Nov. 15, 2008
Quotes : Coach Harbaugh | Stanford Players | USC
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STANFORD, Calif.
As of Saturday, at 7:08 p.m., the miracle of 2007 was unofficially wiped from the books.
At the time Stanford tight end Austin Gunder gripped the football in the end zone on the final play of the game at sold out Stanford Stadium, the Cardinal's ownership of USC ended.
Last season's triumph in the Los Angeles Coliseum will go down as one of the most memorable victories in Stanford history, but now a 45-23 loss displaces it in the forefront in the mind's eye. Stanford hopes, in a week, that memory will fade as well.
Stanford's record stands at a precarious 5-6 (4-4 in the Pacific-10 Conference). One more victory ensures bowl eligibility for the first time since 2001. There is no room for error now. The victory must come Saturday at Cal in the 111th renewal of the Big Game or the Cardinal will have nothing tangible to show for the progress it has so clearly made.
"Our team is closing the gap," Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh said. "We are a much better football team than we were last year when we played USC. Sometimes it doesn't show up in the score."
For three quarters, a repeat of last season's 24-23 stunner over the Trojans seemed in the air, though an improved Cardinal team had drawn any sense of a `miracle' out of the lexicon. Stanford was too good - only two last-second losses from being in first place. `Miracles' were no longer applicable.
But, in the end, improvement and first-half leads didn't matter, not in the face of 35 unanswered USC points.
"The first half, I thought, was really dominated by Stanford," USC coach Pete Carroll said. "When we got in the locker room, it just wasn't going to do. It couldn't stay the same on either side of the ball. We really started going after it."
The beginning couldn't have gone any better for Stanford - contrasting the 10-0 hole the Cardinal put itself in during a 35-28 loss at Oregon last week. Toby Gerhart's four-yard run was Stanford's first touchdown on an opening series all season.
Holding a 10-3 lead, Stanford outgained USC 149 yards to six in the first quarter, and held the Trojans without a first down.
To a dreamer, it seemed Stanford wouldn't even need plays such as Tavita Pritchard's infamous 10-yard fourth-down scoring pass to Mark Bradford with 49 seconds left that lifted the 41-point underdog to triumph last year.
After all, the Stanford offense was rolling. Gerhart rattled off a 40-yard run in which he bounced off tacklers, kept his balance and cut inside a block before being tackled at the 1-yard line. It was classic Gerhart, and highlighted a 23-carry, 101-yard rushing performance that allowed him to surpass 1,000 yards for the season.
The junior now has 1,033 yards, placing him within 51 of the Stanford single-season rushing record of 1,084, set by Tommy Vardell in 1991. He would help Stanford total 367 rushing yards and gain 23 first downs. Those were the most USC (9-1, 7-1) has allowed all season.
"We stick to what we're good at," said Stanford fifth-year senior center Alex Fletcher, playing his final home game. "We've been running the ball well all year, and we weren't going to change our game plan for them."
Gerhart's long run set up Anthony Kimble's one-yard score, resulting in Stanford's second tiebreaking touchdown of the game, moving the Cardinal ahead, 17-10.
But the lead didn't last long - 14 seconds, to be exact.
On the ensuing kickoff, Stanford seemed to have position to make a tackle on C.J. Gable. But a block eliminated one defender, and a broken tackle another. Gable outran the rest to complete a 93-yard touchdown return with 4:11 remaining in the second quarter. The play would not only ignite the USC scoring flurry, but was the third in a series of four kick returns that totaled 230 yards.
Stanford forced a fumble after that, when Erik Lorig stripped fullback Stanley Havili and Matt Masifilo recovered. But the Cardinal was unable to capitalize, beginning a run of second-half offensive futility that coincided with the Trojans' awakening ground attack.
Only a shoestring trip-up by Sean Wiser prevented one potential Joe McKnight streak to the end zone, but the Trojans scored on the drive anyway, when Stafon Johnson ran through a defender and around right end for the go-ahead score, and a 24-17 lead with 2:14 left in the third quarter.
Stanford failed to gain more than 30 yards on any second-half series until its final one. The running game grew stagnant and its passing game unable to connect.
Meanwhile, Stanford defenders had more and more trouble grasping USC ballcarriers. The Trojans covered 94 yards on two plays on one series, and earned a fifth consecutive touchdown shortly after. Overcoming their minus-four rushing yards in the first quarter, the Trojans finished with 282, led by Johnson's 115 on 14 carries.
"They might have wore us out a little bit," Stanford safety Bo McNally said. "Guys were falling off tackles, missing tackles, and they were breaking big runs. Hats off to them for breaking us down like they did."
But Stanford never quit, which perhaps was Harbaugh's message when he called a timeout in the final minute and lined his team up for an apparent field-goal try with 0:00.3 left on the clock. USC responded with a timeout of its own.
When the Cardinal returned to the field, it was the offense, not the field-goal unit, that took the field. Backup quarterback Alex Loukas bought time with a rollout and found Gunder in the end zone for an 18-yard touchdown as time expired. No point-after was attempted.
"I'm proud of the way our guys played," Harbaugh said. "If you are a young player watching out there, you want to learn more about Stanford. They gave everything they had and played their hearts out."
But as one memory diminishes, another seems ready to take its place. Perhaps, for Stanford, it will come soon.
"As soon as I leave this room I'm done thinking about SC," McNally said, "and moving on to Cal."
- David Kiefer, Stanford Athletics Media Relations