Nov. 10, 2002
USC QB Carson Palmer set the USC record for career touchdown passes when he threw his 58th and 59th in the first quarter. Palmer tied the record with a 17-yard touchdown pass to Keary Colbert with 11:16 remaining, and broke the mark with an 8-yard strike to Mike Williams with 1:54 left in the first quarter. The old mark of 58 was held by Rob Johnson. Palmer threw two more touchdown passes, and finished the day with 61 career TD passes. Palmer finished the day 22-of-32 for 317 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions.Carson Palmer threw four touchdown passes, giving him a total of 13 in his last three games.USC WR Kareem Kelly's third quarter reception extended his streak of consecutive games with a catch to 44. The NCAA record is 46.Stanford QB Kyle Matter completed his first 15 passes of the game to fall just short of the Pac-10 record of 17 set by Rick Neuheisel of UCLA in 1984. Dating back to last week's game against Oregon, Matter had completed 21 straight passes, which fell two short of the Pac-10 record of 23 set by USC's Rob Johnson in 1994.USC snapped a three-game losing streak against the Cardinal with the victory. The three-game winning streak was the Cardinal's longest over the Trojans since it also won three straight from 1955-57.In the first half, Stanford QB Kyle Matter and USC QB Carson Palmer combined to go 24-of-27 for 214 yards and three touchdowns.Senior Kerry Carter had 74 yards rushing to increase his career total to 1,925. Carter is 75 yards away from becoming the seventh player in Stanford history to rush for 2,000 career yards.Stanford senior Ryan Wells had 150 yards in kickoff returns to give him a career total of 1,855. Wells is 95 yards short of the school record of 1,950 held by Damon Dunn (1994-96).The Trojans' Mike Williams set the Pacific-10 Conference freshman record for receptions in a season with 57. Williams had eight catches for 94 yards and a touchdown to shatter the old record of 55 set by Washington's Reggie Williams in 2001.USC scored 40-plus points for the third straight game, marking the first time it has done that since the last game of 1994 and the first two games of 1995. It also marked the first time it has had three consecutive 40-plus point games in the same season since 1972, and the first time it has had four 40-plus point games in a season since 1979.For the fourth time in as many home games, Stanford held its opponent to under 100 yards rushing. USC finished with 87 yards on 29 carries.Stanford concludes its 2002 home schedule next Saturday (November 16) against Oregon State at 2:00 p.m.The 10 members of the Stanford University Athletic Hall of Fame Induction Class of 2002, who were formally inducted Friday night, were honored at halftime. The induction class includes James Bergeson (water polo), George Haines (women's swimming coach), Ceci Hopp (track/cross country), Dan Goldie (tennis), Jon Louis (gymnastics), Jon Root (volleyball), Wendi Rush (volleyball), Ed Sprague (baseball), Katy Steding (basketball) and Roger Stillwell (football).