CORVALLIS, Ore. – Kevin Hogan made the throw and Michael Rector made the catch. And Stanford broke away from Oregon State with a spectacular third-quarter play on the way to a 42-24 victory in Pac-12 North football action Friday night.
Hogan, who suffered a leg injury against USC last week, didn't get the starting nod until gametime. But he still produced two long touchdown passes and the pivotal 49-yard toss to Rector that gave Stanford a 28-17 lead midway through the third quarter.
But Stanford got some help from Christian McCaffrey, who put up Toby Gerhart-like numbers, and a home run from Barry Sanders. McCaffrey ran for a career-high 206 yards and Sanders unleashed a 65-yard clinching touchdown run for his second TD within a five-minute span.
No. 21 Stanford (3-1 overall, 2-0 Pac-12) followed a formula similar to the one it used in a 41-31 victory over USC. A back-and-forth first half was followed by a strong Cardinal defensive performance coupled with a dominant running game.
McCaffrey exceeded 100 yards rushing for the second consecutive game, gaining a career-high 206 yards on 30 carries, and had 303 all-purpose yards – doing a crucial job of taking the pressure off Hogan. Only a third-quarter fumble at the end of a long run marred his performance.
But the turning point came moments after Hogan had taken a couple of shots that seemed for a moment to send him into a more pronounced limp. But when he saw Rector sprinting down the right sideline, Hogan aggressively stepped into the throw and the deep pass somehow eluded two defenders.
That the ball was not batted down was baffling, and Rector's concentration was impressive despite the close coverage. As Rector made the catch, both defenders fell by the wayside and Rector ran alone upfield for the score.
Stanford had a gameplan that largely protected Hogan, who threw only 14 times, completing nine for 163 yards. But it worked because the offensive line was so sturdy. For instance, on a third-quarter touchdown drive, Stanford ran five plays – all runs – and gained from 7-14 yards each time. Barry Sanders carried 11 yards for the score, bulling over two defenders at the goal-line for a 35-17 lead.
"No issues with the ankle," said David Shaw, Stanford's Bradford M. Freeman Director of Football. "He wasn't as fast or as mobile as he could have been, but he was still mobile, able to move around the pocket and keep his eyes down the field."
Stanford turned the ball over twice and both led directly to Oregon State touchdowns, with the McCaffrey fumble launching an 80-yard Beaver drive that brought Oregon State back into the game, with a 40-yard touchdown pass from Seth Collins to Jordan Villamin with 13:21 left in the game, cutting the Oregon State deficit to 35-24.
But Sanders answered on the next play from scrimmage, going wide left, cutting upfield, stiff-arming a defender, and sprinting down the left sideline for the long score that gave Stanford a 42-24 lead with 13:00 left in the game. Devon Cajuste made a big downfield block to help create a seam to run through.
"We ran the ball very physically," Shaw said. "We've got a very physical offensive line that's jelling together and we've got some dynamic runners who can make plays."
Stanford rushed for 325 yards and held Oregon State (2-2, 0-1) to 111. It was McCaffrey who did the grunt work.
"What else can you say about Christian McCaffrey?, said Shaw. "He's physical, he's tough running between the tackles. He's fast and explosive and ready to make the big plays."
The teams matched each other with touchdowns for much of the first half, which ended with the Cardinal ahead, 21-17. At the outset of the third quarter, Stanford appeared to get the break it needed to break the game open when a shotgun snap bounced off the head of Oregon State quarterback Seth Collins. Stanford linebacker Joey Alfieri, whose father played at Oregon State in the early 1980s, recovered the ball at the Beaver 9.
However, Stanford went nowhere on three plays and Conrad Ukropina missed a field-goal try for the first time this season, from 28 yards at an angle from the right hashmark.
The potentially huge failure to score didn't end up that way. Stanford's defense halted the Beavers, as it would at crucial moments for the remainder of the game. Blake Martinez, the Pac-12's leading tackler, had 12 tackles, broke up a pass, and hurried Collins into another incompletion.
In the first half, McCaffrey ran 14 times for 88 yards, and Hogan tossed a 42-yard touchdown pass to tight end Austin Hooper.
Stanford never trailed in the half, scoring on its first possession 63 yards on nine plays on its first possession, with Remound Wright scoring the first of his two first-half touchdowns to open the scoring. Wright, who scored three times against USC last week, had five in 1 ½ quarters. On both touchdowns against the Beavers, Wright created his own space by breaking out of contact.
The Hooper touchdown came when he lined up in the slot and fellow tight end Dalton Schultz ran alongside on a go-route before clearing out the safety by cutting outside. This left Hooper with no defender over the top and he made the catch behind the defense.
Each time, Oregon State matched Stanford with a touchdown, creating a lot of problems with the versatility of dual-threat quarterback Collins and the up-tempo offense near the goal-line. Ryan Nall's 5-yard scoring run came during such a sequence, when he carried on three consecutive plays with such a quick pace between plays that Stanford was unable to get set.
Stanford took its third lead with help from a 38-yard pass to McCaffrey, who lined up in the backfield before releasing downfield and getting space with a hard cut across the middle to meet the pass. Wright's 2-yard run completed a 70-yard drive with 3:03 left.
Though the Beavers drew within 21-17 on a 24-yard field goal by Garrett Owens, it could have been worse for Stanford. Martinez halted the drive by hitting Collins on a third-down blitz, forcing an incompletion.
"It came down to us eventually executing our plays and trusting each other on defense," Martinez said.
Stanford's already-thin defensive line received yet another blow when anchor Aziz Shittu was lost to a leg injury in the second quarter and Brennan Scarlett, the graduate transfer from Cal, also did not return. That left guys like Nate Lohn, Jordan Watkins, and Torsten Rotto to anchor the front.
"I was telling them, they need to keep the guys off of me and make it that much easier for everyone else," Martinez said.
"Give a lot of credit to the character of this football team," Shaw said. "When one guy goes down, the next one comes in and plays really well. This is big-time college football and that's what you need. You have to recruit depth and thankfully, we have enough depth to get through a game like this."
The season-opening 16-6 loss seems like a distant memory, or at least one that seems like it came from a different Stanford team.
"We learned a couple of lessons," Shaw said. "If you don't play well on the road, teams can beat you, especially good well-coached teams like Northwestern. And No. 2, you can't let anybody else's voice get inside our locker room.
"We have to believe in ourselves, we have to trust each other, we have to get tight together when things are difficult and things get tough. And we have to stay humble when things are great. That's what winning football teams do."
Stanford is looking more and more like such a team. The Cardinal gets an extra day off before taking on Arizona on Oct. 3 in a Pac-12 home opener at Stanford Stadium. It needs it, having played two games in seven days.
"It was a pretty brutal week, especially after how tough and physical that first game was," Shaw said. "Our guys need a break. Thankfully, we get an extra day and we'll stretch it as long as we can."
The Cardinal certainly deserves it.