Stanford won its fifth straight game on Thursday night, but they looked like anything but a winner, despite what the scoreboard says
When you take a quick look at the score of the Pac-12 North matchup on Thursday night between Stanford and Oregon State, it will tell you that the Cardinal pulled out the win, 15-14, to move to 6-2 on the year and stay in the hunt for the division crown. While it’s true that David Shaw’s crew did win their fifth game in a row since losing on the road to San Diego State back on Sep. 16, there is little Stanford can be proud of with what happened in Corvallis on Thursday night.
Simply put, this was an overall embarrassing effort by a team we all had been assuming throughout the past few weeks had turned a corner. Many of us were ready to call the Cardinal a legitimate threat in the Pac-12 once again, but we were shown otherwise with their performance against the Beavers, who came into the game at 1-6 on the year with an interim head coach.
So, what exactly was so bad for a team that actually came away on the winning end?
Where was KJ Costello?
Now, if you delve deep into the boxscore, you’ll find that quarterback Keller Chryst threw the game-winning touchdown pass with 20 seconds to go in the game. Seeing that, you may think Chryst was somewhat efficient in this hard-fought win.
Well, you’d be very wrong. Chryst was downright terrible in the win over Oregon State, going 16-for-33 for 141 yards with an interception. Really, his lone bright spot was that 3-yard game-winning scoring pass to JJ Arcega-Whiteside. And even to make that happen, Chryst had to be bailed out by tight end Kaden Smith who made a spectacular catch on a bad ball during a 4th-and-10 play on the drive.
Chryst played horribly all game, which led everyone to ask where KJ Costello was. We’ve seen multiple times this season that Costello provides a spark for this Stanford offense, and for him to not even be given a shot by Shaw as the Cardinal in this one was inexcusable. The sophomore looked more than ready on the sideline to get in there and change the fortunes for the Cardinal, but for reasons we may never know, the ball was never put in his hands, no matter how utterly lost Chryst looked out there.
Bryce Love may be the most valuable player in the country
Will running back Bryce Love win the Heisman? If Penn State running back Saquon Barkley keeps up the pace he’s on, no, probably not. However, Thursday night a huge case was made that while Love likely won’t be recognized as the most outstanding player in the country by being awarded the bronze statue in New York, he’s very much the most valuable player in the nation.
We’ve already highlighted the issues with the Stanford quarterback situation, but we learned Thursday that without Love on the field, this Cardinal offense just folds like an accordion, and we get the performance from them the likes of which we got against Oregon State.
Love, who had to miss Thursday night’s game against the Beavers as he nurses an ankle injury, is averaging 198 yards on the ground and an astounding 10.3 yards per carry. Now, you know how many yards the Cardinal put up total on a porous Beavers defense on Thursday night?
The answer is 222. Yes, 222 yards total on one of the worst defenses in the country. Just 81 of those yards came rushing. It’s not a stretch to say that, against this Oregon State defense, Love could have gotten himself those 81 yards on one carry.
Our eyes were very much opened on Thursday to just how valuable Love is to the team from Palo Alto. He masks a lot of issues with his jaw-dropping play, especially when it comes to Shaw having no clue how to work his quarterback rotation.
Stanford is still in the hunt for a Pac-12 title, but just barely after the embarrassing effort they put forth without one of the best players in the nation suited up in its nail-biting win over maybe the worst team in the conference.