On Friday night, Stanford football got smoked 52-7 by Utah on a cool and clear autumn night at Stanford Stadium. Ideal conditions for a football game, but not an ideal result for the Cardinal, who experienced a loss that I’m sure gave some Cardinal fans terrible flashbacks to the Walt Harris era. Obviously it’s not totally fair to make such comparisons given the way the offense was decimated by injury coming into this game, but still, it’s very rare to find losses like this for Stanford football if you comb through the recent record books.
“Just a terrible showing top to bottom,” Stanford head coach David Shaw said after the game. “Obviously we missed some guys that aren't out there. Right after pre-game warmup tried to see how Elijah Higgins was going, but couldn't go. That being said, 11 out there at a time, strapped it up, went out there to play.
“Defensively got to have a lot of discussions on how to stop the run. All year it's been close. Today wasn't close. As much as anything, we missed a ton of tackles. Missed a lot of tackles. It's one thing to have gaps run through, but when you miss tackles, that's why you give up the big, big plays. Inexcusable.
“On the offensive side obviously we were hampered, but we had opportunities. Much like most of this year, we didn't take advantage of those opportunities. So we'll take a couple days off, give players couple days off, as a staff look at a couple things, and see if we can find a way to come back next week and be the football team we're capable of being.”
Utah sophomore Tavion Thomas led the charge for the Utes with 177 rushing yards and 4 rushing touchdowns, all of which were scored in the first half. As a matter of fact, his four touchdowns were the first four scores of the game. He pretty much single handedly beat Stanford with his ability to make Stanford defenders miss tackles like he was a speedy bar of soap.
“It felt good,” Thomas said of his night. “Like I said, we doing our job every day, we work hard, and it's paying off. Starting to see it pay off for us. O-block, baby.”
For Stanford, they felt like their biggest issue with Thomas was just physicality and fundamentals. If you lack physicality and you don’t use good technique on your tackles, you’re going to struggle.
“I think first of all, just comes down physicality,” Stanford linebacker Ricky Miezan said of why Thomas ran all over them. “We weren't physical enough. Number two, comes down to tackling. We were letting them -- we were getting on him and letting him loose and he was getting another six or seven.”
Thomas’ first touchdown came with 10:57 to go in the 1st quarter, his second came with 6:15 to go in the 1st quarter, his third came with 14:31 to go in the 2nd quarter (58 yard rush), and his fourth came with 6:37 to go in the 2nd quarter. Utah just kept giving him the ball and Stanford kept missing tackles. It wasn’t until the second half, when the game was already over, that Stanford finally was able to slow him down a bit.
To add salt into an already wide open wound, Utah junior running back T.J. Pledger had a 96 yard touchdown rush to give Utah a 35-0 lead with 3:10 to go in the 2nd quarter. This came right after Ryan Sanborn punted a beautiful 60 yard boomer out of bounds at the Utah 4 yard line. For good measure, Utah was able to tack on three more points to make it a 38-0 halftime lead right before the clock expired as Jadon Redding knocked down a 29 yard field goal.
In the second half, things weren’t as ugly for Stanford as Utah outscored them 14-7. Stanford actually won the 3rd quarter 7-0 thanks to a really nice touchdown drive led by both Jack West and Isaiah Sanders, who were co-starting at quarterback with Tanner McKee out. Though technically, Sanders was the starter. It was the opening drive of the 3rd quarter and it was the one time all night when Stanford’s offense didn’t look inert. West connected with wide receiver Michael Wilson for a 10 yard completion, Bryce Farrell drew a 15 yard pass interference penalty, Wilson got a 12 yard reception, and Benjamin Yurosek caught a 27 yard pass to get the ball to the Utah 4 yard line. From there, Sanders was able to find the end zone as he scrambled to his left and waltzed into the end zone to make it a 38-7 game.
“Yeah, I think first just credit to Jack and the O-line for kind of getting everything started with completion or two to just start moving the chains, and then had the roll out obviously, Ben made a great catch, and then after that just tried to take advantage of them playing tight in the box, trying to dump a pass off behind them,” Sanders said of Stanford’s one good drive of the night. “Really just turned into a scramble and was able to get around the edge, so... “
One of the guys who helped in that drive was Michael Wilson, who returned for the first time of the season. Even though it came in a blowout loss, it was still nice for Stanford to see him back on the field.
“Michael Wilson did a nice job,” Shaw said of Wilson’s return. “Didn't get an opportunity to get to him. If he was really open two more times would have been nice. Didn't have the opportunity protection-wise to get him the ball. Ran a really nice comeback route, did some other good things as a blocker.
“Unfortunate he was given that unsportsmanlike conduct. Just blocking the guy and the guy rips his helmet off, and I guess they thought he was too upset and responded in a way they didn't think was right.”
After a quiet 3rd quarter, Utah came back to life in the 4th quarter, outscoring Stanford 14-0. The first touchdown came after the Stanford defense got a goal line stop. While backed up near the Stanford end zone, Stanford quarterback Jack West threw an interception to Utah linebacker Devin Lloyd in the end zone to make it a 45-7 game with 12:11 to go. Towards the very end of the game, Utah freshman running back Micah Bernard found the end zone on an 11 yard touchdown run with 1:48 to go, making it the 52-7 final score.
“It was incredible,” Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham said of Lloyd’s pick six. “I saw it happen in real time and watched the replay and still couldn't believe that he could have the reflexes and the athleticism to make that catch, and then find his way into the end zone. It was only couple yards, but that's who he is. He's a big play guy.”
“I think everyone was just playing assignment sound football,” Lloyd added. “We pride ourselves on playing hard every time we're on the field, so I think that's something our team does a great job of doing as far as technique and doing our assignment properly. I think we did a really good job of that.”
For Utah aside from falling asleep a bit in the 3rd quarter, they should feel good about this win. To paraphrase Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) from Ghostbusters, Utah came, they saw, they kicked Stanford’s butt. There was no question Utah was the better team and they made that clear from the jump.
For Stanford, this loss is royally embarrassing, though they can take some solace in knowing that they weren’t at full strength. In addition to not having McKee, they were also without Elijah Higgins and John Humphreys. The offense didn’t have a prayer tonight. Jack West and Isaiah Sanders played as hard as they could and did their very best, but as a tandem, they’re just not able to make up for the abilities of Tanner McKee. It is what it is.
Up next for Stanford will be a road game at Oregon State on Saturday, November 13th. That game will kick off at 2:30 PM PT on Pac-12 Networks and KNBR Radio.
Note: As far as Tanner McKee’s condition is concerned, Shaw did address that after the game. He didn’t totally close the door on a return for this season, though it honestly feels like his odds of a return are very much in question.
“It is possible that he comes back,” Shaw said. “It is. Not sure exactly when. Next week might be a little early. We'll see. But do anticipate him coming back sometime this season.”
