Stanford offense lights up the Wildcats 41-31 in KJ Costello’s Return

With KJ Costello back, the Stanford offense looked much stronger and more capable.

Arizona got the ball first and struck first with a 29 yard Lucas Havrisik field goal. The Cardinal quickly responded with a touchdown strike on a 1-yard Cameron Scarlett rush. After exchanging punts, the Wildcats took out QB Khalil Tate for QB Grant Gunnell. The Texas native was 3 for 3 as he lead the Wildcats on a 65 yard touchdown drive. The Cardinal responded with QB KJ Costello throwing the ball seven straight times. The drive was punctuated with an incredible one handed circus catch by WR Brycen Tremaine.

Arizona would get the ball back and return the ball after a 3 and out. The shootout soon began afterwards as the Cardinal repeatedly ran over the Arizona defense with runs of 12 yards, 22 yards, 19 yards, and a touchdown run of 8 yards punctuated by the occasional QB KJ Costello pass.

The Wildcats quickly responded. After a 18-yard RB J.J. Taylor run, QB Khalil Tate took one to the house on his legs.

It also didn’t take long for the Costello and the offense to respond. After a series of short runs and passes, Costello found WR Simi Fehoko for 44 yards.

QB Khalil Tate and crew chewed away at the Stanford defense for another touchdown before Stanford quickly marched down the field in 1 minute, 34 seconds on a series of short strikes to end the half with a field goal with the score 31 Stanford-24 Arizona.

The second half started with the Cardinal in control with the ball but QB KJ Costello caught his own pass after being tipped and Costello attempted to throw the ball again once more. This was called for illegal forward pass which set the Cardinal back 17 yards back as twelve yards came from where Costello threw it the second time and five yards came from the penalty.

The Cardinal punted and this gave the Wildcats the chance to once again dice the Stanford defense up for a touchdown scoring drive to tie the game 31-31. However, Costello once again found Simi Fehoko for 14 yards in the end zone to regain the lead.

After exchanging a series of punts, the Arizona Wildcats got the ball only for QB Khalil Tate to throw an interception to CB Paulson Adebo which he returned to the Stanford 37.

The Cardinal marched down the field but the drive stalled right outside the Arizona endzone. Stanford would settle for a field goal. On the ensuing drive, the Wildcats would turn it over on downs. The Cardinal would punt after multiple rushing attempts to end the game. QB Khalil Tate and crew got the ball and march down to the Stanford 30 before throwing another interception to CB Paulson Adebo.

QB K.J. Costello would kneel to end the game.

The Cardinal offensive line surprisingly didn’t allow a single sack in the game and RB Cameron Scarlett had his first multi-touchdown game. WR Simi Fehoko had a breakout game as he recorded two touchdown grabs compared to his previous total of only one touchdown grab. 12 different Cardinal grabbed passes (if you count KJ Costello).

Coach David Shaw said of WR Simi Fehoko, “...This has been coming since the first time we saw him his sophomore year in Utah in high school. The young man is tall. He’s long. He’s got a sneaky stride. You don’t think he’s running as fast as he is, but he ran 4.3 for us in the spring...”

WR Simi Fehoko felt that the game had “slowed down“. He stated “I felt it today. It changed for me. A lot during the season, I’ve felt that I’m rushed. I rush myself. But today, it finally slowed down.”

What’s Next: The Cardinal have a much needed bye week. Coach David Shaw stated that the Cardinal would usually rest the experienced players and play more of the inexperienced players but injures have caused the Cardinal to rest everyone with only two short practices scheduled. The next game is an away game against the Colorado Buffaloes.