STANFORD, Calif. - Sophomore running back Christian McCaffrey continues to garner national recognition. This week, the Heisman Trophy candidate was named the Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year, one of five finalists for the Walter Camp Football Foundation Player of the Year award, and an Academic All-American.
Previously, McCaffrey was selected a finalist for the Maxwell Award, given to the best player in the country, the Doak Walker Award, presented to the top running back, and the Hornung Award, honoring the most versatile player in college football.
“No one can tell me there’s a more dynamic player in college football,” said David Shaw, the Bradford M. Freeman Director of Football, whose seventh-ranked Cardinal (10-2, 8-1) plays 24th-ranked USC (8-4, 6-3) on Saturday at 4:45 p.m. PT for the Pac-12 Conference title at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
McCaffrey enters ranked first in the nation in all-purpose yards with a Pac-12 record 3,035, becoming just the third player in NCAA history to eclipse 3,000. Only 11 300-yard all-purpose games have been recorded by FBS players this season, four of them by McCaffrey. He tallied 389 against Cal and 369 against UCLA, the top totals of 2015.
McCaffrey has surpassed 200 all-purpose yards nine times, and needs 216 yards to break the NCAA single-season record set by Barry Sanders of Oklahoma in 1988, who won the Heisman Trophy.
Considered by many to be the most complete running back in college football, McCaffrey averages 252.92 all-purpose yards per game, more than 60 better than his closest pursuer. Only two other players have surpassed 2,000 yards.
A product of Castle Rock, Colorado, McCaffrey has rushed for 1,640 yards, caught a team-high 37 passes for 435 yards, has amassed 922 yards in kickoff returns, averaging a Pac-12 best 29.7, and threw a 28-yard scoring pass. He eclipsed 100 yards rushing in a school-record nine-straight games, highlighted by a Stanford-best 243 against UCLA.
All told, McCaffrey has been involved in 369 plays (rushing, receiving, passing and kick returns) and has averaged 8.2 yards per touch.
Tough, fast, patient, instinctive and durable, McCaffrey runs with great vision and is seldom brought down by the first tackler. He has forced opponents to stack the line of scrimmage and commit starters to their kickoff coverage teams, a tactic employed by Note Dame last Saturday. McCaffrey still produced 228 all-purpose yards to help lead the Cardinal to a 38-36 victory against the fourth-ranked Fighting Irish.
According to ESPN, McCaffrey has rushed for 10 or more yards against eight-man fronts this season more than any Power 5 player.
For all the accolades McCaffrey has received, teammates insist he is an even better person.
“I worked with him last summer as an intern for a local commercial real estate company,” said senior inside linebacker and team captain Blake Martinez. “Going into it, I was like, ‘All right, what am I going to see from this kid? Am I going to see that great person I was expecting?’ We all knew he was going to be a great player. Every single day he was personable.
“I talked to Coach (Duane) Akina one day and he was like, ‘What about No. 5? Do you know anything?’ And I said, ‘Honestly, Coach, you couldn’t say anything bad about him.’ He’s going to come up to you, no matter who you are, and he’s going to be respectful. That’s just the way he was raised.”
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Stanford placed a league-high seven players on the Pac-12 All-Conference first team this week, headed by McCaffrey and Shaw, the latter selected co-Coach of the Year with Mike Leach of Washington State.
Cardinal quarterback Kevin Hogan was named to the second team, with Luke Falk of Washington State and Jared Goff of Cal sharing the first-team spot.
“Understandable,” Shaw said. “Especially when it comes to quarterbacks it’s very stat-oriented. You have two guys that had unbelievable years -- over 4,000 yards, breaking school records. I completely get it.”
Not that Shaw would trade Hogan. The fifth-year senior from McClean, Virginia, has done a fantastic job of running the offense and putting his team in position to make plays. Hogan is smart, tough, calm, athletic and the unquestioned leader of the offense. He proved that again last Saturday night by moving the Cardinal into position for Conrad Ukropina’s game-winning 45-yard field as time expired.
“For me, if I had one guy to win one game, I’d take Kevin Hogan over most guys in the nation, let alone our conference,” said Shaw.
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Stanford has been productive on third down this season, leading the Pac-12 with a 50.9 percent conversion rate (81 of 159). The Cardinal succeeded 8 of 12 times during its 41-31 victory at USC earlier this season, and posted the same figure against Notre Dame.
Stanford is also first on fourth-down attempts, converting 10 of 11 opportunities (90.9).
Conversely, USC ranks first in the conference in third-down defense at 34.1 percent (55 of 160) and first on fourth down at 33.3 (6 of 18).
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Offensive tackle Kyle Murphy from San Clemente, California, has accepted an invitation to play in the Senior Bowl, Jan. 30 in Mobile, Alabama. He was named to the preseason Lombardi Award and Outland Trophy watch lists and was selected to the Pac-12 All-Conference first team earlier this week.
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Extra Points …
- Shaw is hopeful starting cornerbacks Ronnie Harris and Alijah Holder will play against USC
- Stanford is 22-2 this decade against California teams
- The last six meetings between Stanford and USC have been decided by 10 points or less
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Quotable …
“If me following him was the best moment of his day, that’s the best moment of mine.” Seattle cornerback and former Stanford standout Richard Sherman, after learning that Conrad Ukropina said the best thing that happened to him after kicking the game-winning field goal against Notre Dame was discovering that Sherman started following him on social media.