The Stanford Cardinal (8-4 / 6-3 PAC 12) finished their season exactly as they had hoped, by retaining “The Axe” with a 23-13 win on the road over their arch-rival CAL (7-5 / 4-5 PAC 12). The victory extends the longest winning streak in the 127 year history of the rivalry to nine games, and continues Stanford head coach David Shaw’s incredible perfect record of 8-0 vs. the extremely disliked (Not ‘hated’, as there is no more room left in the world for that word) Bears. Believe it or not that means more to coach Shaw than anyone, as he was a three sport athlete on The Farm long before he was the football Field General.
In regard to Coach Shaw’s ’18 regiment, it was the defense that played big in this, the 121st Big Game. Stanford super sophomore cornerback Paulson Adebo (4 tackles / 2 INT / 2 PD) made two clutch 4th quarter interceptions, one a circus grab in the endzone to prevent the tying score. He is not a star in the making any longer, he is simply a star.
Senior linebackers Bobby Okereke (14 tackles / 1 sack / 1 TFL / 1 PD) and Sean Barton (10 tackles / 2 QBH / 1 fumble recovered) were the other two key players defensively that helped produce this ideal result for the Cardinal. It is only fitting that these two seniors played their best games in their last Big Game, as they have both given their heart and soul to the Stanford program over these past years.
Cardinal sophomore outside linebacker Gabe Reid (5 tackles / 3 TFL / 2 sacks / 1 QBH) also had an impressive day on the gridiron. Alongside Adebo, junior OLB Jordan Fox (6 tackles / 1 QBH), junior safety Malik Antoine (6 tackles / 1 PD), and junior defensive end Jovan Swann (2 tackles / 1 QBH), Reid will be expected to help lead this defense in ’19.
The Stanford offense as a whole could never quite find their rhythm in this contest, but as he always seems to, senior all-conference wideout J.J. Arcega-Whiteside (5 receptions / 109 yards / 21.8 YPR) made enough big plays to come out on top. JAW$ as he is referred to on The Farm, has an amazing ability to use his body to create space, as well as some of the best hands in college football. He will be an asset to whichever NFL franchise scoops him up next year, likely in the 1st or 2nd round of the draft.
Cardinal junior quarterback K.J. Costello (18 for 29 passing / 237 yards / 1 TD / 71.7 QBR) had an effective day behind center, and while he missed a few throws along the way, he most importantly did not turn the ball over. Coming back in 2019, Costello is expected to be the top QB in the conference.
Stanford senior All-World running back Bryce Love (22 carries / 74 yards / 3.4 YPC / 2 receptions / 19 yards / 9.5 YPR) has played injured all season, and looked like a shell of himself in this matchup. All the same, he has created a legendary legacy on The Farm, and along with all the other seniors finishes 4-0 vs. their arch-enemy CAL.
One of those fellow seniors, jack-of-all-trades RB/WR/KR/special teamer Cameron Scarlett (4 carries / 12 yards / 1 TD / 3.0 YPC / 3 receptions / 54 receiving yards / 1 receiving TD / 18.0 YPR / 1 KR for 27 yards), again did the dirty work for his side. With Love battling a severe injury all year, Scarlett always showed up to work with his boots laced tight. I have a great deal of respect for his toughness, athleticism, and humble nature.
For the Bears, it was without question a quality defensive performance. Junior LB Evan Weaver (15 tackles / 1 PD) has been one of the best linebackers in the PAC-12 all year, and he had another impressive effort against the Cardinal on Saturday.
Going forward Stanford (8-4) plays Pitt (7-6) in the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas on December 31st, which will make this a great New Year Holiday for the entire Stanford faithful. Separately, CAL (7-5) will play TCU (6-6) in the Cheez-It Bowl on 12/26 in Phoenix.
As always, win or lose, ROLL RED.
Comments
Vintage. Shaw. Football.
Watching this game was like wearing an old pair of jeans. Shaw finally got back to playing his style of football:
1. Get a lead;
2. Play great defense;
3. Run the ball.
35 runs, 29 passes, and we win by 10 (really 17 if you don’t count that garbage time TD). By contrast, Cal also ran in it 35 times, but threw it 39. It didn’t even matter that we got out rushed and Cal had more total yardage. Heck, Stanford only averaged 2.6 yards a carry compared to Cal’s 4.4. But running the ball allowed Stanford to win the time of possession by 5 minutes. By the 4th quarter, Shaw & co. forced Cal to throw the ball and Adebo gets two picks, the second sealing the game (why did I know Stanford was going to turn it over after the 1st?). Imagine if we gave Cal 5 more minutes of possession and took away those two 4th quarter interceptions because Cal had time to keep running the ball?
