Bad-Ugly-Good: Taking stock of 9-5 Stanford

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Jan. 6, 2018

When time came to view the Alamo Bowl, I returned to the joint near my childhood home where I watched Stanford squeak past Oregon State in a perilous Thursday-night road game in October and where I saw the Cardinal claim a 30-22 home upset over Washington in November.

• The Bad 

Stanford’s defense never sacked Kenny Hill and had trouble pressuring him at all. The Horned Frogs passer racked up 401 combined yards passing, running and receiving and had a hand in all four of TCU’s offensive touchdowns. But the real issue here was what happened in the second half of the Alamo Bowl — that is, crunch time.

Stanford led 21-10 at halftime and trailed slightly in offensive yardage, 155-167. The Cardinal offense scored 16 more points and upped its yardage to 199 in the second half.

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Frogs nip Cardinal, 39-37, in entertaining Alamo Bowl clash

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Dec. 31, 2017

Stanford’s 2017 football season came to a disappointing conclusion Thursday night with a 39-37 loss to Texas Christian University in the Valero Alamo Bowl.

The Cardinal finished 9-5, only the second time in head coach David Shaw’s seven seasons that the team failed to reach double-digit wins. The Horned Frogs moved to 11-3, a record that includes two losses to playoff contender Oklahoma.

Scoring opened after TCU quarterback Kenny Hill made an ill-advised throw while on the move. Junior free safety Frank Buncom read his intentions and raced in from the right side to intercept the ball, which he returned 37 yards to the Frogs 23-yard line.

Bad-Ugly-Good: Taking stock of 9-4 Stanford

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Dec. 6, 2017

I had a good time watching the Pac-12 football championship game. I just wish the outcome had been different…

• The Bad 

Stanford’s strongest defensive group is probably its secondary. Going into last week’s game, the Cardinal ranked fifth in the league in passing defense, allowing 220 yards per game and 15 touchdown receptions. As noted last week, Stanford has intercepted 16 passes, which ranked 10th in the nation.

Cardinal falls short, 31-28, in its rematch with USC in the conference championship game

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Dec. 5, 2017

A mistake-prone Cardinal lost 31-28 to USC in the Pac-12 football championship game Friday night.

The result gave the South Division its first league title in the seven years since the Pac-10 added Colorado and Utah. The Trojans, who finished the regular season 11-2, won their first conference crown since 2008; they will play Big 10 champion Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl in Arlington, Texas. Stanford, which fell to 3-1 in conference title bouts and 9-4 on the season, will face Texas Christian University in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio.

USC received the opening kickoff and reached the Stanford 43-yard line before a pair of incomplete Sam Darnold passes forced them to punt. The Cardinal, dressed in all-white uniforms with brand-new helmets featuring a chrome Stanford logo, gained five yards on a pair of Bryce Love runs and an incomplete K.J. Costello pass attempt before giving the ball back.

Bad-Ugly-Good: Taking stock of 9-3 Stanford

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 29, 2017

After Stanford was thoroughly routed in Seattle last fall, I took a meandering walk around the Durham Bulls baseball stadium. I covered more than two miles over the course of nearly 40 minutes. I was rather perturbed, and I needed to calm myself down.

After Stanford took down Notre Dame to close out the regular season with a resounding 38-20 victory, I rambled around a similar area, this time going nearly 2.6 miles in about 41 minutes.

Fourth-quarter turnovers doom Irish in Stanford’s regular-season finale

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 28, 2017

Stanford scored three touchdowns in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter to take control of a game against visiting Notre Dame on Saturday evening.

The Cardinal football team pounced on a pair of Fighting Irish turnovers to convert a 20-17 deficit at the start of the final period into a 38-20 lead with a little more than 10 minutes left in the contest. Stanford went on to win by that score.

The Irish opened scoring late in the first quarter on a short throw from quarterback Brandon Wimbush. His target was receiver Kevin Stepherson, who began the play in a cluster of three men split wide right of the formation. Stepherson worked his way inside on a shallow route, feinted a move to the outside that wrong-footed strong safety Justin Reid and inside linebacker Kevin Palma, and caught the pigskin around the 30-yard line as Reid dove in a futile attempt to knock the ball away. No other defender was remotely close, and Stepherson went the distance for an 83-yard touchdown without having to put the pedal to the metal.

