October 27, 2004

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Palo Alto Online

Stanford still looking for the big play

by Rick Eymer

The Stanford football team finds itself at yet another crossroads this week. And it has been a season full of crossroads, where one play can seemingly turn the tide and spells the difference between a mediocre season and a glorious rise to a bowl game.

Yet another opportunity slipped away in Stanford's 16-13 loss to visiting Oregon on Saturday. A big play defensively or offensively could have made the difference.

"We've competed in every game," Stanford coach Buddy Teevens said. "There were probably five or 10 plays that made a difference in the three games we've lost. It's nice to be close, but it's not good enough."

Stanford has lost three games by a combined total of 14 points.

Saturday, it was a missed defensive assignment that led to Oregon's winning touchdown. The Ducks completed a 36-yard pass on a fourth down play early in the fourth quarter. A stop there and the Cardinal would be riding high today instead of looking ahead with some trepidation.

Starting quarterback Trent Edwards left the game with a left shoulder and left hand injury early in the second quarter and Menlo-Atherton High grad T.C. Ostrander stepped in and nearly brought the Cardinal back from the dead.

Oregon held on for the victory, though, deflating Cardinal bowl hopes. Stanford could get back on track, but it won't be easy.

It's an uphill fight the rest of the way, as Stanford (2-2, 4-3) faces its toughest part of the scheduled beginning with a 12:30 p.m. game at UCLA (2-2, 4-3) on Saturday. Trips to Arizona State (3-1, 6-1) and California (3-1, 5-1) are on the horizon, with a home game against Oregon State (2-2, 2-5) also remaining on the regular season schedule.

The Cardinal beat UCLA last year, and have won three of the past five meetings. But the home team has won the last six games in the series that dates to 1925.

Edwards was expected to be ready in time for the Bruins, but should Ostrander, a redshirt freshman, need to play, Stanford would be in good shape.

"He's a good quarterback," Stanford senior receiver Greg Camarillo said of Ostrander. "On that last drive he was the leader. We needed to buy him some time. It was hard to do anything when he was rushed so hard like that."

Camarillo was a senior at Menlo-Atherton when Ostrander was a freshman, and has watched the quarterback emerge over the past few years.

"I saw him play when M-A won the (Central Coast Section) title (in 2002)," Camarillo said. "He's real calm on the field, especially out of the pocket."

Ostrander saw action late in Stanford's first two games of the season, completing five of 11 passes. On Saturday, he led the Cardinal on their only touchdown drive of the game, and then put Stanford in a position to tie the game at the end.

"I felt like I was prepared to go in and play," Ostrander said. "I wanted the opportunity. It didn't work out the way I expected it too. I called some plays when I didn't see some things."

With 16 seconds remaining in the game, Ostrander drove his team 45 yards in two plays, completing a 17-yard pass to Mark Bradford and a 28-yarder to Camarillo. That gave the Cardinal a chance with a second remaining. Michael Sgroi, who had his streak of consecutive field goals snapped at 10 earlier in the game, came up less than a yard short on a 49-yard attempt as time expired.

Ostrander finished with 236 yards on 18 of 29 passes.

"I was impressed with T.C.," Stanford right tackle Jeff Edwards said. "He led us back to where we had a chance to take it to overtime and that's all you can ask."

While the loss put a crimp into Stanford's bowl plans, it didn't stop the Cardinal from looking optimistically down the road.

"We're still on track to finish the Pac-10 as best we can," Stanford tight end Alex Smith said. "We still want that bowl game. We have four left and they are all winnable. We still have time to put it all together."

What Stanford couldn't do was run the ball, or protect the quarterback. The Cardinal were limited to a minus eight yards on the ground, their worst performance in 31 years. Of course, Oregon recorded 10 sacks, which led to most of the negative yardage.

Stanford running backs J.R. Lemon and Kenneth Tolon combined for 51 yards on 17 carries and accounted for a mere four first downs.

The offensive line featured four sophomores and a redshirt freshman, as Mikal Brewer started in place of the injured Brian Head at center. They were no match for the Ducks, who had eight different players in on the quarterback sacks.

"When the second string quarterback comes in, he doesn't know what we do," Oregon linebacker Anthony Trucks said. "Off the bat he'll be nervous and that made it a lot easier. He would check out of one blitz we were showing, and we would blitz from a different side. We disrupted their offense."

Both Edwards and Ostrander were under pressure most of the day, though neither would single out the offensive line.

"There were a lot of reasons why they got so many sacks," Ostrander said.

Ostrander did throw his first career touchdown pass, a two-yarder to Patrick Danahy that gave Stanford a 13-9 lead early in the fourth quarter. The drive was 73 yards in 13 plays, the longest drive of the day for either team.

"We weren't picking up the blitz and I wasn't getting rid of the ball in time," Edwards said. "I never really found my rhythm."

The Cardinal will be looking to find some answers this week as they prepare for a difficult final month.

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