Stanford 7 7
0 6 20
UCLA 0 6 7
10 23
UCLA drove 87 yards in the last three
minutes for the game-winning touchdown in a 23-20 leapfrogging of
Stanford. Coach Jim Harbaugh’s “blue collar team,” as termed by ‘98
Cardinal graduate and former offensive lineman Mike McLaughlin, simply lost the
physical battle down the stretch.
The Cardinal went up early, behind Toby Gerhart touchdown runs from three yards and one yard out. The Card looked as if
they would enter halftime in front 14-3, but a 19-yard field goal off the foot
of Kai Forbath left gave the Bruins momentum, narrowing Stanford’s halftime lead
to 14-6.
Gerhart had 138 yards on the ground, as the Card finished with 301
yards at the Rose Bowl, but Stanford’s mistakes proved too much to
overcome. Turnovers, a scourge on the Cardinal all year long, proved a
thorn in Stanford’s side once again, with three cough-ups Saturday. Ten
penalties for 103 yards also doomed Stanford’s efforts to move within one win of
bowl eligibility.
“This is really a tough one,” Gerhart
said.
Perhaps the most costly of Stanford’s infractions came with
UCLA at the Cardinal 15-yard line with under 30 seconds remaining, in need of a
touchdown. Clinton Synder was called for pass interference on a Kevin Craft
pass, moving the Bruins to the Stanford seven with just 16 seconds remaining.
Corey Harkey found room in the end zone to catch the game-winning pass on the
very next play.
The Card made a strong bid to put the game
away on the preceding drive. In 12 plays, Stanford’s ground-oriented attack
managed to burn 4:58 off the clock, and move the ball 69 yards, all the way down
to the UCLA 11, to set up a 4th and a short 2. Coach Harbaugh elected to kick
the chipshot field goal, later citing “faith in [my] defense as rationale, which
Aaron Zagory converted to move Stanford ahead 20-16.
UCLA played well against both starting
quarterback Tavita Pritchard and backup Alex Loukas. The Bruins held Pritchard
to just 51 yards passing and five completions. Loukas managed 51 yards rushing,
but only threw once, incomplete. Counterpart Kevin Craft, meanwhile, was
23-of-39, racking up 285 passing yards and the game-winning touchdown with just
10 seconds left on the clock.
Whispers of a bowl game died down as the
Cardinal dropped to 4-4 overall, and 3-2 in the Pac-1. Now, in order to get the
six wins needed for bowl eligibility, the Card’s easiest path is to topple
division bottom-dwellers Washington State (1-7) on November 1, as well as either
Oregon (5-2), USC (5-1), or Cal (4-2).
UCLA (3-4), meanwhile, can now start to
dream of a bowl game themselves. The Bruins have now won five straight against
Stanford, with the Card last winning in the Rose Bowl in 1996.