Bad-Ugly-Good: Taking stock of 8-3 Stanford

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 24, 2017

For the third year running, I watched Big Game at a joint event held by area Stanford and Cal alumni groups. For the second straight year, the watch party was at a sports bar in (the same) recently developed commercial center in an area that some five to 10 years ago was probably forest and/or farmland.

During the event, I won a replica of the Golden Spike, which was used to complete the first transcontinental railroad in 1869.

• The Bad 

Tip of the Stanford ballcap to ace San Jose Mercury News sportswriter Jon Wilner for suggesting this item in a Wednesday post: Stanford has allowed opponents to rush for 1,889 yards in 11 games. That ranks sixth in the Pac-12 and 69th nationally out of 129 teams.

(Mind you, that number has come down slightly since Big Game, in which Cal ran for 155 yards.)

Grinding to glory: A gritty Love and efficient Costello lead the Cardinal to a narrow Big Game victory

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 21, 2017

A valiant effort from an injured Bryce Love and an efficient performance by K.J. Costello led Stanford’s football team to a 17-14 victory over Cal in the 120th Big Game on Saturday evening. The win was the eighth straight for the Cardinal over its traditional archrival, the longest streak by either team since they first met on the gridiron in San Francisco back in the spring of 1892.

Stanford moved to 8-3 overall and 7-2 in the Pac-12, while the Golden Bears dropped to 5-6 and 2-6. But the game was a close thing, despite the disparities in the team’s records.

Both offenses were 6 of 12 on third down, and both generated 5.9 yards per offensive play. While the host squad outgained the Bears on the ground, 193 yards to 155, the dueling quarterbacks were nearly even: Cal’s Ross Bowers threw for 182 yards, while Costello topped him by three yards. (Incidentally, both players are sophomores, and both wear No. 3.)

The Cardinal took a 3-0 lead on Jet Toner’s 42-yard field goal on the first series of the game, which was enabled by a 33-yard throw from Costello to junior wideout J.J. Arcega-Whiteside. The Bears answered with a 44-yarder by Matt Anderson on their first possession.

Bad-Ugly-Good: Taking stock of 7-3 Stanford

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 16, 2017

Being somewhat superstitious, and definitely a creature of habit, when Stanford hosted the Washington Huskies last Friday night, I went to watch the game at the same venue where I saw the Cardinal’s tenuous 15-14 road win over Oregon State in October. This is also the same place where I watched Stanford’s bruising 30-28 win at WSU in 2015 and the team’s amazing 26-20 home upset of second-ranked Oregon in 2013, so I guess it’s got a good pedigree.

• The Bad 

It really isn’t easy to find things to criticize in an upset of a top-10 team. But fine, since you asked…

As noted yesterday, after Washington narrowed the score to 30-22 late in the fourth quarter, the Cardinal had an opportunity to put the game away with just a field goal. Instead, the offense faltered following Bryce Love’s final rush of the game, which went for 35 yards and benefited from a 15-yard facemask penalty on the defense.

Hobbled Love and inspired defense carry Cardinal to a 30-22 upset victory over Washington

By Matthew E. Milliken
MEMwrites.wordpress.com
Nov. 15, 2017

Tailback Bryce Love ran for 166 yards and three touchdowns Friday evening to lead the Stanford football team to a 30-22 victory over Washington.

The Cardinal moved to 7-3 overall and 6-2 in the Pac-12 while handing the 8-2 Huskies only their second loss, both in conference road games. The upset kept Stanford alive in the conference’s North Division championship race but likely ended the league’s hopes of earning one of the four berths in the College Football Playoff.

Love’s performance came on a weekend when other Heisman Trophy front-runners faltered: Penn State’s Saquon Barkley managed 80 all-purpose yards and a pair of touchdowns in a home win over 4-6 Rutgers, while Notre Dame’s Josh Adams compiled just 40 yards in a 41-8 road loss at Miami. More impressively, Love recorded his yardage against the nation’s leader in total defense (240.9 yards per game). The Huskies defense, which had allowed only three rushing touchdowns through its first nine game, was also second in the nation in scoring defense (11.1 ppg) and sixth in rushing defense (91.1 ypg).

The most striking thing about Love’s evening, however, may have been that he enjoyed his stellar performance while still suffering from the tweaked ankle that he injured against Oregon.