For me, this was a classic example of how the run game helps the defense and vice versa. Despite running more than passing and not even getting 3 yards a carry, Stanford put up more points on Cal than both UW and WSU. Keeping Cal out of the end-zone allowed Shaw to keep running the ball despite only having a 7 point lead for most of the game. It was refreshing to see Shaw be able to have faith in his defense and systematically dictate the pace of the game. I wish Shaw had tried running the ball more against WSU, but I can imagine he did not have faith in his defense, which makes me wonder if that was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
A perfect contrast to the Stanford v Cal game is the UW vs Cal game. Petersons wasn’t happy with a lead (albeit by 1 point), so he swapped his QB who promptly threw a pick six, Cal’s only TD of the entire game. Peterson had the conference’s best defense against the conference’s worst offense and should have forced Cal to prove it could outscore him in the 2nd half. But if you watched the Utah game, Peterson learned his lesson. Browning and the UW offense manage a single field goal against a Utah team without its starting QB, RB, and WR, but Peterson does not switch QBs and lets his defense win it for him.
By Blackjoy on 12.03.18 2:08pm
3 things
I kind of disagree on three of your points.
First, Shaw only had more faith in his defense against Cal because their offense is much weaker than WSU’s. I think his game plan against WSU was correct. The fact that we lost the WSU game doesn’t prove that passing more against WSU was the wrong strategy. I continue to think if we had run more against WSU that we would have lost by more than the ultimate 3 point margin.
Second, I think you are partially confusing cause and effect with the running game. Yes, running the ball helps burn the clock. In my view, we didn’t win the game because we ran the ball more. We ran the ball more because we were winning, thanks, in large part to a very successful pass play to Scarlett.
Third point and it’s really minor, but Stanford’s offense, in my view, only scored 16 points. I don’t count the last Stanford TD since it was essentially a pick-6. So WSU’s offense outscored our offense vs. Cal (unless they also had a turnover deep in Cal territory, in which case you would be right.)
By brandtjl1 on 12.03.18 2:50pm
"First, Shaw only had more faith in his defense against Cal because their offense is much weaker than WSU’s."
That’s false. Shaw, by default, has faith in his defense until his defense proves it’s not working. Until the Oregon game, the Stanford defense was exceptionally good. Against WSU, Shaw definitely came in with a shoot-out mentality. I think Shaw’s mistake against WSU was that once he got the lead, he exhibited no faith in his defense to hold it. Instead of running the ball and shortening the game, he kept throwing it. Had he run the ball more, and kept his defense off the field, more, they might have played better. You realize that in both halves, Minshew drove the length of the field in like 60 seconds and kicked field goals. One extra running play might have eliminated that extra time. But we we can’t know. What we do know is that we gave up the second most points that we have all year (UCLA scored 42) and we gave up the 3rd most points to WSU inside the conference. UA and ORST were the only worse schools. Shaw’s game plan didn’t work and I have zero faith that it would work if we tried it again.
I’m not confusing cause and effect at all. I think you’re exhibiting tunnel vision with regard to the totality of the circumstances. Shaw got a one TD lead, and then he started running the ball. That’s exactly how he uses the running game. What’s more, he ran the ball when it statistically wasn’t working. He ran the ball when we were in 3rd and long. He ran the ball when they knew we were running the ball. He ran the ball despite Costello not getting picked off. That’s his MO. That gave more rest to the defense and shortened the game. It’s not like we we were up by 21 at half. We got up on WSU by more than that and Shaw did not run the ball. Running the ball is a critical part of how Stanford become relevant in the conference. Against Cal, he went back to it, despite clinging to a one possession lead into the 4th quarter and the running game not really working. It’s not like we have a lights out defense and Shaw knew Cal wouldn’t score. Shaw’s decision to run the ball was a deliberate choice on his part to play the style of football he is most comfortable with, and one that typically gets the most complaints from people who only have a superficial understanding of football.
In all its victories, Stanford has gotten takeways. In UW’s victory, against Stanford, they got a pick and ran it part of the way back and set up a TD. Against Utah, they got a pick six on us. Cal leads the Pac-12 in pick sixes. Defense getting takeaways and generating points or setting up easy socres is 100% part of a team’s ability to put points on the scoreboard and win the game. What you’re overlooking is that we didn’t get picks until the 4th quarter, when Cal was starting to feel the pressure of the clock. Why? Because Shaw had already shown his propensity to run the ball and drain the clock. You may not be aware of this, but that puts pressure on the opposing OC’s. When the opposing coach knows Shaw is stubborning going to run the ball and force them to use their timeouts, they start to press. The QB’s start pressing. That’s exactly when you start making turnovers.
By Blackjoy on 12.03.18 3:36pm
OK, you make some pretty good points. Thanks!:)
By brandtjl1 on 12.03.18 3:42pm
This reminds me of a statistic that i often see which says...
…that a given team has a much better record when they run the ball at least 25 or 30 times a game, or more than the opponent. And the reason said team is running the ball more usually is that the team is ahead and trying to bleed the clock. And the team trying to catch up passes more. I"m not saying that it’s wrong for a team with a lead to run more. I’m just saying that running more as a game plan doesn’t actually create more victories. All else equal—in other words, if you don’t jump out to a 10-0 lead against a team with an ineffective offense—you are not going to win a lot of games averaging less than 3 yards per rush.
