked out of the game. He limped off the field as Jack West jogged on, and all the air seemed to have left the building. The experienced West then scrambled for no gain rather than throwing the ball away, allowing precious seconds to spin off the clock -- but then McKee came racing back out onto the field like Clark Kent bursting from a phone booth as Superman.
McKee completed consecutive 13-yard passes to tight ends Ben Yurosek and Bradley Archer, both over the middle, and forced Oregon to stop the clock to regroup. Suddenly everything was possible again. Stanford had a 1st down at the Oregon 32 with 41 seconds to play and a timeout still in hand. Another Oregon mistake, this one a roughing the passer penalty, gave the Cardinal fifteen more yards, and after another pass to Yurosek it was suddenly 1st and goal at the Oregon 3. At the three!
Ever the gambler, Shaw held his timeout until after McKee took a two-yard loss on an ill-advised read option, then unleashed a relentless series of end zone fades. Incompletions on 2nd and 3rd downs left the Cardinal with five seconds and one more down to get their touchdown. Naturally, the call was for another jump ball into the end zone, but it fell incomplete and all appeared to be lost... and then the flag came fluttering into view.
It was a questionable call. Had the referees turned their backs on the play and jogged off the field, I'd have been disappointed and Shaw might've mentioned something about it postgame, but this surely wasn't textbook pass interference. If we're being honest, we have to admit that it could have gone either way.
Awarded one more untimed down, this time McKee went to the other side of the field and fired a dart over a defender's head and into the hands of the freakishly talented Elijah Higgins. Touchdown Cardinal.
It's hard to describe how preposterous it all was. Only moments earlier the win expectancy for the Cardinal had been 0.1% -- and that was probably rounding up from zero -- and now Stanford and Oregon were heading to overtime. (Oh, in case you were wondering, Shaw never once thought about going for two instead of kicking the extra point. Not once.)
If the outlook heading into overtime was less than bright -- it never seems like a good idea to go toe-to-toe with an Oregon offense -- it was orders of magnitude brighter than it had been twenty minutes earlier. The Cardinal started with the ball first and picked up where they had left off, quickly earning a 1st down and moving into striking distance. On 3rd and 11 from the 14, once again taking what the Ducks were giving over the middle, McKee found wide receiver John Humphreys at the 6. Listed at 6'5" and 209, Humphreys has already proven to be difficult to take down, but this will likely be his signature play in that regard. He pounded through one tackler to get past the 1st down marker, then bullied his way through two more to get into the end zone. Miraculously, Lazarus had risen. The Cardinal had the lead.
UPDATE: Now I’m the jerk who’s shamelessly yelling and screaming during my friend‘s party. https://t.co/J49IMhVAxF
— Go Mighty Card (@GoMightyCard) October 2, 2021
Not much earlier the Oregon offense had had a chance to put the game on ice, but now they were in the unlikely position of trying to prolong it. After an incomplete pass, a short run, and then a one-yard loss, it was 4th and 8. Brown scrambled out to his right and zipped a pass towards Mycah Pittman along the right sideline. Pittman made the catch for what might've been a 1st down, but he landed clearly out of bounds and the game was over. Stanford 31, Oregon 24.
Stanford had no business winning this game, but sometimes its the unlikeliest of victories that transform a season. Many challenges lie ahead for this team, beginning this week in Tempe, Arizona, but all of the goals are still intact. Saturday's triumph gives the Cardinal a win over the conference powerhouse and a leg up in the Pac-12 North. This is a team that most experts picked to finish fourth or fifth in the division, a team that oddsmakers expected to win only three games. Right now, at the very least, they are contenders for the division crown.