By brandtjl1 on 12.03.18 3:02pm
Why Shaw ran the ball on 3rd and long...
If that’s true, what statistics will lend credence to it?
How would you show this in terms of football stastics?
One of the things I think the vast majority of people don’t get about running the ball, is that it keeps your QB from getting stripped sacked and or injured In your example, when a team is down by 10. By the 4th quarter, the opposing team is going to start blitzing. Theyopposing DBs are going to start trying to jump routes. Throwing the ball plays right into that gambling. By running the ball, you totally or nearly eliminate the probability your QB gets sacked, fumbling, and throwing INTs. I’ll bet dollars to donuts, the propensity to run the ball with the lead significantly improves the win%
In last night Colt’s game, Indy was losing 6-0 to Jacksonville. On one of the Jaguar’s last possessions in the 4th quarter, they tried to have the QB pass the ball on 3rd down to try and ice the game. The QB got sacked and fumbled the ball with the lineman on top of him. By pure lock the QB was able to recover the ball. But had he failed, Indy would have been on the Jags 35 or so and easily could have stolen that game in the 4th quarter.
In discussing this topic, I realized something that hadn’t occurred to me (and is why I engage in these discussions). The reason why Shaw chooses to run the ball on so many 3rd & longs on Stanford’s side of the field is to eliminate the chance a blitz or route-jumping DB creates a turnover. Like so many, I have been perplexed on the times that Shaw simply concedes a 3 & 12. But it makes sense if you recognize that this is when a team is most likely to sack a QB (from a blitz or simple break down of pass protection) and as such, Shaw is going risk-averse: the negative of a possible a turnover outweighs the positive of a possible first down,at this point on the field. While this may seem obvious on the surface, in my mind, it’s a higher level of gamesmanship. Shaw is systematically trying to eliminate the other team getting lucky.
A lot of NFL teams run the ball despite not having potent running attacks. The reasons are several, but they include giving your defense rest, keeping the opposing defense honest, and most certainly reducing the hits on your QB and opportunities for turnovers.
But yeah, the score differential totally influences the run/pass ratio for most coaches (Leach being one of those exceptions).
By Blackjoy on 12.03.18 4:05pm
To be clear
I wasn’t saying that Shaw was wrong to run the ball on Saturday on third and long when Stanford was up vs. Cal. I thought that made sense given the ineptitude of the Bears’ offense. I’m just not as certain that the strategy would have worked as well against the Cougars. But you know a lot more about football than I do. And I understand your point that more running plays against Washington State would have made it harder for them to close the two (?) touchdown deficit and that WSU’s and that we were having success with the run with them. . But I felt that the most important thing against the Cougars was to put 6 points on the board every time we had the ball, and I thought, perhaps mistakenly, that we had the best chance to do that with passing. And it was my impression that the run game was working because our passing success made them take defenders out of the box, which helped the run.
By brandtjl1 on 12.03.18 5:39pm
" But I felt that the most important thing against the Cougars was to put 6 points on the board every time we had the ball.."
I think Shaw may have thought the same thing going into the game. At the time, I had similar thoughts, so I don’t fault Shaw a priori. I think another element is that WSU’s DBs are statistically terrible, so I think Pritchard/Shaw knew we could throw it early and often against WSU. They were 100% right. It was only after looking at how that game unfolded did I gain a new appreciation for how important it is to run the ball. I would wager that if Shaw could do it over, he would have run the ball more once he got the lead. But again, I can only criticize in hindsight.
Usually that can be true. The way we’d verify that is by going back to the game film. How often do we catch WSU with the safeties deep and the LB’s playing a read defense versus a run or pass? I think one of my criticisms of the play calling and/or checkdowns by Costello is that we rarely seem to hand-off on the run/pass/option plays with Love next to Costello. I feel like Costello could hand it off a few more times.
I don’t think I know more, I am just evaluating things differently.
By Blackjoy on 12.03.18 6:59pm
checkdowns
Good points as usual. I base this on nothing statistical, but I get the sense that when he changes the play at the line of scrimmage that we usually don’t do very well. I seem to recall Shaw saying that was one of Luck’s underappreciated skills at Stanford was getting us out of the wrong play and into the right one. It feels to me that Costello doesn’t have that same skill, but I’m really basing that on a gut impression rather than any true study. I never rewatch a game.
By brandtjl1 on 12.03.18 7:13pm
Probably not comparable
I can’t tell because when we had Luck and Hogan, we had a much better running game. If Costello was being supported by a better running game, he might check to more running plays.
By Blackjoy on 12.03.18 8:16pm
got it, good point, thanks.
By brandtjl1 on 12.03.18 8:39pm
Schedule for next season
was released.
Not making it easy on ourselves — three non conference games are Northwestern (home), UCF (road) and of course ND (home).
Kind of the opposite approach to Wazzu and Bama.
By Brendan Ross on 12.04.18 9:35am